Posts tagged fantasy
I have always had a problem with travel in my stories. Since I'm writing an epic fantasy novel, travel is a big theme as characters often have to move from where they are to where the plot dictate...
When you write in a modern day setting, you research the culture, climate, location and history of that setting. You can do the same for historical fiction or low-fantasy settings based on real pla...
I am a long time Dungeon Master of Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder. My games run in a custom world of my own making. However, I utilise a lot of the traditional lore and races of D&D. I'm ...
One of the rules of good writing is the show, don't tell rule. I want to create a realistic fantasy world, so I've thought about details like astronomy, geography and so on. For instance, this wor...
I'm working on a novel which is set in the late 1920s, and the protagonist is a minor Lord in England. I wrote the first four chapters and handed it to an American friend, whose criticism largely c...
I just wrote last week about Sleeping Beauty but a different version of it. (I changed the characters, and the conflict, and mostly everything except the fact that one of the main characters is cur...
I have a question regarding comma splices. I'm trying to learn more about comma splices and how to remove them from some work I am doing. I understand the basics regarding them but I have a questio...
In the world I'm writing, there's a decent amount of magic - mages, spells, healing, etc. There's also a few aspects - hoverboards, strength/speed enhancing experiments - that don't quite fit into ...
As a writer, I used to write short stories and poems. As a reader, fantasy is my favorite genre. I created some what of a language for my (first ) novel. It's phoneme, pronunciation, rules and ...
My sister is writing a book which incorporates elemental "magic" or control. Each person can use one of the four elements. We want to ensure that elemental control in everyday life seems natural an...
In my fantasy story that I'm slowly getting into, my MC Sirena is an apprentice witch. Her two fellow apprentices, Aster and Keeva, study alongside her under their High Priestess, and they all som...
In almost all the LitRPG stories I read, the start of the stories is full of system messages, +1 here and there, even damage prompts saying "Goblin hits Hero for -8 HP". Classes, skills, experience...
It feels silly to say, but I've got myself into a bit of a bind of a side project. In a three-act structure (not what everyone uses, but a good reference point) you generally need to set up all ex...
I am a woman with aspergers and writing an autistic character has always been close to my heart. Fiera Allas, a fantasy powerhouse with immense power and sword skills has always struck me as autist...
Imagine a fantasy story in which there once was a very powerful evil divine being, but it was defeated long before the beginning of the story. For the story it is very important that it was defeate...
My mc poses some strange shadow powers which he tries to hide and in one quest he met his enemy who also has these powers. They both end up fighting each other and the mc slows her down and escapes...
I'm currently writing a journey-focused plot arc, and I'm struggling a bit with the character interactions. To give you some background, the protagonist is a lone wolf of sorts whose job is akin to...
I live in India. And the stories I write don't want to. The thing is, as you all might already know, my country has an extremely- excessively, perhaps- rich cultural and historical heritage. It's...
I am trying to write a magical system, and I love the way that wands are like gunfire and how you flick and attack and it's instant. No weird hand movements or long unwieldy staffs or canes to use....
As somewhat of a follow-up to my previous question: How to create a consistent feel for character names in a fantasy setting? Once I have named the characters in a given setting, how do I create p...
Recently while doing some world-building for a role-playing game with a friend we were seriously struggling with naming character consistently. By consistently I mean make the names feel as though...
I am about 3/4 finished with the first "volume" of a novel I desire to serialize. Not for the money really, though I won't lie that it'd be nice, but more for the fact I can get my name out there. ...
Is it too distracting to include a major mystery subplot(s) in a fantasy story? I mean a complete subplot or subplots that the character solves. Perhaps the examples below do not qualify as mystery...
This is a followup question to What language shall they sing in? I'm writing a middle-grade novel in English with time-traveling kids from 1995 America who go to Ancient Egypt to join the Exodus. ...
How can I describe an unconventionally part-humanoid character, so the reader knows clearly what they look like, while in a world where these people are normal and it's not unusual at all for chara...
I have been cautioned against blending: Traditional fantasy elements Such as magic systems and exotic, less plausible creatures (on a scientific level - magic tends to explain away these beasts...
I'm writing a book with a world similar to ours but at the same time is very different. I don't know how to do it smoothly without overloading the reader with information but at the same time givin...
Not sure if this is a worldbuilding or writing question, but here it goes. In this setting, gods of humanity are beings of absolute order that exist in another plane of existence. They are consta...
Where can I publish my work online and get paid for it? I'm just new to this and this is my first work and it's still chapter 1. It's a fantasy and mythical story.
(By 'chapter timestamp' I mean the text at the beginning of a chapter indicating when it is taking place). Here is a basic summary of the story so you understand what I'm working with: A man name...
I won't get into all the details, but my book is about four characters that realise that the universe isn't what it seems. They fight for power against someone who has held a long-standing dictator...
I want to write a fantasy novel. I have the story(Only the main conflict) but I'm unable to make any progress. My question is in novel writing what are all the things you do before literally start ...
I'm in the early stages of developing a fantasy story. At a high level, it involves the tried-and-true, if cliched, plot line of "Scrappy group of rebels fights for liberation against the oppressiv...
terror is a real and powerful thing. A monster is ever-so-slightly scarier if it violates you in some way. there have been many of these types of creatures seen in myths and fairy tales. This goes ...
I'm having a bit of trouble coming up with the opening scene for a fantasy story I'm writing, about a mousy but passionate girl from a family of entertainers who inherits the entertainer's blood. ...
I have seven main characters, each with a different role and outfit. They get their equipment from one shop, and go adventuring soon after. How do I explain each outfit without making it sound like...
I got a critique today from someone and they told me I was using a "Deus Ex Machina". I did some poking around on here, and I question if it really is one. I found a link -- and it says within th...
A vampire has been sleeping under a castle in Austria for centuries. But now the castle became a tourist attraction. It's really annoying. And the taste of the blood of the people on the region did...
I need to write something from the perspective of a character who sees colours differently from humans, and in particular can see multiple shades of ultraviolet. This isn't unique, their entire spe...
I am finishing an arc of my novel, and right at the end some sudden development happens with MC, that is partially obscured from the reader. They can guess at what it is, but it is a sudden change ...
To clarify: There are two parts to the book (or I might split them into separate books), one with my main protagonist, and the second is a prequel, showing the protagonist's father's story. Bot...
Would it be boring/unrealistic/silly/cliché if most characters only had this main motivation for most of a story: saving humanity/their country/their familly/themselves. The setting is medieval fa...
Seeking comp titles for my WIP. Can you recommend books that meet one or more of these criteria? Soft sci-fi Space setting with fantasy feel Speculative fiction about species that has advanced te...
Edit 3 - Even though this is the third edit I feel it has to be included here at the top. My question as it stands is based on the assumption that reader interest does not exist in plots without co...
Alright, I can't figure out how to write a scene. I have a character that has never revealed the fact that she can turn into animals, not even to her family. If the character is planning to tell he...
I asked this question in World-Building but it seems better fit for Writing. I ask for a few reasons. Despite the specific arguments against speculative fiction within Quranic tradition and protes...
I'm creating a magic system where the "magic" comes from "Higher Beings" as a source. Besides the "obvious praying to the gods," can anyone tell me of any other methods for accessing magic from a "...
I'm writing a story with a world that has different physics, alchemy rather than chemistry, and biology that relies somewhat on magic. The protagonist is not of this world, however he is not of ou...
I know it is rather unusual, but I am toying with the idea of a king's daughter joining the army. This daughter is not the usual princessy princess, but she is serious, strong and often cold. If sh...
