So you want to write a Fantasy Novel in 2024...

hello everyone welcome to writing Quest my name is Brenan Pew and in today's video we are going to talk about what you can do if you want to write a fantasy novel in 2024 huzzah okay so before we get started this video is part of a really cool collaboration with some of my other fellow author tubers so make sure to check out the link in the description below to find the playlist where you can find a bunch of other cool resources and videos that are a part of this so make sure to check all those out give all those creators a like thumbs up subscribe all that kind of stuff in today's video we are going to be talking about the genre of writing fantasy and what that is and why I like it and some tips and tools and resources for you as a writer to find kind of how to get started with this genre if you've never done it before or to maybe refresh what you've done if you have done uh fantasy writing before maybe this can kind of give you some new ideas and new tips and tricks and so we're going to jump right into it make sure to just stay to the end of the video where I have a special discount code for you for some of my notion templates which I have created specifically for writers to help them start their stories from beginning to end you can outline brainstorm all that kind of stuff I'll link some other videos below that talk about what that is but stick around to the end of the video for that here we go so first off what is fantasy what is the fantasy genre of Storytelling and really it's can be a huge breath of things it can be anything from sci-fi fantasy to anything from like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings or anything from like Brandon Sanderson most of the time they include some sort of world that is fictional that's completely created that's not set in the real world although many times they also are can be set in the real world such as Harry Potter and then they have kind of fictional and Fantastical elements that go along with the real world the probably most defining characteristic of a fantasy novel is that there's some sort of mystical magical element now that doesn't necessarily mean there is Magic but there's some sort of like uh elves or there's some sort of different creatures there's a World Behind the world there's straight up magic there could be like the manipulation of elements or some kind of like sorcery of some kind so there's many the the main defining thing that makes it Fantastical is some form of a magical element even if you go to Star Wars which is a sci-fi fantasy Star Wars has the force it's this magical thing that you can't really see your touch and it's hard to explain so that's probably the most defining characteristic of fantasy and there's many other things though such as different cultures and races that don't actually exist in the real world such as Orcs elves those kinds of things you can get into things like Paranormal fantasy which have like ghosts and those types of things but the most defining thing about it is that there's these magical infant Fantastical elements the next thing is I kind of want to talk a little bit about why I love fantasy and how I got into it basically um I was actually joking with my brother not too long ago about this where we basically were totally uh we were we're destined to be fantasy nerds because when we grew up when I was about 10 in the uh late '90s early 2000s we got all sorts of stuff we got the Lord of the Rings movies we got Harry Potter we got uh the new Star Wars movies we had Pokemon and we got all of these crazy think the X-Men movies came out the first original X-Men's with Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart all these things came out right at like one of my most impressionable times growing up and I just totally latched on to it and got completely sucked in um the Lord of the Rings movies in particular were a really huge influence on me and I remember the extended editions coming out and watching everything behind the scenes and just watching how those were created and then of course the Star Wars prequels came out which I was already a Star Wars fan of watching The Originals and so just that coming out right at that perfect time and so for me fantasy has always been a really cool way to escape and to kind of move into a realm that can excite me and inspire me and all those kinds of things and kind of get away from you know the normal things of this world and so I also I love World building I love all of the intricacies about it I love that it's not something like it with what's great about fantasy is you don't have to ground it in any sort of reality really if you don't want to so you can just go wherever your imagination takes you as long as your characters of course and your plots work and line up and all those things but really as far as you know fantasy is concerned sky is really the limit so you I I just was so sucked into it when I was a kid and I it just totally set me on this path I don't even know if I could write anything that's not fantasy although maybe I should try at some point as far as some resource let's get into some resources uh that I like a lot for writing fantasy the first one is obviously all of the books that you love and enjoy so for me um probably my biggest influence in this genre is of course the Lord of the Rings by JRR tolken and my suggestion with the fantasy he's often considered kind of The Godfather of the whole fantasy thing actually what happens a lot nowadays is that people will criticize if they're too similar to tol Keen because he set this whole thing kind of in motion of high fantasy and all of these you know Orcs And elves on these things and now if people do things too much like that everything's kind of a derivative of that and and that gets criticized so personally I think that criticism is kind of silly because again it's it was kind of the beginning of this whole fantasy thing but ultimately um I I would so I would suggest two things I would suggest one if you haven't read a Lord of the Rings you need to because I think if you want to understand something it's very important to understand where it came from and where it started so even if Lord of the Rings ends up not being for you and it ends up being something that you don't really care about in the long run it's kind of a good history lesson to understand where this all started and where this came from the next thing is just any of the stories that you love and like so you can see back here on my bookshelf that I have all sorts of books I got Wheel of Time here I got a bunch of other stuff that is just fantasy things that as you readed it it shows you the different ways that you can change your story and it's just great you know if the best resource to me is reading so read the books that you like and then of course turn that into writing a story that you would read yourself and the only way that you know how to write a story that you'd read yourself is by reading the stories that you like the next set of resources that I would really heavily point you to are Brandon sanderson's BYU lectures on YouTube they're all up there for free there's like 134 14 15 of them and that number might not be right but there's a lot of them there's over 10 and they're all a few hours long they've got lots of information he goes from World building to character arcs to plotting to all sorts of things and even if even if Brandon sanderson's books are not necessarily something that you really like um because I've heard you know a lot of people they don't really care for his stories or anything and a lot of people say maybe his Pros isn't quite what they like or anything all that aside these lect are chocked full of information and even if you don't follow them to a tea or whatever they should definitely kind of spark some stuff inside of you so I would check those out I would watch every single one and they are just a super cool resource and and on top of all that they're free they're a free resource that you can get you don't have to go buy a book you don't have to go buy a course you can get these for free on YouTube right now right after you get off this you can go watch one of those so I would definitely check them out and devour them like watch him over and over and over again take notes like I mean it's a it's a college course that he teaches once a year I think and so take it like a college course write notes all that kind of stuff definitely check it out and the next kind of uh genre thing this is really specific to Fantasy but any kind of writing book any any book about writing that is about writing fiction is going to help you in this area so if you've never written anything before I think maybe that's a great place to start is just start getting into into writing just some just general writing books that kind of talk about plotting in character development all those kinds of things but ultimately the culmination of all these things where you're reading these Fantastical books because it's hard to come up with fantasy if you've never read anything that's fantasy before and so you kind of get you started so I would read some fantasy read some general books about writing and how to write and all that kind of thing and then also those BYU lectures I think between those three things you're G have a really great and solid start into writing your fantasy book in 2024 the next thing is some misconceptions about the genre of fantasy so again I mentioned this a little bit before but I'll come back to it the hardest thing with fantasy especially High fantasy is most things end up feeling like some sort of derivative work of tolken now is that most stories are Universal or or there's not there's only so many new things all the new things have been done so every story you do is going to feel like a story that's come before it now in tolken speciic spefic instance again it was like there wasn't really a lot of this kind of thing before he wrote this and then which was in the you know 50s or whatever and once this came out this kind of set the tone for a very long time and so I think there's some people that kind of are like they shun tolken because they think you know it's old school and it was done so many different ways and all that stuff I don't think that's a really good thing to do I think you should study tolken and nobody did so you can turn it into your own thing but definitely something that it's going to be really hard for you it's hard for me because I grew up on it and watched so much of it and read so much of it is having your Works be very derivative so again fantasy is one of those things where the sky's is a limit so lots of things have been done lots of different magic systems lots of different characters and so it's going to be really hard to find something that feels super unique and I would tell you don't kill yourself trying to make it super unique I mean you you need to do the best that you can but the real what's going to end end up happening is that your characters are the most important so even if a lot of your Fantastical elements start feeling like they're very similar to a lot of other things because that will inevitably happen if your characters are strong and your character Arc is strong and your story is really good then all of that stuff becomes secondary so don't lose yourself in the world building and not and miss the story so a lot of you know a lot of fantasy artists will do that they'll they'll work on the World building and they'll start a chapter and it'll have like three pages of description about the backstory and all this kind of stuff the focus has still got to be the characters the focuses still got to be the story and then all of the World building and all that stuff kind of functions around it and informs the story so don't get lost in that World building don't get lost in the Fantastical elements and make sure that you focus on the characters and for me ultimately that is what I ended up doing where you know I my story that been working on for a long time started as there's kind of a I came up I took like what if I took Lord of the Rings last air bender aagon Dragon Rider stuff and a couple other things and just mushed it all together so a lot of stories start that way where they are already a derivative and so my biggest struggle has been not only changing a lot of those Fantastical elements into more of what is you know pertains to me and it's not so much derivative but also then actually turning the story to be about the characters and not about those Fantastical elements finally my last little bit of advice for someone who is wanting to start writing fantasy in 2024 is that just go for it just go for it the great and awesome thing and the worst thing about fantasy is that again the options are Limitless you can do whatever you want as long as you stay true to the tenant of good character arcs and good plot development so ultimately at the end of the day the best way to get started in writing anything but writing epic high fantasy is to Simply do it and the great thing too about it is because sk's limit you can really just go for it just start writing just start writing something write something until you can't write anymore and you don't know what else to do and then change it and then turn it into then go back and do your world building and do a little building on it and expand it and then go back to writing but the biggest thing is start start doing it right now even even if if you're going to wait till January 1st because of newers resolution or whatever start on January 1st start writing something come up with a character name if you don't have a character name or you don't have an idea for that just start writing the World building write write some backstory about some magical thing or culture or something but just start start your story write it down and start developing it and just see where your creativity takes you that's it for this episode of writing Quest again this video is in part of a collaboration on a playlist with some other author tube personalities about how to write different genres and write your story in 2024 so make sure to check out the rest of the playlist which is linked down below also for those of you who have stuck around to the end use the code wq2 at the gumroad store the link is down below to get my notion template storybook Master novelist it's a it's a notion template that I created for writers to start their story from the very beginning idea and work it all the way to the end you can manage all of your different books and all your different series you can work through the synopsis and the outline you can even write the book so make sure to check that out down below and we will see you next time on writing Quest [Music] huzzah

Channel: Writing Quest

Views: 8,865

Keywords: how to write a book, how to world build, writing advice for beginners

Id: RvNrHcAf9gE

Length: 14min 23sec (863 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 27 2023