Hello guys and girls.
Wanted to speak about serious fantasy works with you all.
I know we all likes fantasy and many writers in this club doing works with this theme. Nneed to say, if you`re working with novella - its will not be big problem for all. But if you`re working with full book - you have difficulties with many things. Its normal for all fantasy writers and you`re know it.
I can recommend young fantasy authors to make some interesting things and after that write full book. Novelle is novella, but full book is different thing. Just remember , History - is the main thing in fantasy work. You must know history if you`re writing fantasy. Forget about games.
To be more loudly, every serious fantasy writer must know history. In my country I many times saw works, when author wrote fantasy book or even novella, but there was hundred errors.
For example, armorer worker buying weapons in the streets of the city. So book heroes can simply buy in the street swords, axes, guns, miniguns and ...what else? Maybe he will buy a tank and go to kill city council members? No. No. No. Its impossible. If book hero want to buy weapons, he needs to take license for it. Many fantasy authors forgot about it because they didn`t read history and only played RPG games. But to write book - is not to create RPG game. RPG and fantasy book are a bit different things ;) :)
If you need to create plot for game - yeah, you can simply make many things, which are useful and good for games. But if you`re working with full book - forget about RPG and other kind of games. In Russia I saw many authors, who worked with fantasy books without historical knowledge, and I thought that I didn`t read a book, but playing something like Skyrim or Diablo. :)
So historical knowledge - is one of important literature things, if you`re fantasy writer. Also need to say, that some authors wrote that in their world (which is like Medieval), heroes can simply go from other city to another city. No, again no. In Medieval ages you was need to pay guardians, if you wants to visit city. It was normal for many states. Even if you`re Viking (or something like that) - you need to pay others, if you want to visit their settlements. In Vikings history there were several things, that (for example) one Jarl lost his fleet and have absolutely no gold. He survived only with several his warriors (hirdsmen). But he can`t visit settlements of his neighbours, because he haven`t got any documents. But about documents problem - it wasn`t problem in early Medieval, because documents appeared only in the Rennaissance. But he was need to pay gold, if he wanted to visit settlement of other Jarl. He haven`t gold and he with several warriors started to attack villages in the seaside. This moment I haven`t see in many fantasy books. Sometimes I think, that in many fantasy worlds people haven`t got any money problems or even one word "economics". If you`re working with fairy tale (its also great genre) - you can simply ignore these things. But serious fantasy works need good number of historical knowledge.
So if you want to make really popular fantasy book - you need to have historical knowledge in your head. For example, I am reading every day about one or several historical characters. Its helps me a lot with my book. But if you`re working with fairy tale - you of course can forget about many things. You can simply forget about economics, history and politics. Its also good genre.
But I recommend young authors - to make full books with serious fantasy genre. Its more cool, I think, and can give your .... more money.... But we are working not for money, yeah? we are working only for our souls! And for our soul - its will be really cool choice. To read history - is not something like learning mathematics (I really don`t understand mathematics). Its interesting! Its cool! Its wonderful!
So you of course can be disagree with me, but I think some parts of this article can be useful for you all.
Regards Alexander
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
But I think if someone writes serious fantasy, it must be done very careful. I mean it's harder for serious fantasy to keep the reader excited over short distances than it is for non-serious fantasy.
So most people are afraid to write serious fantasy, because they need to earn money with it and it's more likely to fail.
Very interesting read. I think the most important thing is context; if the writer is basing their world off of history, then some accuracy is expected as you said. I like to read military thrillers, and though what happens is of the fantastical nature, they're often based in our world so any errors there usually ruins my immersion. Definitely agree.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with the community very helpful for aspiring writers - keep it up
Very good and yes you got soul!!
Good Article my friend, I hadn't really thought about it but thinking back to some of the books I read when I was young, set in medieval times, etc. people did seem to travel around very quickly sometimes.
Well put. The better you know how the real world versions of things worked, the better you can integrate your fantasy elements and describe it all in a realistic way. The more realistic everything is, the easier it is to add the fantasy parts without taking away all the sense of scale and threat. For instance, if you have a good understanding of how a Medieval army worked, all the logistics and strategies, then you're better prepared to show how big a deal it is to add in a wizard capable of throwing fireballs or instantly healing wounds, how common soldiers would take that, what a general would do with them, etc.
Good tips. Writing serious book - making separate world with have it's own complexity and system. I'm working on dystopian novel for two years and it's incredibly hard to "build" believeable collony system with all the society, citizen control, citizen rights etc. I needed to dig some social and historian literature for that.