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Writing any novel is difficult, it takes countless hours of solitude as you write and edit slowly working a first draft into something you can be proud of but in many ways writing a fantasy novel is more difficult. In a mainstream novel you have much of the work already done for you. Everyone knows the world that we all live in well enough that a few well placed hints can tell them exactly where and when they are in a story and the characters are if well written like people that they already know.

Fantasy can't rely on either of those. High fantasy is a world completely different from our own, one that need not be anything like any fantasy novel which has ever been written or ever will be written. As such all differences must be explained carefully and those ways in which the world is the same must sometimes also be pointed out. It is also for this reason that metaphor is often difficult in fantasy. if you state that his eyes popped out of his head when the woman walked into the room in a non-fantasy novel it would be safe to assume metaphor, the same written in a fantasy novel could be literal and the hero would spend the next several minutes of the story on his hands and knees looking for those eyes.

That said a few very simple rules will help to make a fantasy novel come to life in the same way that the world can come to life in any story.

The first and most important of these rules is consistency. With the ability to put anything into your story you must assure the reader that there are still laws that govern this world and though they are laws that you made up they are as real as the law of gravity in our world, and if those laws do not state that a man can flap his arms and fly they should be just as offended in your fantasy novel at such absurdity as they would in a novel set in modern day new york.

Have A plan. This isn't to say that you need meticulous notes covering everything that will happen in your story, or that you need to plan out the languages of your races, it isn't even to say that your story can't surprise you as you are writing it, it is simply to say that you will never achieve the depth you need to make your world feel real if you just start to swim and hope you'll get to the other side and most importantly if you don't have a plan it is nearly impossible to be consistent.

The key to the plan in my experience is to come up with the main character or idea and work up from there. Others start with a much broader path and work down. Either way, there are a few things you must decide, such as the technology level of your story, the feel of your story and because it is a fantasy novel the magic of your story. Set hard and fast rules on each of these and avoid the temptation to break them and if you do plan to break them then prepare a head of time.

This leads to the next important tool in a fantasy novelists toolbox. Foreshadowing or hinting at the end of the story without telling it. This is a useful tool for any writer but if you want to surprise your readers this is even more important in fantasy because it allows you to build a story which remains consistent, doesn't break its own rules yet is still able to do something surprising at the end.

In addition to these simple things all of the rules which apply to any other novel still apply, and the most important and most true of those is summed up in the idea that writing is rewriting and keep in mind that no matter how hard you may work on a first draft it is still a first draft and you're going to have to fix a lot. Beyond that just writing something you love because in the end how much you enjoy it is most important.

Learn more about this author, Elton Gahr.
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