Learn to Write a Successful Fantasy Story

How do you write a fantasy story? Anyone with any imagination can do it. The steps to writing a fantasy story are similar to the steps used in writing any kind of story. The real trick is to use your imagination. One idea would be to try out the steps I have listed below. These steps are not the only way to go about writing a fantasy story, but they are a good place to start.

First, and foremost, you need to have an idea of what you are writing. Basic plot ideas, character ideas, these kinds of things are useful. Everyone knows how to use their imagination to create, or invent, imaginary people and ideas. Almost everyone had at least one imaginary friend when they were younger as for myself, I had several. One of my many was named Bebop; he was my minds idea of the type of person I wanted to be when I was younger. He was cool, had tons of friends, and he was able to talk to the pretty girls, unlike me.

The best way to develop a plot for your story is to lay out a quick, short outline of what you want happening in your story, or what you want your characters to do. In a story that I have been working on for at least 10 years now, I first wrote down an outline of the events and occurrences in my story. The outline does not need to be an extensive, heavily detailed outline; it just needs to contain basic ideas. One basic idea would be character introductions like how your characters come into the story.

When it comes to character development, all you really need to do is come up with character names, and maybe a minimal amount of backstory. Backstories are nothing more than details about where the character came from and how they became what they are in your story. For instance, if you were hashing out the backstory of a super-powered villain, one thing you would want to cover would be how they attained the super-powers they have. Did a radioactive spider, like Stan Lee's Spiderman, bite them or were they born with the powers? With the story I talked about earlier, I developed in depth details about the characters in the story.

Something else that you would want to hash out would be details about the world, or setting, that the characters are in. Is their world the same as ours, or are they from another world unlike ours in everyway? Come up with ideas for towns, cities, and cultures, anything that you would find in our world. Does a king rule the people, or is it a democratic type government? These types of details will help you hash out your characters and the story itself. As I have been working on my story, I have both detailed the lands and cities and such, but I have also developed a rich history of the world that the story takes place in.

You do not need to develop a history for your world, but it is a helpful step, because to know where your imagined world is going, it helps to know where it, and its people, have been. Another advantage of creating a history for your world, is that, when you go to begin writing your story, the history may help fill in plot points or details about some characters. For instance, imagine that you are writing a story about a world that is nothing but a barren wasteland. How did that world become a wasteland? Was it due to a nuclear war, or was it due to some misuse of magic by some long ago wizard?

A lot of people, when thinking about fantasy stories, think of wizards and knights and elves. One thing about fantasy stories, they do not have to contain any of these things. It could be a story about ordinary people trying to survive in a world that is no longer their own. One tip that any writer can give to an aspiring writer, when it comes to writing; write about something you know, something you have some kind of knowledge about. When it comes to fantasy stories, it is a little difficult to write about something you know. Unless, by some strange twist of faith, you were transported to another world and are now "chronicling" your experiences while you were there.

Character romance can be a very alluring, attractive plot idea, but when it comes to fantasy, a good tip would be to not avoid romances altogether, but rather to keep them minimal. If you find yourself rolling along nice and smoothly and come to a point in the story were two of your characters have some kind of romantic encounter, do not let it get to a point where your fantasy story turns into a romance novel. As I said, do not avoid romance altogether, just touch on it, and then move on with the story. In many ways, touching on characters romances can move the plot along, but overdoing it can drag a good story down.

Other types of character interaction, such as conflicts between leading characters or even past connections between characters can really help drive a story on. If you come to a point in the story where nothing helps to keep the story going, try delving into the characters interactions with each other. For instance, imagine your characters Bob and Chuck are long lost brothers. Suppose you have come to a point in the story where they discover this fact. This would be a good point to travel into the characters past and show how they were separated. This helps continue the plot, and it also adds depth to your characters, and in many cases, will make your reader understand the characters more and possibly even form a connection between the reader and the character.

One issue with character interactions is that sometimes they can harm the story even more than they help the story. If your story is a 500 page novel and you spend over half of those pages exposing how two or more of the characters are connected from the past, your story can turn from a thrilling fantasy story into a fictional history textbook.

Lastly, a good idea for any writer would be to come up with a ritual to follow when you do write. Have things near you so you do not have any kind of distraction while you are writing. If you think you are going to get hungry while writing, have snacks at hand. If you drink a lot of fluids, keep something to drink nearby. As you write, if you come to a point in the story where you are having trouble continuing, go back a little into the story and see if maybe you can rewrite something to make it easier to continue. When it comes to writing, especially with fantasy, you will rewrite quite a bit of the story far before you are anywhere near completing the story. Maybe a certain character just does not work out at a certain point in the story, try rewriting it with a different character, or rewrite the events of that particular part of the story to work with the character.

Hopefully these tips will help in your endeavors of writing a fantasy story of your own. Keep in mind that these steps are not the only way that you can go about writing your fantasy story, they are just the process used by this writer, everyone has their own way, their own method, of doing things. I encourage you to try and find your method of writing. If you want, you can use this method, or you can modify it to your own needs. Also, keep in mind, writing can and should be a fun, enjoyable experience. If you write something and do not enjoy it, try a different method. The basic idea, as I said, is to have fun and enjoy yourself while writing.