Good morning all;
I have been thinking all weekend about developing two books within the huge realm of fantasy i.e. Elves, Dwarves, magic and possibly dragons etc. I understand how big an undertaking this would be but as a long term Lord of The Rings and Warhammer fan I would love to try my own. My question is rather advice seeking I think.
How do I even begin to start this endeavour?
Thank you all in advance and Merry Christmas :)
Thank you for this question and for the input offered thus far!
I'm writing my first fantasy now, too. What I did was, I first isolated key people in my life (as this is my first fantasy novel, I'm not sure what I'm doing lol so I needed to create some frame of reference for myself.) My key people were:
My mother
My ex husband
My Aunt
Myself / my father.
I isolated my mother's characteristics as a human being, and sort-of "matched" those characteristics with what my idea of the mythical creature that could represent it, would be. I chose Dragons. Cold, cruel, distant, shallow etc. My ex husband was much the same, so I needed another "race" that could be equally cruel - I chose Kelpies (water horse mythology). My Aunt was a pillar of strength and and source of healing through my darkest years - for her I chose Dryads, magical creatures who protect Life. And lastly, I chose Gryphons to represent my dead father and myself.
Without boring you or giving away my whole story - what I suggest a good starting point is, would be to decide what you want your characters to represent in your story. Then Google Google Google. Read up everything you can on Mythical Creatures and Legends. I spent two months doing nothing but research before I even started writing my book. Once you know enough about enough creatures, you will find that some of them just "speak" to you - in my case, mainly the ones I can pronounce!
For supporting characters, I chose to work with creatures that are not very well known, because then I can create them and give them attributes as I please and as I need them. You might feel that you want to work with a well known creature to create a sense of familiarity for your audience. If you're up for a challenge, you can choose unfamiliar one like I did, but then prepare yourself to write more than one book because you'll be spending a lot of your time describing your characters and their attributes in the first book. Everyone has a good idea of what a dragon or a troll is, so if you use those, you can jump right into creating a riveting story. I chose Hunkypunks, Pukwudgies, Bunyips, Kobolds and Ding Balls to name but a few, so you can see how much "educating" I need to do in my first book. As mentioned, the advantage is that I can make them look or act however the hell I want because nobody has any idea of what these creatures are SUPPOSED to be like!
I hope this answers your question - start with doing RESEARCH. Find a character and a setting / world that you love (I created my own map / world) and the words and story will write itself. Decide what the purpose of your story is - pure entertainment or a life lesson - and choosing the creatures to represent your story will be that much easier. Good luck!
Talk of dwarves and originality remind me of an amusing story.
J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis were in a literary group at Oxford called 'The Inklings'.
The group would meet regularly to discuss their work.
Tolkien stood to read his latest piece.
After he had finished, Lewis said, 'No no my dear Tolkien not another effing dwarf.'
That is fantastic advice Rabbil, thank you!