The same process took place with the Jonguria map. Here’s the process on that one, from the oldest map through the updated one and then through the rough sketches to the final, which looks like this:
I’m very happy with these maps, and they actually inspired me to start writing in this world again…how cool is that! You’ll see a short story this Friday in Free Fiction Friday, or you can see it right now. Yep, I’m adding in a few chapters here and there to make The Jongurian Mission even better, or at least less boring. I might even begin working on a new trilogy of novels, perhaps dealing with the East-West War that came before this series. It would be violent and bloody, and it just might put me on the map.
Speaking of maps, why not get a feel for these ones first hand – check out The Jongurian Mission on Amazon today!
Part IV – Writing a Fantasy Novel That Sells
We’ve gone over a lot so far, but now I want to turn to what will actually work when it comes to selling a book.
Let me start off by saying that there are many authors out there that are selling more books than I. The series that I’m going to use as an example is the same we’ve been using for much of this book, The Jongurian Trilogy.
The first book has been downloaded more than 10,000 times and the other two books have sold more than 500 copies. That’s what this next section is based off of, and it’ll give you the nitty-gritty details required for 300,000-word plus fantasy trilogies.
19: How to Write a Fantasy Novel that Sells
Over the next few chapters or so I’m going to focus on writing fantasy novels. More specifically, I’ll focus on writing a fantasy novel that sells.
Why am I qualified to do this? For two reasons:
– First, I’ve got 3 fantasy novels selling on Amazon right now. Each month those titles sell. I also have 3 historical fantasy novels, and those sell each month as well. Check out my Amazon account and see for yourself if you’d like.
– Second, I’ve got a lot of quality information that will help struggling fantasy writers create a detailed and thought-provoking world. The more effort you put into your fantasy world before you even begin writing your novel, the better it’ll be.
How Will These Chapters Be Structured?
A new fantasy topic will be discussed each and every day. Here is what they’ll cover:
– The Fantasy Setting
– The Fantasy World’s Antagonists
– The Fantasy World’s Protagonists
– The Fantasy World’s Religion
– The History of Your Fantasy World
– The Fantasy Novel’s Timeline
– The Character Ideas
– The Fantasy Story Ideas
– The Fantasy Character & Story Outline
How Will Things Be Explained?
I’ll use my first and most successful book, The Jongurian Mission, to explain how you can go about creating your fantasy world, imagining your fantasy characters, and fleshing out all the details.
If you’re tired of reading about that book, you might want to skip this section of the book.
These posts will be extremely long, numbering into the thousands of words. When it comes to writing a fantasy novel you really need to plan. The goal of these 10 fantasy tips is to aid you in making your world as realistic and believable as possible. If each character has a history, every city has a story, and all the little details fall into place, then you’ll have a great fantasy novel on your hands.
So hang on, hold tight, and get ready, because over the next week we’ll be taking quite the fantasy ride!
20: The Setting
When it comes to writing a fantasy novel your setting is critical. This is where your story takes place, the world the characters live in, and which you want your reader to fall in love with.
Listed below is the setting for my trilogy of fantasy novels, The Jongurian Trilogy.
I began to create this world in January, 2010, while I was living in Shenzhen, China.
I started out by simply drawing a map in Microsoft Paint. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it allowed me to visualize my world. After that I could start coming up with some basic setting concepts.
The Basics of a Fantasy World’s Setting
You can see below that I started off with a rough story idea. You have to have some kind of idea for your story, characters, and action before you get too far into your setting. In fact, making small details now will really help you flesh out your setting and characters later. After that the story will come naturally.
Here is my basic fantasy world setting:
– A world called Pelios, which is split into two continents; one to the east, Jonguria, and one to the west, Adjuria
– Very similar to the Orient and Europe in feudal times
– A narrow land bridge separates the two regions
– The main story will take place in Jonguria.
– The main character will be from Adjuria, but living in Jonguria
He wants to get back to Adjuria, however, but is unable, or unwilling, to do so
He is a fighter in his middle years and getting past his prime
The Basic Details of a Fantasy World’s Setting
You can see that I’ve got a rough idea of my story, characters, and setting. It’s clear from the map and the description that this world has two main areas. Now would be a good time to flesh those out a bit.
Take each area of your world, whether it’s the continents, cities, or just wide open areas, and begin to make some general points about them. Start to describe your geography, terrain, and even put down rivers, roads, and features.
Now is also a good time to get into how the world runs. What forms of government exist? Where do people live and what do they do for a living? If you’re making a typical fantasy world it’ll probably be set sometime during a Middle Ages-like time period. If not, then you really need to start getting that down in the basic setting and its details.
Here are the basic details of my fantasy world setting:
– Jonguria is ruled as an Empire with a strong central government headed by and Emperor, the title passing from father to son
– Jonguria views itself as being much superior to Adjuria, and wants little to do with those uncultured ‘barbarians.’
– Adjuria is grouped into small principalities which are constantly struggling against one another for dominance of the region
– Adjuria looks down on Jonguria, but secretly knows their strong centralized state provides an equilibrium they want
If they could ever stop fighting among themselves, the rulers in Adjuria would like to invade Jonguria
Your Fantasy World’s Environment
The environment of your fantasy world can play a large part in the story or a small part. Sometimes characters can live or die depending on what’s around them, other times it doesn’t matter at all.
What I like so much about planning and creating a fantasy world’s environment is how it helps me develop my map. Sometimes I’ll even make the map first and then go back to label the terrain features later. If you can clearly see that there are deserts, jungles, or arctic wastes, you have a pretty good idea of what the environment is in those areas.
Here’s what I did with my fantasy world’s environment:
– Adjuria lies more to the north than Jonguria, and is therefore much colder for most of the year
– Jonguria is more to the south, so it stays warmer, but since Jonguria is larger than Adjuria, it too has a cold northern climate
– The narrow land bridge separating the two regions has wildly fluctuating climate conditions
– For much of the year it is very dry, almost desert-like
– However, during the ‘wet season,’ heavy rains fall, creating flash-floods through narrow gullies and ravines.
– On both sides of the land bridge is ocean, more specifically, two seas which form off of the two largest oceans in the world
– On both the Jongurian
and Adjurian ends of the land bridge, the desert conditions slowly turn into plains, then forests, then into hills and mountains
– Two main oceans exist in the world, with two smaller seas around the land bridge
– Several islands exist off of both continents
You can tell from my setting that the story is starting to come along. I’m describing the areas I am for the sole reason that I’ll write about those. As you can see, lots of details are given about the narrow land bridge. It seems pretty likely that it’ll be a big part of my story.
When you begin to flesh out your fantasy world’s setting, then your novel starts to fall into place. During the next post we’ll go a little more in-depth on creating a detailed setting by talking about the two groups that populate this world.
21: The Protagonists
All novels are going to have forces, characters, or events that are working against one another. Fantasy novels are no different. Over the next two posts I’ll profile these two forces: the Protagonists and the Antagonists
This post deals with a fantasy novel’s protagonists, or the good guys. This is who you want your readers to root for, and who’ll most of the time come out on top at the end of the story.
While talking about writing a fantasy novel’s setting I discussed my novel The Jongurian Mission. This post will use the same novel’s protagonists to highlight the issue.
Defining Your Groups
Before you even get down to making a fantasy world’s characters you must first define the world in which they live in. This gets back to the setting, but it also goes beyond that.
Below is how I defined my main group in my fantasy novel:
West
– Adjuria doesn’t have as old and unified a cultural history as Jonguria.
– Divided into 14 principalities, each with a ruling landowning noble elite, Adjuria has no centralized administrative or governing structure which unites the region
– There are many military and trade alliances between the various principalities, which are ever changing.
Politics
– There are current efforts underway to create a more centralized government to adjudicate disputes and ease trade between the 14 provinces
– This effort is being led by emissaries from Culdovia and Duldovia, which historically had been the seat of power of a united West.
– High-ranking nobles from other provinces have been invited to Culdovia for series of meetings to discuss a common governing structure
– Nearly all provinces have sent officials, except for Montino and Ithmia.
– The Regidians see this conference as a way to put their province at the head of all the others, while the other provinces are more interested in a representation system.
Defining Your Fantasy World’s Details
So we know that the protagonists of the fantasy novel are going to be coming from a wide and varied geographic area. That can be seen from the map below:
To make it even easier to make the fantasy novel seem realistic, and your characters as well, it’s necessary to flesh out your fantasy world further.
To really get a feel for terrain features I had to make a new map. From that map I was able to write down all of the details of this part of my world, that which the protagonists of the fantasy novel reside in.
Because I did that I was able to see what kinds of industries would be in those areas. Mountainous areas are apt to have mines while plains would be good for horses. When that came into focus it was easy to see how different areas made money, what jobs people had, and thus the general outlook of that area, and its people, upon the world.
By doing this I was able to pull up small details in character dialogue that didn’t necessarily aid the story, but did make it more realistic. And it’s that realism that will make your fantasy novel sell.
Here’s a brief taste of what I did to make the fantasy world of my protagonists more realistic:
Principalities
Regidia
– Regidia and Portinia have entered into a trade and military alliance just recently.
– Regidia was once a part of the Culdovia and Duldovia principalities, but broke off hoping to have a larger role in regional politics.
– The families of Regidia have historically been schemers and usurpers to the throne of a unified West, and are little trusted.
– The capital city of Regidia is called Atros, and lies to the south of the Montino Mountains and to the north of the Baltika Forest.
– Regidia is almost entirely covered by the large Baltika Forest, with only some grassland between it and the Montino Mountains to the north.
Portinia
– Portinia is the principle trade debarkation point for cargoes heading to Jonguria.
– Its commercial endeavors benefit the whole region, so it is looked upon as an almost autonomous state and given little interference as long as business proceeds.
– The recent alliance with Regidia is unknown to the rest of the region, and would cause alarm among many if found out.
– The capital city of Portinia is called Dockside, and rests in a delta formed by the Royal River which flows south from King’s Lake in Culdovia.
– There are grasslands and some of the Baltika Forest along the Regidian border.
– Some of the Barrier Mountains form on the eastern border with Ithmia.
Islands
– The four islands to the north of Hotham Province are known as The Knuckles.
– The island to the east of Mercentia and north of Tillatia is called The Fist.
– The island to the south of Sheffield and west of Oschem is called The Thumb.
– To the far south of Portinia lies the Desolatia Island.
Off the eastern coast of Ithmia lies the small island called Flick.
22: The Antagonists
In the last post I discussed how important it is to create a detailed fantasy world that will allow your characters to have rich and varied histories. This comes in handy when you’re showing your readers the experiences, motivations, and rationale for your characters. In other words it does a lot to pu all that emotional glue into place that holds your story together.
I showed concrete examples of how to create a fantasy world that sells by profiling my own fantasy world which my reader’s were introduced to with The Jongurian Mission.
Defining Your Groups
The fantasy world in the Jongurian Trilogy has a clear East/West dichotomy. The West is seen as the protagonist and the East is considered the antagonist.
However, there are both good and bad elements present in people from both areas, and sometimes they even act to further the other groups’ ends.
Here is what I did when defining my second group, the antagonists:
East
– Jonguria has a long cultural history and has been unified politically for most of that time.
– The region is ruled as an empire, with the emperor ruling for life from his palace and court in the province of Laojing
– Unlike Adjuria, where each province is ruled as an autonomous fiefdom, in Jonguria the entire region must pay fealty to the emperor.
– The 4 administrative regions exist only to ease the task of governing, and have no independent status from the empire
Politics
– The emperor rules from his court in the capital city of the Laojing province.
– The provinces of Pu’lao, Pudong, and Ximen all have capital cities, but these are imperial centers used primarily as the provincial seat of the imperial government for tax collection, courts, and other governmental functions
– Government representatives meet twice per year in the capital of Laojing to discuss matters of interest to the government and devise the next years policies
– Following the war between East and West, several natural disasters struck the region.
– These were not dealt with by the emperor as well as could have been, and peasants began to
rise up
– These rebellions were put down mercilessly, and since then their has been much animosity toward the imperial government
– Rebel groups continue to operate in all the provinces, and fighting continually erupts between these forces and the emperor’s.
– They are seen as more of a nuisance than any real threat, so are not put down entirely, this being seen as too costly
Defining Your Fantasy World’s Details
I’ve got the basis for a pretty good overview of my country or area. The above outline gives me information on government, economics, and history. All of these things can be used to create motivations for your fantasy characters.
It sounds obvious from the example that the empire of Jonguria is in a bit of trouble, at least from the last part about recent times. It’s also clear from the outline that while the same size in area as Adjuria, the country of Jonguria has far fewer provinces and cities.
My short outline gives me a great starting point to start defining my fantasy world’s details. By really fleshing out my setting I can see which areas I want my characters to come from and how those areas affected their outlook.
How to Write Fantasy Page 6