How to Think about Fantasy Stories

 

(Image source)

I return to the best advice I have ever received about writing: Read 100 books of whatever you want to write. I have read well beyond 100 books in the fantasy genre, and it is always thrilling to find someone who does something new with the genre. But how do I write a fantasy novel that may be enjoyed by readers other than myself?

As a writer, I have spent years reading books, blogs, and interviews by published authors to figure out how they do it the actual writing, the editing, and then the publishing. While this is an ongoing education process, I am always amazed how I return to the journey and Campbell's description of the Hero's Journey. Not every story fits in this mold exactly, yet some kind of change occurs in every story. I enjoy imagining fantasy and science fiction worlds that I may pen someday. 

These are some resources that I have found useful in writing my National Novel Writing Month fantasy novels over the years.

Worldbuilding: Patricia C. Wrede Questions

Blogs: Mythcreants

Books: Save the Cat!; The Writer's Journey

Story Grid

Worldbuilding, Myths, and Magical Creatures

Global Genre

Obligatory Scenes and Conventions--Christmas Carol Example

How do you think about fantasy stories? What are some of your favorite fantasy stories?

And Now, Something Completely Different: Being a Dungeon Master

About a year ago, I applied for several writing jobs at a video game company I really admired, whose stories and quests always managed to surprise me. Unfortunately, halfway through the final application process, my grandmother passed away, and I had to turn in an unfinished campaign because I was grieving. I didn't get the job, and it absolutely crushed me. Since then, it's been really hard to work up the...I'm not sure what the right word is, the interest, the oomph, the courage, to start game writing again. But I'm getting there. This Friday, I'm going to be the Dungeon Master for my first ever Dungeons and Dragons group, using a campaign I wrote myself!

If you're not familiar with DnD, it's a tabletop role-playing game where adventurers (the players) make their way through a campaign (a series of interactions, battles, and investigations) to achieve some specific objective (rescue the princess, retrieve the ancient artifact, defeat the dragon). There are pre-published campaigns, but I've decided to write my own (also known as a homebrew campaign). Nobody tell my partner, because he's one of my players, but they're going to get sucked into a pyramid scheme that's trying to bring about a dragon attack. It's good stuff.

A little something like this

Game writing can be a fun way to interact with your own stories and see how other people interact with them as well. I always wanted more "choose your own adventure" books when I was a kid, so I love the idea of branching storylines. If worldbuilding is your thing, or if you're a chronic overwriter, game writing may be a fun thing for you to try! You can work within an existing world that already has rules and maps and bad guys, or you can create your own. You don't have to use DnD, either - there's Trail of Cthulhu, Night's Black Agents, Pathfinder, and so many more.

If you want to try game writing, or writing for branching storylines, there are a few good resources to check out. One is Twine, which is a free open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. You can download it or use it online. It's pretty easy to use, and I actually had to use it for my game writing applications. Choose Your Story is a good place to get feedback on your work. And of course, you can always ask for feedback on Twitter, Reddit, and other writing communities (including this one!). So go forth and be adventurous :)

Resources for Writers

We here at Operation Awesome tend to blog about whatever floats our respective boats on any given day. If you like reading about writing every day, that's fantastic, but if you've come to our site to look for resources on a specific writing topic, it can be hard to navigate.

No more!

We created a tab called "Writing Resources" that serves as a compilation of our posts on a given subject. Want to know more about National Novel Writing Month? Just click the NaNo link! Need help getting started on a query letter? Click the querying link! It's pretty self-explanatory, to be honest, so go take a look for yourself!

How To Survive Being a Newb

Newb in the urban dictionary has two spellings and is divided into two classifications: Newb/newbie and noob/n00b. In the online gaming community, the former is a person who is new to the game and inexperienced, but willing to learn and improve. The latter is a person who is inexperienced, but doesn't try to improve, often saying and doing things to annoy and be a nuisance to other players. The term 'newb' can be applied to anyone new or inexperienced at a task or profession.

Being a newb in any profession is awkward and humbling. You're on a constant mission to collect information and experience so that you'll no longer be branded as the 'new guy'. Your best friend is anyone willing to share information and advice without teasing you for your ignorance. The only way to stop being branded a newb is to become competent and experienced in your profession...or to become more competent and experienced than the newest member of your team. (See how that works?)

Being a newb in the writing community shouldn't be as daunting as being a newb in the gaming community. This all depends on the people you surround yourself with. If you associate with people who tease you, berate you, or discourage you, your experience will be unpleasant and it may even turn you away from writing. You will encounter people like these, even if you're careful what blogs, forums, and websites you visit. The best thing to do when this happens is to ignore them and don't respond to their baiting. (If a person is consistently bothering you or others, chances are he's a troll and you don't want to 'feed' the trolls. Trolls don't respond to reason or logic, since their purpose is to see how angry they can make you.)

To survive being a newb in any community, writing included, you need to find a safe place to learn and mingle with like-minded people. Scout these out carefully through research, exploration, and recommendations from others. A good place (forum, website, coffeehouse, etc) will be where you spend most of your time interacting with the community, so you want to know your way around it, know the atmosphere and the people who frequent it. This will take time in itself, so the research beforehand is a good idea.

To start you out, here are a few recommendations from me. 

You can't go wrong with Alex J. Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group. They have a monthly blog hop where you can meet and mingle with other writers going through the same hurdles you are. You can also find them on Facebook (groups) and Twitter.

There are many hashtag chats on twitter where you can make helpful connections. The two I've been a part of are #kidlitchat (Tuesdays at 9pm EST), and #storycrafter (Sundays at 3pm EST). Storycrafter is a light, fun chat with writerly themes in Q&A format. It's open to all genres.

Finally, there's the Writers Chatroom which has topic chat Sundays at 7pm EST and open chat Wednesdays 8pm EST. The room is only open during scheduled chat times, but the people there are helpful and good at answering writing questions.

Once you've found a place, be friendly, humble, and willing to learn. These are the best qualities a newb could have to propel her out of newb status to leet. Take part in things, reach out to others, don't be afraid to try. If you fail in front of helpful people, they'll support you and encourage you to try again. Seek out someone who could become a good friend, a guide to the profession and its community or even someone just starting out like you. If you're blessed enough to find a mentor who knows the whole thing inside-out, that's great. Never turn down advice from someone who knows more than you do. You might not be able to use it now, but it's good to know for later.

To recap, this is How to Survive Being a Newb:

1. Find a safe place to mingle and learn
2. Be friendly, humble, and willing
3. Make a friend
4. Listen to advice (and thank them for it)
5. Don't be afraid to try 

 If you have advice or recommendations for other newbs, please share it in the comments.