What No One Tells You About Writing Fantasy
Every author has their preferred genres. I love fantasy and sci-fi, but began with historical fiction. I hated all the research that historical fiction demands and thought, if I build my own world, no research required.
So to anyone dipping their toe into fantasy/sci-fi, hereās seven things I wish I knew about the genres before I committed to writing for them.
1. You still have to research. Everything.
If you want any of your fantasy battle sequences, or your space ships, or your droids and robots, or your fictional government and fictional politics to read at all believable.
In sci-fi, you research astronomy, robotics, politics, political science, history, engineering, anthropology. In fantasy, you have to research historical battle tactics, geography, real-world mythology, folklore, and fairytales, and much of it overlaps with science fiction.
I say you *have to* assuming you want your work to be original and unique and stand out from the crowd. Fanfic writers put in the research for a 30k word smut fic, you can and will have to research for your original work.
2. Naming everything gets exhausting
I hate coming up with new names, especially when I write worlds and places divorced from Earthly customs and canāt rely on Earthly naming conventions. You have to name all your characters, all your towns, villages, cities, realms, kingdoms, planets, galaxies, star systems.
You have to name your rebel faction, your imperial government, significant battles. Your spaceships, your fantasy companies and organizations, your magic system, made-up MacGuffins, androids, computer programs. The list goes on and on and on.
And you have to do it all without it sounding and reading ridiculous and unpronounceable, or racist. Your fantasy realms have to have believable naming patterns. It. Gets. Exhausting.
3. It will never read like youāre watching a movie
Do you know how fast movies can cut between scenes? Movies can balance five plotlines at once all converging with rapid edits, without losing their audience. Sometimes single lines of dialogue, or single wordless shots are all a scene gets before it cuts. If you try to replicate that by head-hopping around, you will make a mess.
Itās perfectly fine to write like youāre watching a movie, but you canāt rely on visual tricks to get your point across when all you have is text on a page ā like slow mo, lens flares, epically lit cinematic shots, or the aforementioned rapid edits.
It doesnāt have to, nor should it, look like a movie. Books existed long before film, so donāt let yourself get caught up in how ~cinematic~ it may or may not look.
4. Your space opera will be compared to Star Wars and Star Trek
And your fairy epic will be compared to Tinkerbell, your vampires to Twilight, your zombies to The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead, World War Z. Your wizards and witches and any whisper of a fantasy school for fantasy children will be compared to Harry Potter. Your high fantasy adventure will be compared to Lord of the Rings.
You canāt avoid it, but you can avoid doing it to yourself. When people ask about your book, let them say āoh, you mean like Star Warsā to which you then can say, kind of, except XYZ happens in my book. These IPs will never fade from the public consciousness, not while you exist to read this post, at least, but Harry Potter isnāt the only urban fantasy out there. Lord of the Rings isnāt the only high fantasy. Star Wars isnāt the only space opera.
Yours will be on the shelves right next to them, soon enough, and who knows? You might dethrone them.
5. Your world-building is an iceberg, and your book is the tip
I donāt pay for any of those programs that help you organize your book and mythos. I write exclusively on Apple Notes, MS Word, and Google Suite (and all are free to me). I have folders on Apple Notes with more words inside them than the books theyāre written for.
If you try to cram an entire college textbookās worth of content into your novel, you will have left zero room for actual story. The same goes for all the research you did, all the hours slaving away for just a few details and strings of dialogue.
Thereās a balance, no matter how dense your story is. If you really want to include all those extra details, slap some appendices at the end. Commission some maps.
6. The gatekeeping for fantasy and sci-fi is still very real
Pen names and pseudonyms exist for a reason. A female author writing fantasy that isnāt just a backdrop for romance? You have a harder battle ahead of you than your male counterparts, at least in the US. And even then, your female protagonist will be scrutinized and torn apart.
Sheāll either be too girly or not girly enough, too sexy, or not sexy enough. Sheāll be called a Mary Sue, a radical feminist mouthpiece, some woke propaganda. Every action she takes will be criticized as unrealistic and if she has fans who are girls, they will be mocked, too.
If you have queer characters, characters of color, they wonāt be good enough, they wonāt please everyone, and someone will still call you a bigot. A lot of someones will still call you a bigot.
Do your due diligence and hire your army of sensitivity readers and listen to them, but you cannot please everyone, so might as well write to please yourself. Youāre the one who will have to read it a thousand times until itās published.
7. Your āoriginalā idea has been done before, and thatās okay
Stories have been told since before language evolved. The sum of the parts of your novel may be original, but even then, itās colored by the media youāve consumed. And thatās okay!
How many Cinderella stories are there? How many high fantasies? How many books about werewolves and witches and vampires? Gods and goddesses and celestial beings? Fairies and dragons and trolls? Aliens, robots, alien robots? Romeo and Juliette? Superheroes and mutants?
Zombies may be the avenue through which you tell your story, but itās not *just* about zombies, is it? Itās about the characters who battle them, the endurance of the human spirit, or the end of an era, the death of a nation. So donāt get discouraged, everyone before you and everyone after will have written someone on the backs of what came before and it still feels new.
