fantasy writing resources

Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites

Writing a fantasy novel involves many considerations: Worldbuilding, avoiding clichés of the genre, using popular elements such as magic originally and more. These 34 must-visit fantasy writing resources will help you with every aspect from creating fantasy maps to naming your fantasy characters.

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Writing a fantasy novel - 34 must-visit websites

Writing a fantasy novel involves many considerations: Worldbuilding, avoiding clichés of the genre, using popular elements such as magic originally and more. These 34 must-visit fantasy writing resources will help you with every aspect from creating fantasy maps to naming your fantasy characters.

General advice on worldbuilding

Many fantasy writers working on their first (or even second or third) novels struggle with worldbuilding. If you’re wondering how to create a believable fantasy world, one that avoids clichés and provides readers with enough detail to keep them enthralled, these links and resources provide excellent advice:

The Worldbuilding Stack Exchange is a website similar to Quora (where users ask the community questions and the most helpful replies are upvoted). Yet the focus of the website is on worldbuilding for fiction writers. Writers share and get knowledge about culture, science and other real-world elements that go into fantasy and science fiction.

World Building Academy , a site that has the tagline ‘create worlds, change lives’, provides plenty of helpful worldbuilding advice.

In this post for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Patricia C. Wrede lists useful questions you should ask yourself while planning and fleshing out your fictional fantasy world. Wrede’s questions cover important elements such as history, climate and the inhabitants of your fantasy universe.

James Whitbrook at Io9 shares advice on overdone clichés of fantasy writing to avoid in your worldbuilding.

Chuck Wendig’s ’25 things you should know about worldbuilding’ contains great tips. Here’s one: ‘Don’t  describe every family crest, guild sigil, hairstyle, nipple clamp, or blade of grass in the world.’ It’s good advice to make sure your worldbuilding serves your story rather than brings in irrelevant information.

In this interview , fantasy and SF writer Laurence MacNaughton did for MileHiCon in Colorado, the writer shares some useful fantasy worldbuilding advice. His cardinal rule? ‘If you make something up, it needs to play directly into the story.’ This is a point both he and Wendig emphasize.

In this essay , one of the great masters of fantasy and science fiction shares insights into writing believable fantasy worlds. Ursula le Guin, famous author of the Earthsea Trilogy, says ‘Fantasy, which creates a world, must be strictly coherent to its own terms, or it loses all plausibility. The rules that govern how things work in the imagined world cannot be changed during the story.’

Margaret Atwood shares some insights into how she creates fictional worlds in this blog post by Joe Berkowitz. Her insights relate to her speculative fiction, but also apply to fantasy writing. She suggests, for example, that you can borrow animal or human behaviours in the real world and use them slightly altered to form the basis of another world, its people and fictional creatures.

In The Paris Review’s short memorial piece on the passing of Sir Terry Pratchett, the literary journal shares some of his best advice for worldbuilding effectively. One piece of advice: Don’t be overwrought in your inventions. As Pratchett says: ‘It only takes a tweak to make the whole world new.’

What’s in a name? Create imaginative names for your fantasy world

Your fantasy characters might have names typical of a town or nation in your fantasy world (for example the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings have names such as Frodo and Bilbo and Sam while the elves have more regal names such as Arwen). They might have common names we find in everyday life if your fantasy world exists in parallel to our own. Examples: Harry Potter, Lucy and Susan in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books. Whether you want to give your characters mythical or everyday names, these resources will help you:

‘What’s in a Name?’ is an A to Z of names in J.K. Rowling’s  Harry Potter  fantasy series and their origins. Rowling is a master of creating memorable names, and this will give you some insight into how you can find inspiration for your own fantasy characters’ names.

If you want to find fantasy names for characters or mythical creatures quickly, Fantasy Name Generators offers tools to find names for classic fantasy races such as dwarves and elves as well as generators for place names. Need a Germanic dwarf name or a mythical-sounding name for a dragon or other fantastical creature? Find an exact match or use the results as  phonetic guidelines for creating your own.

Make sure that your chosen names don’t have unwanted connotations. This guide over at Obsidian Bookshelf provides a number of useful pointers on naming characters in fantasy writing.

In this article from 2010 , Imogen Russell Williams provides sound advice on naming characters. Says Williams, ‘Names with too evident meanings, which alert you early to a character’s nature à la Dickens, are a mixed blessing — it’s hard to take someone seriously if he’s called Mr Badcrook.’

Andre Cruz offers practical tips on choosing characters’ names that could apply to any genre, not only fantasy protagonists or villains. One suggestion: write down any important themes in your book and then use a baby name website to see if you can find any first names that carry relevant (but subtle) connotations. The name ‘Judith’, for example, derives from Hebrew and means ‘she will be praised’ – a fitting name for triumphant heroine.

Writing a fantasy world: Physical details

The physical details of your fictional fantasy world are important for creating an immersive sense of place different from the reader’s own. Think of the greenness of the shire compared to the desolate, post-industrial wasteland where Sauron resides in The Lord of the Rings . Thinking about the physical details of your world means thinking not only about the layout of the land but how the land itself looks and works. This includes landscape, fauna and flora as well as geography – where is each setting in your story in relation to other towns or lands?

Let fantasy landscapes inspire you : Deviant Art, the online community of artists, has many beautiful fantasy landscape images that can help you imagine own settings. Simply looking through fantastical images and noting down any geological or visual elements you like can help you form a clearer idea of your fantasy novel’s locations.

Something as small as having a definite sense of climate can make your fantasy world real. For example, in a tropical climate temperatures are hotter and there is more humidity. If your fantasy world is a lush tropical region, this will affect how characters dress, where they build their lodgings and more.

Michael James Liljenberg discusses the geological and botanical side of creating a fantasy or SF world. As he says ‘the physical world you build for your story will affect the civilizations and characters in both subtle and dramatic ways’. He includes a useful bullet list of questions to ask yourself when creating a fantasy map.

Speaking of maps, the David Rumsey Cartography Associates’ map collection includes over 30 000 images of historical maps. These maps can provide inspiration for map illustrations that give readers an immediate feel for your fantasy world. With this online tool, you can even overlay historical maps and contemporary ones to see how geology, borders and land features have shifted.

Writing a fantasy novel: Government

Decide how social structure and governance in your fantasy world will work. Kingdoms featuring monarchies are one of the most popular forms of social order in fantasy writing (as in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series). You might want to take another approach if you’d like your novel to be particularly original. Rationality Wiki explains each type of government, and many descriptions link to pages that give more detailed history and explanations, type by type.

In his piece ‘Worldbuilding: Creating Fictional Cultures’ , fantasy author J.S. Morin shares some useful tips on creating society and culture for your fantasy fiction. Morin suggests ‘loosely basing your government on something that has been tried out on Earth (successfully or not)’. This will help you avoid over-complicating the politics of your world with a whole new system invented from scratch.

Fantasy and SF writer Jill Williamson lists and describes the many types of government you can use for your fantasy writing. She asks useful questions you can ask of your world : ‘Who controls the food and water? The weapons? If there is a disease, who controls the medicine?’

Creating your fantasy culture

Creating whole new cultures for your fantasy story can be tricky. Madeleine Bauman’s blog post looks at Greek mythology and how different Gods had different associations and purposes. Reading stories from ancient global mythologies can give you a good idea of how to invent your own belief system when you start writing a fantasy novel.

This concise document outlines the basic structure of cultural practices – for example, cultural practices are things that ‘represent the knowledge of what to do and where’ for a particular culture. Etiquette around eating or sharing food or following a particular rite of passage for coming of age are all cultural practices. If your fantasy world shows different peoples living in different geographic regions, think about how their cultural practices might differ and what implications this might have for tension or story development.

Alyssa Hollingsworth shares ten useful questions to ask about your fantasy world’s culture . How do you make your world seem as real as our own. Our world that has seen many changing tides of events? As Hollingsworth puts it, ask yourself: ‘How did this culture come into being? How has it changed between then and the start of the novel?’

Mind your language: Creating other words 

Many fantasy writers have added to the richness of their novels by inventing languages that are specific to particular tribes or nationalities. A group in your fantasy novel might have particular idioms or proverbs, or styles of greeting. These resources will help you think about language in your fantasy writing and how you can use it to add a sense of era or to underline important aspects of your fantasy culture (for example, a warrior-like people might have a very different way of greeting one another to a more peaceful civilization). Here are some useful resources for using language creatively:

Roberta Osborn provides detailed advice on using fictional languages in fantasy writing. Her advice includes keeping a list of all the words you invent so you can remember spellings and keep track on how many you’ve used and their meanings. She also recommends making your made-up words resemble as much as possible words with similar meanings in real-world language, so that the sound fits the sense to readers’ ears. Avoid ‘blorpspargs’ and ‘glipflorps’ (unless parodying technical language or word invention in your genre).

If you want to get technical and make up an entire language of your own, the Language Construction Kit is a useful free resource. Do keep in mind that you mustn’t let the fun of invention distract you from getting stuck into actually writing and finishing your novel .

Creating fantasy animals

Besides the people that populate your fantasy world, you might want to include fantastical creatures that add biodiversity (and a dose of magic or exoticism). Remember that many mythical creatures are clichés. Dragons feature in many fantasy worlds. Think about how you can make fantasy creatures your own. For example, in the Harry Potter books. J.K. Rowling has a dragon guard the vault of a powerful family in the wizard bank Gringotts, combining an ancient mythical creature with a modern setting in an original manner.

This list of mythical creatures can inspire you. It provides explanations on the origins and history of many magical or otherworldly creatures.

Springhole offers useful tips on writing fantasy fiction that includes animals . One tip: ask yourself what environmental and ecological impact your creature might make.

Another website that lists and describes mythical creatures lets you sort creatures by appearance (size and similarity to real-world animals), as well as culture of origin (such as Greek or Mayan).

Ashley Lange at Elfwood provides a handy guide to creating realistic fantasy animals and creatures. One useful tip: Identify your non-human fantasy species’ purpose (do your animals serve as guides/guardians/environmental hazards/food sources or any combination of the above?)

Resources for (re)inventing magic for your fantasy novel

Mages, witches, wizards and more: Magic has been a core feature of many famous fantasy novels. In C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, a child puts a magical ring on her finger and finds herself in a wood between worlds. In the Lord of the Rings the wizard Gandalf carries a staff that he uses to channel his magical powers. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books update the wands and wizards format, splicing spells and incantations with a modern-day, non-magical world. These resources give advice on how to write fantasy fiction that uses some form of magic:

Magic in your fantasy fiction should follow a system that obeys its own internal logic.  This impressive table by Io9 describes the workings of magic systems in over 20 famous novels and series. This can provide helpful inspiration when you create your own magic system.

Philip Martin’s guide to using magic in your fantasy story includes helpful tips such as making sure that your magic system explicitly drives the action of your story. This will make sure your magic doesn’t distract from your novel’s key themes and events.

Writer Holly Lisle wrote this practical list of tips for writing magic into your fantasy novel. One good piece of advice: Don’t make it too easy. Another: Everything comes from something – your magic system will be harder to believe if it’s too convenient and doesn’t have explicable origins.

What resources have you found helpful in writing fantasy fiction? Share any relevant and helpful ones in the comments.

Images from here and here

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  • Tags Article round-up , fantasy writing , writing resources

fantasy writing resources

Jordan is a writer, editor, community manager and product developer. He received his BA Honours in English Literature and his undergraduate in English Literature and Music from the University of Cape Town.

17 replies on “Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites”

Awesome post! Thanks for sharing 10 Questions to Ask When You Create a Fictional Culture.

Thank you! It’s a pleasure, Alyssa. Always good to find practical writing advice being shared.

Bookmarking for later! Love the lists of resources you periodically post. Incredibly helpful.

Thanks, Ben! Glad you find some use in them 🙂

This is exactly what I was looking for 🙂 I came up with a story about a King and a girl from a village and suddenly I find myself structuring the whole world around them. Thanks for putting all these resources together!

It’s a pleasure, Liz! Really glad you found this helpful. Do join our ‘fantasy writers’ group on Now Novel if you’d like to get writing feedback from some other fantasy enthusiasts. Best of luck with the book, too.

I still think this is one of the best tools to help you avoid falling into the same old tropes and clichés. http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/

‘Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?’ Thanks for this, will share on Twitter.

Hi Bridget! Great list of resources.

Hi Martin – fantastic post. Will share it on social.

Thanks so much, Bridget!

Thank you very much!

My pleasure, Andrew. Glad you found some utility here.

Great post, thanks. I will also like to recommend the Worldbuilding Magazine, it has become an awesome resource.

This article is very useful. It’s really helpful for me! Thank you for sharing this information.

Thank you so much for your article) So much useful information I haven’t seen! This is truly epic. Let me make a small contribution too, please: 1) for a name to be meaningful and still have a natural sound, you can look up the meanings of real names (the biggest library with meanings of each here https://babynames.com/ ) Sometimes I take any real name and change a few letters (e.g. from Adélie to Akmélie). 2) but sometimes I use the generator https://instausername.com/character-name-generator – it has an interesting feature that it uses artificial intelligence and sometimes the names are very exciting. 3) I always try to make a drawing or at least the avatar to complete the character, because the visual part is very important and can help the reader better recognize the hero. If you are also bad at drawing it would probably be helpful https://charactercreator.org/

Thanks again for your article! Now my stories will be better

Hi Bridget, thank you for reading our blog and for your very helpful additions! Good luck with your next story.

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Author of THE ELEVENTH TRADE

Alyssa Hollingsworth

10 Writing Resources: Fantasy

10 Writing Resources: Fantasy

My first golden rule of fantasy: The more real you want it to be, the more solid details you should use. I don’t mean like “the blue door that was chipped around the handle except for where it wasn’t chipped, aka everywhere else, and also it smelled like smoke.” Not overwhelming, unnecessary details. But details that make the fantastical tangible. One example: In my manuscript, each magician has a sort of smell when they perform magic (sage, wood smoke, that sort of thing), often which correlates to something in their history.

Clear as mud?

And here are some great resources to check out:

Writing-a-fantasy-novel-34-must-visit-websites

1. Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites

Writing a fantasy novel involves many considerations: Worldbuilding, avoiding clichés of the genre , using popular elements such as magic originally and more. These 34 must-visit fantasy writing resources will help you with every aspect from creating fantasy maps to naming your fantasy characters.

Cultural Heritage Below the Water Line

2. The Cultural Iceberg

The culture or cultures you grow up in affect your deepest attitudes and beliefs, giving you your sense of what’s good or right, what feels comfortable, what behavior is acceptable, and conversely what’s not. What other people see may be only those things “on the surface” — for example, the way you talk or act, what you eat and how you dress.

Map-Post-Title-Image-Resized

3. Crafting Plausible Maps

Building a map for a fantasy setting involves a lot of details – most of them fun! Art styles, fonts, and icons need to be chosen. But some mapping concerns go beyond mere aesthetics. If you’re building a sizable chunk of continent on an Earth-like world ,  you’re going to need to keep geology in mind.

another day another dawn

4. Writing Things: How Drawing House Maps Can Help Your Writing

You know at the beginning of some books, there are maps of the particular world, or area in the world. These are really helpful with introducing one to the book’s geography and if the book is centered around a fictional world, or a real world place. They’re kinda like road maps, but for a story. I love drawing these maps for different stories of mine.

5. Land Travel Before Engines

Many fantasy stories involve traveling from one city to another, often in worlds without engine technology. Before cars and trains, traveling over land was exhausting and dangerous. The logistics of a trip were completely different from today. Here’s what you should know before your characters wander through an enchanted forest or sneak into enemy territory.

6. Research is the Spice of Life

It doesn’t matter what genre of fiction you write, chances are you will have to research at least a few details throughout the course of writing your novel. It can be time consuming, and the material you find can be overwhelming. Worse, when the details you uncover are used inexpertly, it can bog down your writing.

The Half-Blood Prince Guide to Question Arcs

7. The Half-Blood Prince Guide to Question Arcs

A question arc in your novel can help build suspense (a state or condition of mental uncertainty or excitement, as in awaiting a decision or outcome, accompanied by apprehension or anxiety). The desire to know the answers to riddles or mysteries will keep many readers hooked. Let’s look at how a question arc captivates readers in Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince .

8. Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 50: Info Dumps

On its most fundamental level, a novel is nothing more or less than the dissemination of information. As such, the writer who understands exactly how and where to share information is a writer who understands the most fundamental skill of storytelling.

That’s why info dumps are such a big, bad deal. They’re peanut butter in the delicate gears of your story’s machinery. They’re clunky, awkward, and they gum up the works — sometimes fatally.

 The Rules of Magic, According to the Greatest Fantasy Sagas of All Time

9. The Rules of Magic, According to the Greatest Fantasy Sagas of All Time

Magic is mysterious and ancient, and its workings are often beyond the understanding of mere mortals. But that doesn’t mean that magic doesn’t have rules.

fantasy writing resources

Art by Donato

10. The Initial Steps of Worldbuilding: Architect, Gardener, Tourist

Listening to the news in the real world – that horrid place where dragons are small and kept in vivaria and pixie is just a kind of haircut – it is very apparent that life is a very complicated place. Anything from the politics between two warring countries, down to a neighbourly dispute on a single street, the world we live in is complicated, intertwined and gorgeously abundant with issue. So, when you sit down ready to begin that next big fantasy epic – like I decided to do about a year ago – how do you make sure that your disputes between elves and goblins are as interesting and in depth as reality itself. In another sense, how do you make your world feel real, when it is populated with the exact opposite?

Stuff I’ve written:

  • 10 Questions to Ask When You Create a Fictional Culture
  • Questions for Worldbuilding

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January 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge results

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Here are the results of the January challenge. A good field and a very close battle for 1st place, but we have a winner now.

1st Place: The Crags of Anunaltia by Matt Hansen

2nd Place: The Raven by Arisillion

3rd Place: A Good Day to Lose Things by Ron Donderevo

February 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge

Please click "Read more" below for the topic and complete rules. Failure to follow the rules will lead to disqualification, whether you read the rules or not. Please also follow the story-posting guidelines, which can be found in the FAQ.

February is perhaps most famous for Valentine's Day, and usually the topic is love themed, but this year it's slightly different. We have a five-element story that could add up to a romantic love story - or it could add up to something altogether more disturbing. The elements are:

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December 2023 Monthly Writing Challenge results

We have the results of the December challenge, and the quality shows in how close it was - particularly between the first two, which kept changing places as the results were coming in. Congratulations to everyone.

1st place: An Angel for Teddy by Ron Donderevo

2nd place: Peppermint by snowmooneclipse

3rd place: Heavy day at the office by NormaOB

January 2024 Monthly Writing Challenge

November 2023 monthly flash challenge results.

Here are the results for the November flash challenge. A much bigger field than recently, and a high standard with a close result. So contratulations everyone, especially the winner.

1st place: Sarah by snowmooneclipse

2nd place: Stuck in a Moment by Ron Donderevo

3rd place: Old Wounds Don't Make New Scars by Milvushina

December 2023 Monthly Writing Challenge

October 2023 monthly writing challenge results.

Here are the results of the October (scary story) challenge. There were only three entries, but the standard was consistently high, and there were relatively small margins between the scores for all three. We have a winner, though, so congratulations on winning against strong opposition.

1st place: The Blackstar by Arisillion

2nd place: The Farm by snowmooneclipse

November 2023 Monthly Flash Challenge

Welcome to the November challenge. It's become a tradition, since so many people are busy with NaNoWriMo, for the November challenge to be for flash stories, to make it easier to fit in. The are various definitions of flash fiction out there, but ours is a story between 100 and 1000 words.

September 2023 Monthly Writing Challenge results

Some high-scoring stories in this challenge, so congratulations to everyone, especially the winner.

1st place: To Kirlatha by Ron Donderevo

2nd place: Jen's Journey by Kukana

3rd place: Travellers by Arisillion

Members choice: Ascension by dms95

October Monthly Writing Challenge

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Welcome to my chapter in the gargantuan book that is the internet. As you may have guessed, I’m a fantasy writer. And this is my space to celebrate two things I love: reading and writing .

Let me tell you a bit more about my fantasy books and other releases.

Pariah’s Lament

Pariah’s Lament is an epic fantasy novel and the story of Isy and Edvar, two of society’s castaways and both from very different backgrounds.

In a roundabout way, they’re caught up in the same conflict and soon learn that they have the power to resolve it.

If you love fantasy books featuring underdogs with epic battle scenes, slow burn romance, political intrigue and writing in the gritty style of George RR Martin and Joe Abercrombie, Pariah’s Lament could be for you

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A Fantasy Writers’ Handbook

A Fantasy Writers’ Handbook  is the complete guide on how to write fantasy. It first takes a look at how to write fiction, exploring characters, plot, dialogue, theme, conflict, writing prose and more.

The  Handbook   then turns to fantasy writing tips, exploring every aspect of how to write a fantasy novel, from creating original races and worldbuilding to how to write battle scenes and create fantasy armor and weapons.

A truly accessible resource that’s helped fantasy writers land book deals

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If you’d like to read some of my short stories, you can download a copy of my collection, Flying On The Ground, all for free.

Simply click the button below, enter your email address and you’ll have them in your inbox in minutes

You can find a mix of genres, including fantasy, literary fiction, historical fiction and horror.

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If you’re looking to join a community of writers, look no further. In our writing group, you can:

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Just use the drop down menus below to learn more and to discover lots of useful links to comprehensive guides and resources on the site.

I began my writing journey a good few years ago. I’ve learned an awful lot, endured the lows and savored the few highs. I’ve spoken to bestselling authors about their experiences, interviewed agents and worked with publishers.

The insights I’ve gleaned from all of that are contained on this site. Why do I do this? Because I know what it’s like to be a budding fantasy writer. 

I still recall the moment in my early days when I realised that if I wanted to do this properly and try and forge a career in it, I’d need to learn an awful lot. I’ve invested thousands of hours, but I love it and love it more each day. 

So the way I see this site and the resources on it is that they represent an easy way over the mountain. The secret pass that winds around its edge, rather than up and over. 

Above all, I don’t want fantasy writers to feel dissuaded or discouraged in the pursuit of their craft. It can be tough to take it all in, and some things are far more complex than others. But the way information is presented on this site, in both visual and audio form, I sincerely hope will help. 

And remember, if you have any questions, just get in contact .

Get Your Stories Published

Like I said above, I try to help my fellow fantasy authors out as much as possible. Writing a fantasy novel is an incredibly tricky challenge, filled with pitfalls and obstacles. Even the best fantasy novelists struggle.

To help you out, I have a bunch of fantasy writing tools . You’ll be able to find:

  • A list of fantasy magazines and journals
  • Online writing groups
  • A list of fantasy publishers
  • And a list of book reviewers

If you prefer the written word, head over to my writing blog . There are hundreds of posts on there, covering pretty much every aspect of fantasy writing, such as a complete guide on worldbuilding , fantasy subgenres , and medieval archery and armour .

You’ll also find lots of useful posts on author marketing and book marketing and how to build your author brand.

I also co-host a podcast called The Fantasy Writer’s Toolshed , which is devoted to writing tips and discussions, all focused on writing fantasy fiction, as well as a bit of writing science fiction too.

You can find episodes on writing fantasy short stories, fantasy cliches, worldbuilding and twisting fantasy tropes, plus loads more topics helpful to the fantasy writer.

So, if you’ve always wanted to become a fantasy writer, you’ve found the right place.

There are lots more writing guides and posts you can check out, many tailored to the fantasy writer, which you can find below.

A Podcast For Fantasy Writers

The Fantasy Writers’ Toolshed Podcast is my own podcast and it’s devoted to all things creative writing, fantasy fiction and book marketing. 

The aim is to provide thoughtful and insightful interviews with experts and specialists in their field and bestselling authors from the fantasy genre and beyond.

So far we’ve had the pleasure of interviewing:

  • Former FBI Special Agent and body language expert, Joe Navarro
  • Adrian Tchaikovsky, award-winning SFF author
  • Juliet E McKenna, award-winning SFF author
  • Amish Tripathi, India’s fastest-selling author
  • Aidan Mattis, historian and folklorist of The Lore Lodge Podcast
  • Janina Arndt and Lucy Atkinson, The Fey Fellowes Podcast

You can also find interviews with psychologists and sociologists to help you craft more intricate characters.  New episodes are live on the 14th and 28th of each month. Sign up by clicking the image below to get an email with each new episode.

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The Ultimate Guide To Writing A Fantasy Novel

You just finished reading a fantasy series that has left you reeling.

You’re satisfied with the way things turned out, but the thought of saying goodbye to those characters just hurts.

You want to keep the magic going.

So now you’re looking for the best guide on how to write a fantasy novel — because you want to be the kind of writer who can work that kind of magic.

Who knew fantasy fiction could be so transformative?

Fantasy Writing Tips

Fantasy plots, how to write a fantasy novel outline, how to start a fantasy story, 1. develop your characters., 2. develop your (story’s) world., 3. develop your backstory., 4. craft an interesting and believable plot for your characters., 5. decide how your story will begin., 6. write the first chapter., 7. decide on your story’s climactic event., 8. keep writing chapters until you reach the end., 9. print out your first draft and take a break., 10. self-edit., 11. revise your self-edited draft., 12. edit your draft., 13. revise your professionally-edited draft., 14. get your novel ready for publication., writing fantasy.

Writing a fantasy novel presents some unique challenges to the storyteller. For one, you’re expected to know about the magical elements you use in your story.

fantasy writing resources

For example, if your story involves werewolves or vampires, you’ll need to research all the folklore related to both in order to portray them in a way that will build trust with your reader.

Making things up as you go when there’s already known folklore or mythology in place will irritate knowledgeable readers and likely earn you some scathing reviews.

Second, fantasy fiction usually involves an imaginary world created by the author.

Research is important here, too, since some magical creatures are associated with particular environments.

And just because it’s a made-up world doesn’t mean you have to defy every expectation.

The sky doesn’t have to be a different color unless that detail adds an essential something to your story.

But you should know this world as well as the one you live in (when you’re not writing).

Also, some — if not all — your fantasy characters will be magical or mythical beings, humanoid or otherwise.

And the more you know the mythology surrounding them, the more convincing your character building will be to your readers.

As with your setting, you should know these characters as well as you know the people in your closest circle — recognizing all the while, of course, that they can still surprise you.

If you want to know how to write a good fantasy story, learn from those who’ve written before you.

Many of them are only too happy to help fellow writers with their story crafting.

For all they know, you could be the next Rick Riordan or J.K. Rowling.

So, helping you write better stories is in everyone’s best interests. To that end, consider the following tips for writing a fantasy novel:

  • Become a voracious reader of fantasy novels — especially the kind you want to write.
  • Research the folklore and mythology related to any magical elements you want in your story.
  • Research potential markets and marketing strategies for your book based on genres that are currently selling well.
  • Choose the perspective and point of view for your story’s narrator.
  • Get into your fantasy characters’ heads.
  • Sketch out a timeline for your story’s events and key moments.
  • Get acquainted with every detail of the made-up world where your story happens.

As one of the ten key parts of your story , your plot is what gives your story its overall shape and direction.

To more clearly see how it does this, we can follow Gustav Freytag’s lead and break down your plot into the following five elements:

With fantasy plots, these elements often tie into the stages of the hero’s journey — a universal story structure based on Joseph Campbell’s monomyth.

It’s because the hero archetype resonates within the psyche of every individual that the most memorable and endearing stories follow this structure.

Check out this Authority Pub post for more information on the ten key parts of writing your story.

And read on to learn how to write one of your own.

How to Write A Fantasy Novel

The writer’s journey in writing a book is similar to the hero’s journey just mentioned.

fantasy writing resources

Like the hero in your story, you’re going on a journey of your own — though at first there’s some reticence to go any deeper than your comfort level will allow.

At some point, though, like Bilbo as he listened to the dwarves’ song about the Lonely Mountains, you feel pulled out of your cozy bubble into a new and sometimes terrifying world.

And, like Bilbo, you find you have more courage in you than you thought you had.

Good thing, too. Writing an unforgettable story takes courage. No one breaks new ground when they don’t venture beyond what they know.

Outlining your fantasy novel will be similar to any outline you’ve created in the past — for other books or your English Lit class.

The key difference here is thinking ahead to determine whether or not your fantasy book will be a standalone or part of a trilogy or tetralogy.

If your book is standalone, you will need to compress the introduction of your characters and the fantasy world you create to fit into one book. So consider this when developing your outline.

For a series, you’ll have more time to unravel your characters and develop the magical world in which they reside.

You don’t have to outline all of your books initially, but if you choose a series, just be sure you leave enough action and character development for future books.

Try to think ahead about plot progression and the struggles your characters will face throughout the series.

Either way, your first book is the key to hooking readers into loving your characters and story and wanting more.

In your outline, be sure you include a cliffhanger at the end to ensure your readers can’t wait to buy the next book.

Getting started looks different for everyone. If you’re a plotter, you know that an outline helps you sort out your ideas so you can tackle the actual writing with a clearer head — one idea at a time.

See this Authority Pub post for more information on getting started with your novel.

If you’re a pantser, you might think outlines are “too stodgy” or that you won’t follow it anyway.

But even writing a bulleted list of the main things you want to happen in your story can help you write with a better sense of direction.

The following tips and questions can help you create an outline that comes to life even before you start writing your story:

  • Interview your fantasy characters. Get to know them at their deepest level so you can speak and act as they would.
  • Get clear on your character’s arcs. How will the events in this story change them?
  • Give old tropes a dash of something new . Think of how J.K. Rowling reinvented the witch’s broomstick.
  • Get clear on your story’s main events and defining moments.
  • Write a draft of the final chapter — detailing the outcome for each character.

Think of this step as simply jotting down the main elements of the plot or character that made you want to write this story in the first place.

You can also start with an elevator pitch. Tell me what will happen in your story in 30 seconds or less.

See if it makes sense to you when you articulate it out loud.

Then, nail down those critical details and leave the rest to your imagination.

How to Write A Fantasy Novel Step by Step

Once you’ve created your outline, follow these steps to write a fantasy novel your readers will tell all their friends about:

Interview them. Do some voice-journaling for them. Create character profiles.

Do whatever helps you get into their heads and make them real people to you.

The more they come to life for you, the more they’ll do the same for your reader.

The more real this world seems to you, the more easily your readers will step into and lose themselves in it.

Make it a place they won’t want to leave. And make every detail matter.

What made your characters and your world as they are now? What details from the past are essential to the story you’re telling.

Get clear on what happened in the past that created the reality of your story’s present.

Give them a problem and show how they recognize and deal with it. Show how it changes them. Show us what they want most and how far they’ll go to get it.

Show what’s at stake – what they could gain and what they have to lose.

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What inciting event will challenge your main character? What will your main character reveal in the first minute?

fantasy writing resources

What will pull your reader right into the heart of your story and make them want to stick around?

You have to start somewhere. Sometimes, the only way to get started on your story is to just start writing and see what comes out?

Maybe that’ll be your first chapter. Or maybe it’ll be your prologue (we don’t hate those, but they do have to earn their place).

If you don’t have a clear idea of your book’s climax, at least work on a vague idea until it becomes clearer or moves aside for something better.

You can either write these as a pantser or start with a bullet-point list of the main things that should happen.

I mean it. Take a break from your book baby. I know it’s hard, but you need this. And you’ve earned it.

Go through it with a red pen and make corrections, write down comments and ideas, and generally bleed all over it.

Sometimes, it hurts. Sometimes, it’s so much fun, you’ll forget to eat. Bring snacks.

Make the necessary changes to your story and rewrite what needs to be rewritten. Then take a shorter break and go over it again.

At this point, it’s best (for your story and your readers) to find a professional editor — preferably one with experience editing fantasy fiction.

See if you can find one recommended by fellow fantasy authors.

Make the changes you and your editor agree upon. Once your story is at its best yet, find some beta readers — ideally those that enjoy reading fantasy fiction.

If they’re also authors, you can return the favor by beta-reading their books.

Hire a professional formatter for your novel’s interior and a cover designer for its exterior.

Make your novel as irresistible to the eye as your story will be to your reader’s imagination.

Ready to write your fantasy story?

Now that you know how to write a fantasy novel, does a particular work in progress come to mind? And is this a new idea — or one you’ve set aside for a while?

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how long the idea has been percolating in your head.

The real magic happens when you get down to the business of writing your story.

That’s when your brain gets the message, “We’re doing this.” When you keep showing up, the muse knows where to find you.

The key is to open the faucet before you expect the water to flow. Let the air out. And by that, I mean just let your ideas flow out as they are before you expect to make sense of them.

Before long, you’ll be sorting out that beautiful mess and creating a fantasy story your readers will never forget.

When you write a fantasy novel, you should present some unique challenges to the storyteller. For one, you're expected to know about the magical elements you use in your story.

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33 Best Fantasy Creative Writing Classes in 2024

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Once Upon a Time: Fairy Tale Writing With Anca Szilágyi

Atlas Obscura

In this four-part seminar, delve into the genre of fairy tales—reading and dissecting modern retellings before sharing and workshopping a draft of your own.

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Location: Online

Categories: Fantasy

Class size: 30

Price: $225.00

Start date: April, 2024

Website: https://www.atlasobscura.com/experiences/fairy-tales-onli...

Introduction to Writing YA Speculative Fiction with Diana Ma

Clarion West

Have you ever wondered what makes a YA novel…well, YA? How do you write teen characters who just happen to be fighting dystopian regimes or riding dragons? This workshop will answer these questions and provide tips, examples, and writing exercises to help you start your journey to writing speculative YA!

Price: $75.00

Website: https://clarionwest.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/clarionwes...

Reedsy's course, led by Tom Bromley, is a 101-day program aimed at helping writers finish their first novel draft. It includes daily video masterclasses, a structured approach for drafting, and access to a forum and live webinars for interaction and feedback. The course covers various aspects of novel writing, including preparation, character development, plot skills, and writing techniques.

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Start date: Open all year round

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Viable Paradise

This one-week residential workshop, running from October 8th to October 13th, 2023, focuses on writing and selling commercial science fiction and fantasy. It offers intensive interaction with best-selling authors and editors, emphasizing the creation of engaging fiction. The workshop combines manuscript critiques, new writing, lectures, and Q&As in an informal, supportive setting on Martha’s Vineyard, fostering a unique learning environment​​.

Prerequisites: Application with cover letter and 8,000 word manuscript.

Location: Boston

Level: Advanced

Class size: 24

Price: $2,450.00

Start date: October, 2024

Website: https://viableparadise.com/

Core Concepts in Worldbuilding

The focus of this class on worldbuilding is on core techniques of the milieu that help ground a vibrant setting that feels alive and established, that the characters in the story interact and engage with. The power is in the details, in the fundamentals that help frame and situate the narrative, creating a persuasive secondary reality.

Price: $55.00

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/core-concepts...

Realistic Religions for Speculative Fiction

Crafting a believable religion requires more than just a list of gods and their spheres of influence. Come explore the subtler facets that make up a plausible, lived-in faith, and how those can enrich the world of your story.

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/realistic-rel...

Making Meaningful Monsters

In this class, I'll explore some iconic monsters of the page and the screen, discuss what real-world fears they connect with, and share tips and tricks for bringing your own gnarly creatures to vivid life for readers, leaving ample time for Q&A and discussion of the scary citizens of your own stories.

Price: $35.00

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/making-meanin...

The Rule of Three

Trilogies seem to dominate sci-fi and fantasy series, both on the screen and on the page. However, writing a trilogy isn’t quite as simple as extending the principle of the three act structure. Fonda Lee presents an in-depth examination of how to plan and write trilogies.

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/the-rule-of-t...

Using the Folklorist's Toolkit

Folkloric expression is rich and varied in cultures around the world, both traditional and modern. Authors of fantastic fiction often draw on folkloric traditions to enrich their worldbuilding, but this needs to be approached carefully. In this class, we will explore some concepts from folkloristics, or the study of folklore, to examine the traditional structuring of narratives.

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/using-the-fol...

Introduction to Writing Speculative Nonfiction Essays

As writers and readers we all bring something different to the page and have our own lens with which we view not only the world, but the media we consume. Learn how to leverage your unique perspective and expertise into a well crafted essay on your favorite media.

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/gilmore-specu...

Intro to Art Briefs

Your book cover is a crucial marketing asset, and it can often make or break a sale to a curious reader. In this class, award-winning illustrator Grace P. Fong gives students the tools needed to find and communicate effectively with artists so they can bring your story to life.

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/intro-to-art-...

Straddling Literary and Speculative Markets

Are you interested in writing and submitting fiction to both “literary” and “speculative” markets? This webinar will cover submission practices and expectations for both fields, and will discuss key differences and similarities.

Website: https://clarion-west-online.teachable.com/p/straddling-ma...

How to choose a fantasy creative writing class

Looking to build your writing skillset, learn more about your genre, or finally finish that fantasy book you’ve been working on? You’re in the right place. That’s why we built this directory of the best creative writing courses.

However, creative writing classes aren’t one size fit all. If you’re planning to join a fantasy creative writing class in particular, you’ll want to make sure that it matches what you’re seeking to learn about the fantasy genre.

So make sure to consider the following questions when you’re researching fantasy writing courses:

  • Who is the instructor? How many years of experience do they have in writing fantasy?
  • Is there something in particular you’d like to learn about writing fantasy? Does this course include it?
  • How long is the course, and where is it taught?
  • How much does the fantasy writing course cost? Does it fit into your budget?

More fantasy creative writing resources

Whether you’re a new or established author, there are always evergreen resources out there to how to get a headstart on writing fantasy. 

Free online materials

  • Fantasy Creative Writing Prompts (resource)
  • Fantasy Book Title Generator (resource)
  • Character Name Generator (resource)
  • Fantasy Plot Generator (resource)
  • Fantasy Short Stories (resource)
  • How to Write Fantasy (blog post)
  • How to Write a Novel (blog post)
  • How to Edit a Book (blog post)

Recommended books

  • For writers in the UK:  Writers' & Artists' Yearbook  
  • For writers in the US:  Writer’s Market 2020

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67 Fantasy Writing Ideas You Haven’t Thought Of Yet

fantasy writing resources

It seems like fantasy writing ideas should come easily. I mean, this is fantasy . Anything could be anything. 

You could write about a nation of sentient toothbrushes. Your heroine could be a dragon witch who teaches preschool. Want to set your novel in a tiny groove on a pebble on the surface of the moon? 

You can do it. You can do all of it. Reality is not running this show, you are. Sweet freedom!

Or so you’d think.

There’s something about all that freedom that can really freeze the brain.

And there’s definitely something about the blank page that stops the flow of genius. 

Don’t worry. We’re here to help you get unstuck . Here are 67 fantasy writing ideas you can use to inspire your next great novel. 

Let’s jump in.

When and How to Use These Fantasy Writing Ideas

Use these ideas whenever you need them and however you wish.

If you know you want to write a fantasy novel but have no idea what you want that novel to be about, you can use this list. If you’ve already started planning your novel but you’re stuck on worldbuilding or character development , these ideas can help you get the wheels turning.

You can even come to the idea well if you’ve already finished a draft but just know something’s missing.

None of these fantasy writing ideas are meant to be rigid. If an idea speaks to you but doesn’t fit perfectly in your vision, tweak it! If tweaking it won’t work, play with it by writing a scene around that idea—a scene that has nothing to do with your novel. 

Sometimes exploring an intriguing thought helps us understand why it intrigues us. That understanding might spark a new idea that is right for your book.

Worst case scenario: it sparks an idea for the next book. In which case, write it down and then forget it until you finish what you started.

Okay, here we go. Sixty-seven fantasy writing ideas coming your way.

Fantasy Story Ideas

An open German fairytale book

  • A chronic people-pleaser discovers a beautiful fantasy world they can only enter by following their own bliss.
  • A sorcerer/sorceress cast a protective spell over a village centuries ago. Now, for reasons they are not able to divulge, they must release the spell and leave the village vulnerable to the dangers beyond their little utopia. Why? And what are the dangers?
  • After accepting a great job opportunity in Germany and moving into a beautiful little cottage, your protagonist finds themselves living with a kobold .
  • Design a utopia based on your values. Then create a protagonist who fights against it. Why are they right? What justification is there for destroying this society? Let your own internal debate inspire the protagonist’s internal conflict .
  • Zeus hides in plain sight as a hedge fund manager on Wall Street.
  • An elected leader claims authoritarian control by casting a spell that forces citizens to “make better choices.” Roads change direction, doors slam shut, apologies and requests spring involuntarily from people’s mouths. Your protagonist is determined to restore free will.
  • A perfectionist can’t stop using magic to travel to the future and make sure they’re making the best possible choices today.
  • A person who believes they have the perfect life discovers that they are actually a social media influencer’s online persona.
  • A family enjoying the lazy river at their vacation resort soon finds that the river never loops back and the current becomes stronger when they try to swim against it. They’re trapped on the river, winding through bizarre places and running into unfamiliar dangers.
  • The most powerful archangel has been tasked with guarding some witless, accident-prone nobody. It’s unclear why.
  • The leader of a rebellion gets drunk on fame and ends up creating a cult.

For more story inspiration, check out these fantasy conflict ideas.

Fantasy Character Ideas

A fantasy character standing on a wet surface under a cloudy sky aims a bow and arrow.

  • Farmer whose fingernails hold healing powers
  • Pixie who lives for drama
  • Former queen living in exile
  • Imagine: (A)Your best friend as wanderer without a home. (B) Your parent as a poltergeist (C) A childhood nemesis as a benevolent healer (D) Your favorite teacher as a powerful wizard.
  • The only being in the entire universe of your novel who has zero magical powers
  • Talking chicken who dreams of becoming a dragon and lives by the philosophy “fake it til you make it.”
  • Spiritual leader who never meant to be a spiritual leader
  • Fairy in love with an ogre
  • A passionate historian who doesn’t necessarily love all the horrors that accompany the collapse of civilization but does giddily geek out on looking back to see how all historical events inevitably led to this moment
  • Child who shows up out of nowhere, doesn’t (won’t?) speak, and can make the earth rattle by whistling
  • Fortune teller who is also a people-pleaser and regularly sugarcoats bad news
  • Tortoise mayor in a non-tortoise town
  • Your favorite fairy tale villain reimagined as a sympathetic protagonist .
  • Your favorite fairy tale protagonist reimagined as a villain
  • A fairy tale side character reimagined with a complex inner life and their own character arc .
  • A lovestruck ghost

Want more character ideas? Check out these other Dabble articles:

A Giant Pile of Character Ideas to Jump-Start Your Brain

Character Development Questions That Aren’t About Eye Color

20 Original Character Questions (This Might Get Weird)

101 Character Goals That Don’t Involve Anyone’s Dead Wife

Character Flaws—The Traits You Totally Don’t See in Yourself

Fantasy World Ideas

An old wooden shack with a moss-green roof.

If you’re out looking for fantasy writing ideas, you’re probably looking for ideas to inspire the world of your story. I’ve separated these fantasy world ideas into physical and cultural categories.

If you’d like even more inspiration, this worldbuilding guide gives you some elements to consider and questions to spark more fantasy writing ideas as you go. 

Physical World

  • There is a precious stone that has the power to cure emotional suffering. It can only be found in a river that runs through a small village. How does the presence of this resource define the society? What threats or opportunities does it create?
  • In this fantasy world, anyone can earn the power to fly, instantly heal their own wounds, and charm animals. But they can only gain these powers by giving up the one natural talent that makes them unique.
  • The physical world responds to the mood of its inhabitants. Contentment brings beauty, healthy crops, and perfect weather. Anger brings storms. Sadness causes drought. 
  • Human beings (or whatever species you’re using in your story) were never meant to inhabit this world. The land, flora, fauna, and climate constantly try to drive them out.
  • The land loves its inhabitants. Trees shift to protect them from danger. Blossoms fall like confetti when there’s something to celebrate. The fruit is always ripe.
  • The universe is a giant tree. There are civilizations on leaves, branches, and roots. Nobody knows much about the root people, because the trunk is too far to travel. (Until now…)
  • It’s the year 408 in the Philippines and shapeshifting is real.
  • It’s 1920 in Scotland, and Nessie is real.
  • An enchanted freight train hopped by American teenagers looking for work during the Great Depression.
  • When someone is about to die, the air hums.
  • The land is spongy and living creatures are made of granite.
  • The floor is lava. 

Cultural World

  • Two religions are constantly at odds with one another. Both religions began as a result of an ancient war. One was founded by the losers, the other by the winners.
  • The colors green, purple, yellow, and orange have been outlawed. Why? And how does it influence daily life?
  • Your hometown has become a dystopia. What would that look like and how did it happen?
  • Your hometown has become a utopia. What would that look like and how did it happen? 
  • In this society, schedules are sacred. “Good people” do things on a universal timeline, from eating lunch at exactly 12:00 p.m. to giving birth to their first child at exactly 26 years and twelve days old. 
  • Borrow from family structures in the animal kingdom. For example:
  • A mama rabbit stays away from her babies except to feed them out of fear that her strong scent will attract predators. 
  • African wild dogs are hardcore about taking care of one another. They feed their young first and regurgitate their own food for elderly and injured adults. Also, they make group decisions by sneezing . 
  • Dwarf mongoose families are led by a matriarch who is the first to eat and the only female permitted to mate. Her man is monogamous. Her death breaks the family up, but they still keep in touch. 
  • Take inspiration from trees . They release chemicals to warn others about invasions, share resources through root fungi, and even pass on their nutrients when they know they’re dying. Design a species who communicates and shares through non-verbal systems.
  • Six hundred years ago, thirty people secluded themselves in the mountain to escape a plague. How has that history influenced the way this isolated society functions today?
  • A boarding school where all the students are animagi
  • Babies are considered holy. There is a yearly festival celebrating infants and asking them to bless the community.
  • Everybody here wears clothing made of giant flower petals.
  • The people are governed by a sacred text they are forbidden from reading for themselves.
  • A nomadic people journeys according to the guidance of the wind.
  • Bugs rule over humans.

Fantasy Theme Ideas

  • Power is addictive.
  • Good ultimately prevails over evil.
  • Freedom of thought is more important than perfection.
  • Knowledge is power.
  • Love conquers all (for your fantasy romance or your romantic fantasy).
  • Blind commitment to tradition is dangerous.
  • The things that set us apart are the things that make us powerful.
  • A life governed by fear is a life half lived.
  • Common people can do incredible things when they work together.
  • We are responsible for creating the world we want.
  • Love cannot survive where pride rules.
  • Pride cannot survive where love rules.
  • There is no joy in perfection.
  • There is no joy in power.

To spark a few fantasy theme ideas of your own, explore the questions Doug presents in this article on common themes .

Other Places to Find Fantasy Writing Ideas

A stunning image of mountains in trees in Yosemite National Park, demonstrating how the real world can inspire fantasy writing ideas.

The animal kingdom. I’ve dropped this hint already, but I cannot stress the value of this resource enough. Google “unusual animals” or “otherworldly animals” or “fascinating animal behavior” and you’ll find hecka inspiration, from new species to social structures to communication habits.

Natural environments offer a gold mine, too. Here are some incredible landscapes that are sure to inspire a new fantasy world.

It’s also fun to play the Google game with “abandoned places.” What stories do these photos tell? 

You can even find inspiration just by looking at the world around you through a new lens. Try it literally. Take ultra close-up photos of your houseplant, your cat’s eye, or your spouse’s one pointy ear. Look at them in a week. What do you see? An alien landscape? A new species?

And don’t forget: mythology, theology, folklore, and fairytales are outstanding sources of fantasy writing ideas. Borrow their characters, themes, or locations. Or try a retelling. 

Turn Your Fantasy Writing Ideas Into an Actual Novel

Once those fantasy ideas start flowing, you’re going to want a system for capturing and organizing them.

This article on how to write fantasy gives excellent guidance for turning your wildest ideas into an engaging narrative.

You can also snag this free ebook, Let’s Write a Book . Trust me: this is not the kind of free ebook you’re thinking about. This thing has over 100 pages and covers everything you need to know to nail your first novel.

And Dabble itself is a great tool for organizing your fantasy writing ideas and drafting your novel. Story Notes double as a worldbuilding bible. The Plot Grid helps you see that epic storyline at a glance. All these things are right at your fingertips as you pound out that first draft.

A screenshot showing an example of a Dabble manuscript with the story notes menu on the left side of the page.

Check it out for free for fourteen days. You don’t even need a credit card to snag your free trial. Just click and begin.

Abi Wurdeman is the author of Cross-Section of a Human Heart: A Memoir of Early Adulthood, as well as the novella, Holiday Gifts for Insufferable People. She also writes for film and television with her brother and writing partner, Phil Wurdeman. On occasion, Abi pretends to be a poet. One of her poems is (legally) stamped into a sidewalk in Santa Clarita, California. When she’s not writing, Abi is most likely hiking, reading, or texting her mother pictures of her houseplants to ask why they look like that.

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fantasy writing resources

When it comes to improving the quality of your prose and your story's readability, few are as capable as line editors. In this article, we discuss what line editing is, how it helps, and what working with a line editor is like.

fantasy writing resources

Whether you're looking for a fresh fantasy story idea or just need a bit of prompting to unclog that writer's block, we've got your back with 50 different ideas spread across five different categories: worldbuilding, characters, plot, twists, and magic.

fantasy writing resources

While memoirs and autobiographies share many characteristics, but they are far from the same. What are the differences? Find out in this article.

Kara Copple

Natural Resources and Trade in Fantasy Worldbuilding

by Kara Copple | Jun 5, 2019 | Fantasy World Building | 0 comments

natural resources and trade in fantasy worldbuilding

I’m guessing no one’s jumping for joy thinking about mining or trade routes. You’d rather be building your magic system, drawing maps or creating brand new magical species.

I get it, but if you’re here, the chances are you’re looking for ways to make your world feel as real and immersive as possible.

That means thinking about all the unglamorous sides of fantasy worldbuilding. Not that fantasy writing is particularly glamorous at all.

So, in today’s post, I’ll be sharing some ideas around natural resources and trade and incorporating your research into your fantasy world.

Why natural resources and trade are important

The overall aim of fantasy worldbuilding is to avoid those moments when your reader jumps out of the story with a confused face. You want to drag your reader into your world and keep them there as long as possible. Anything that seems off, under-explored or just plain wrong has the power to snap your reader out of the spell you’ve created. This applies to all the topics I blog about here, including the not-so interesting ones like natural resources.

But here’s an example of why it’s worth considering:

If your characters cannot logically create something in the type of terrain, climate, era and so on, it’s very jarring to read.

For example, it may seem weird for your desert-dwelling characters to all live in wooden houses rather than stone or mud ones. Not a huge amount of trees in a desert to chop down into timber. However, in Britain, there are plenty of trees so it makes more sense for buildings to be made from wood.

If someone in your desert society wanted to build a house of wood, they would likely have to import it. This means the character is likely to be rich. On the other hand, as wood is more abundant in Britain, it’s what poorer people would use to build their houses instead.

You could full on geek here and talk about the specific types of wood and stone available in ancient times and different climates. But if you’d rather not, simple stuff like what houses are generally built out of is definitely worth considering.

Natural Resources

Whether you’re working with a singular society or you’ve got a whole world out there that needs building, it helps to have a rough idea of what’s available to your characters.

Start off with a list of basic resources and goods that your country or countries will need. I’m sure many more things could be added, but here are a few ideas:

– Grain, wheat

– Meat & fish

– Iron, tin, copper, gold, silver

– Olives, oil, grapes & wine

– Salt, spices

– Oak, pine

– Limestone, marble, granite

Using the wood example from above, value is determined by how common or difficult something is to find. What one culture values, another has no use for. If you think about it, gold is just another metal. Why have we decided that it’s worth more than copper? Think about these things when building your cultures and trade routes.

If there’s something you really like but you can’t seem to fit it in or it doesn’t make sense, there is a solution – the same solution that people had when they also wanted something they couldn’t have.

Trade is a pretty natural act you’ll find in every civilisation. People want things you’ve got, they want something in return. When transport develops in your civilisation, people will always look further afield than their village/city/country. International trade is born and with it comes so much variety.

But where do you even start? For my world, I used ancient history to help me. I looked at how the Romans did it all, they seemed to know what they were doing.

The Romans had lots of trade routes around their empire. I loosely based my trade routes and natural resources on this because it worked for them and I know it’s believable.

So I looked into the Roman Empire’s trading history because that’s the sort of strange thing people like me do. I worked out what was found where, in what type of climate and applied it to my own world. If you want to start from scratch that’s also fine as long as it makes sense (sort of).

You could go one step further and explore the idea of colonisation. When a rich country wants what a poor country has, they may take it by force. Just look at the colonisation in this world. People took what wasn’t theirs, sold people into slavery and came home and called it trade. In this case, trade is sort of subjective and that’s another area you can explore in your world.

Conflict possibilities of trade

The other benefit of thinking about trade is that it’s a great way to cause friction and conflict with your characters. Different countries and cultures rarely see eye to eye, in this world at least. Trade is a necessary evil. If two countries fall out with each other, this can have a huge impact on trade because world leaders can get pretty petty.

Think about all the lovely conflict you can create with something as simple as trade.

If you have two nations who are rivals, imagine what they could do to mess life up for each other. Citizens in country 1 could be starving because country 2 decided to stop sending them grain over a simple misunderstanding or because some lord’s daughter married the wrong noble.

It could go like: Starving people > angry people > hatred with government > possible uprisings. Boom a massive story evolves.

Tiny details like this can blossom into big ideas that affect the central narrative.

The impact on culture

Your natural resources will determine a lot about your world and the characters in it.

They can affect:

  • Foreign relations

Of course, what is available naturally will have a big impact on what your people will eat, smoke, drink and wear. With the introduction of trade routes, this also gives room for diet differences between the rich and poor. Imported goods cost more. The poor will generally eat what’s readily available and the rich will seek out more exotic tastes because they can afford them.

You can weave these details into your story to make it feel more real. Everything affects everything, both in real life and worldbuilding. I hope this has helped make natural resources/trade a little less boring or insignificant in your mind. Tiny details can spark big ideas.

What do you think of the tiny details? What other impacts might trade relations have on your world? Let me know what you think  in  the comments!

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The Short Fiction International Short Story Prize 2024

Short Fiction

  • 16 February 2024

Competition deadline: 31st March 2024

The Short Fiction International Short Story Prize 2024 is open for entries. This year’s prize will close for entries at midnight (GMT) on March 31st, 2024. Entries cost £10 in January and February, and £12 in March (to encourage early submissions!). 40 free entries are available to those for whom the fee represents a barrier to entry (twenty of these are reserved for UK entries). In addition to the prizes, the winning, runner-up and third place stories will be published by Short Fiction journal.

Our judges:

Yan Ge was born in Sichuan, China in 1984. She is a fiction writer in both Chinese and English, and is the author of fourteen books in Chinese, including six novels. She has received numerous awards and was named by People’s Literature magazine as one of twenty future literature masters in China. Her work has been translated into eleven languages, including English, French and German. The latest English translation of her novel, Strange Beasts of China, was one of The New York Times Notable Books of 2021. Yan’s English writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Irish Times, TLS, Granta, The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where she was the recipient of the UEA International Award 2018/19. Her English language debut short story collection Elsewhere was published by Faber in the UK and Scribner in the USA in summer 2023. Yan lives in Norwich with her husband and son.

Wendy Erskine is the author of two short story collections, Sweet Home and Dance Move. She edited an anthology, well I just kind of like it, on art in the home and the home as art. Her non-fiction has appeared in The Guardian, The Quietus and many other publications. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she has been listed for the Edgehill Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, the Gordon Burn Prize and the Sunday Times Short Story Award. She was awarded the Butler Prize for Literature. She is a full-time secondary school teacher.

Terms and Conditions

  • Dates: The Prize is open for entries from 9am GMT on 15 January 2024. The deadline for receipt of entries is 23:59 GMT on 31 March 2024.

​2. Language: All entries must be in English.

​3. Geographical restrictions: There are no geographical restrictions on entry: while the Prize is UK-based, all writers – within and outside the UK – are welcome to enter.

​4. Length: The maximum length of submissions is 5,000 words, not including the title. There is no minimum length.

​5. Genre/theme: There are no restrictions on genre, style, theme, or subject, but entries should be prose fiction – not poetry or memoir.

​6. Entry fee: There is an entry fee for each story submitted (though see 7. Free entries, below). To encourage early submissions, the fee for entries submitted in January and February will be £10 – the discounted fee will apply until 29 February 2024 (23:59 GMT). In the final month, March, the entry fee will be £12. Payment is made through the Submittable portal for the Prize. At the time of entry, writers can opt to pay a supplement of £1 to subsidise a free entry for a writer in more difficult financial circumstances.

​7. Free entries: Forty (40) free entries are available to writers for whom the fee would be a barrier to entry. Twenty (20) of these are reserved for writers resident in the UK. To request one, please email [email protected] (once the Prize opens) and let us know your country of residence. The free entries are offered on a first-come, first-served basis, and you do not need to give us detailed information about your circumstances, though please let us know your general situation (whether you’re on a low income, unwaged, or a student, for example). Free entries will be judged blind, the same as paid entries.

​8. Blind judging: Entries will be read and judged anonymously; entrants’ names and contact details should only appear on the entry form and not anywhere on their stories/manuscripts. The stories/manuscripts must be free of all personal or identifying information about the author. This includes age and address.

​9. Entry format: Entries should be in a standard 12pt font and double-spaced, unless the form of the story demands otherwise. Entry is online-only, via Submittable.

​10. Multiple entries: Writers may enter as many stories as they like; each separate story requires a separate entry fee.

​11. Simultaneous submissions: Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but please withdraw your entry via Submittable as soon as possible if the story is accepted for publication elsewhere, in print or online (including self-published, e-book, magazines, journals, audio, websites, blogs, social network sites), or broadcast.

​12. Age restriction: Entrants must be 18 years old or over on the closing date.

​13. Corrections: No corrections or alterations can be made after receipt of an entry.

​14. New work only: Entries must be entirely the work of the entrant and must never have been previously published, in print or online (including self-published, e-book, magazines, journals, audio, websites, blogs, social network sites), or won a prize in another writing competition. Any entry found to have been plagiarised will be disqualified.

​15. Judging process: Each entry will be read by at least two members of a diverse panel of experienced short story readers from Short Fiction. A shortlist, announced in late April 2024, will then be forwarded to our judges, Yan Ge and Wendy Erskine, who will select the winner, runner-up and third place story for a final announcement in May 2024. The panel’s and judges’ decisions are final and no individual correspondence will be entered into.

​16. Prizes: £1000 will be awarded to the main prize winner; the runner-up will receive £300, and the third place story will win £100.

​17. Publication: The winning, runner-up and third place stories will be published online at Short Fiction journal. Acceptance of any prize implies agreement for the relevant story to be published online.

Short Fiction

​18. Results: Entrants will not be contacted individually about the competition results unless they are selected for the shortlist.

​19. Rules acceptance: Entry implies an acceptance of these rules. Entries that fail to comply with the entry rules and requirements may be disqualified.

See here for further information and to enter.

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‘Moscow exerts a strong gravitational force on writers’.The Novospassky monastery.

10 of the best novels set in Russia – that will take you there

This list of novels and novellas will help you explore Russia’s vast landscapes and complex history Add your favourites to the comments

I spent several years wandering round Russia with books in my rucksack. And several more years reviewing Russian fiction and finding myself transported back, whether to a village with chickens pecking through orchards round a wooden church or to a drunken kitchen table debate in a high-rise overlooking the Moscow suburbs. This subjective list of engaging, relatively readable novels and novellas recreates various Russian landscapes, eras and atmospheres, often in ways that no amount of travelling could. As Ludmila Ulitskaya writes in The Big Green Tent: “Military historians have found many discrepancies in Tolstoy’s description of the Battle of Borodino, but the whole world imagines the event just as Tolstoy described it in War and Peace.”

Yevgeny Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

The River Neva in St Petersburg.

A bored young man inherits a country estate, where a shy, book-loving local girl falls for him. Alexander Pushkin, father of Russian literature, crams laughter, literature, duelling and tempestuous romance into his playful 1820s verse novel. A series of distilled Russian settings serve as backdrops. First: theatres, dancing, lamplit snowy streets, soft summer nights by the glass-smooth River Neva and hungover rides home in the Petersburg morning-after. Then young Onegin’s rich uncle dies, leaving him the country estate, boasting a “vast garden, overgrown/ with wistful dryads set in stone.” Inside, there are brocaded walls, portraits of tsars, tiled stoves and homemade liqueurs. Pushkin lovingly details (although they bore the novel’s hero) traditional rye beer, berry picking, seething samovars and little dishes of jam. So, finally, to Moscow, “chiselled in white stone / the buildings topped with fiery glory / A golden cross on every dome”. Translated by Anthony Briggs, Pushkin Press

Happiness is Possible by Oleg Zaionchkovsky

Moscow exerts a strong gravitational force on writers, just as it does on Chekhov’s three sisters with their refrain, “To Moscow, to Moscow…” One of the subtlest evocations of modern Moscow is Oleg Zaionchkovsky’s Happiness is Possible , a series of darkly comic vignettes published in 2012. The narrator is a struggling novelist whose ambitious wife has left him. Discursive, fatalistic and fond of sleeping in the day, he is reminiscent of Ivan Goncharov’s sluggish hero Oblomov, Russian literature’s traditional “superfluous man”. What his story lacks in plot, it amply repays in dishevelled charm and style. He shuffles, unshaven, through the dacha village of Vaskovo and fills the abandoned apartment with dog hair and ashtrays. Zaionchkovsky’s narrator conveys the city’s magnetic pull, finding a secret solace and reassurance in the deafening noise: “We are Muscovites, children of the metro; time and again we seek refuge in its maternal womb.” Translated by Andrew Bromfield, And Other Stories

The Underground by Hamid Ismailov

Mayakovskaya station

The palatial metro system is one of the best things about Moscow. Several novels take place in its tunnels, including Mikhail Glukhovsky’s dystopian Metro 2033, first in a series of philosophical, post-apocalyptic underground adventures. Hamid Ismailov’s The Underground uses metro stations to structure the posthumous reminiscences of young Kirill. Born nine months after the 1980 Olympics to a Siberian mother and an African father, Kirill dies soon after the collapse of the USSR a decade later. There are recurrent images of the metro as a body, with “stone intestines” or marble pillars like a woman’s legs, “bare to the hip”. Exiled Uzbek author Hamid Ismailov has woven this poignant story, a fictionalised memoir inspired by episodes from his and his family’s own peripatetic lives, into a haunting landscape-tapestry of 20th-century Moscow. Translated by Carol Ermakova, Restless Books

He Lover of Death by Boris Akunin

Boris Akunin, whose real name is Grigory Chkhartishvili, is famous for his bestselling series of clever, tsarist-era thrillers. If you haven’t read any, start with The Winter Queen, which introduces the brilliantly understated detective work of diplomat-turned-sleuth Erast Fandorin . In He Lover of Death , Oliver Twist meets Treasure Island as we follow the adventures of orphaned urchin Senka through 19th-century Moscow. Akunin recreates the slums of Khitrovka, full of spiced tea stalls and gangsters in shiny boots (today the area is all banks and top-end restaurants, of course). Senka finds a hoard of antique silver bars, hires a student to teach him how to be a gentleman and is soon at the theatre, marvelling that people will pay “seven roubles to sit in a prickly collar for three hours” and watch “men in tight underpants jumping about”. The tale’s gruesome denouement has a characteristic blend of action, deduction, intrigue and morality. Translated by Andrew Bromfield, Orion 2010

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov

Florence Pugh as Lady Macbeth in the 2016 film

Florence Pugh played the title role in an unflinching 2016 film version of this brutal 19th-century novella , a tale of provincial lust and murder. If people have heard of Nikolai Leskov at all, it’s usually because of Lady Macbeth. Dostoevsky first published it in his literary magazine and Shostakovich later turned it into an ill-fated opera . From the bored merchant’s wife, romping with a newly arrived farmhand under moonlit apple blossom, to a chilling denouement near the “dark, gape-jawed waves” of the leaden Volga, the story showcases Leskov’s restless evocation of place and passion. The setting, with its buckwheat kasha and icon lamps, has bureaucratic warrants and certificates alongside folkloric elements: the locked-up tower of the merchant’s house and the wife’s lover, “like a bright falcon”. In The Enchanted Wanderer and other stories , translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, Vintage

2017 by Olga Slavnikova

One hundred years after the 1917 revolution, a gem cutter called Krylov falls in love in a Russian city where centenary celebrations lead to repeated cycles of violence. Meanwhile, gem prospectors or “rock hounds” search for precious stones in the mythical Riphean mountains (inspired by Slavnikova’s native Urals). This winner of the 2006 Russian Booker Prize is a genre-defying mashup of speculative fiction, magic realism, romance and thriller. Among many prescient interwoven threads are an ecological catastrophe triggered by human greed, and an epidemic of nostalgia, sparking civil war. In St Petersburg, costumed revolutionary sailors try to fire a museum tank gun at the Winter Palace and in Moscow the toppled monument to murderous security chief Felix Dzerzhinsky is resurrected (this bit almost came true recently). There’s an evocative Russianness in the novel’s linguistic subtlety, the fantastical mountain gorges, the cavalcades on city streets and the pervasive, Kafkaesque sense of strangeness. Translated by Marian Schwartz, Overlook Duckworth

The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya

Framed by modern building of the Hotel Belgrade in downtown Moscow, the Soviet Foreign Ministry in its Stalinist style,

A war-wounded teacher arrives at a 1950s Moscow school and forms a Dead Poets Society-style club, where he leads the boys through the city streets, peeling back the layers of its literary and historical palimpsest. One dilapidated house, where two of the boys later lose their virginity, provides a physical metaphor for Moscow’s strata: “Its walls had been covered in silk, then in empire wallpaper, … in crude oil paint, … then layers of newsprint…” Ulitskaya is always redolent and readable. The interlocking stories in The Big Green Tent revolve around two groups of school friends. This generous novel, spanning four decades of Soviet life, has a Tolstoyan ambition to capture the spirit of an age. Beyond the deftly drawn settings (trams, ice skating, Karelian birchwood furniture) is a powerful sense of cultural baggage. “We live not in nature, but in history,” Ulitskaya writes, as her protagonists walk down a lane once trodden by Pushkin and later Pasternak, “skirting the eternal puddles.” Translated by Polly Ganon, Picador

The Mountain and The Wall by Alisa Ganieva

The Russian authorities are planning to build a wall to isolate the troublesome Caucasus from the rest of the country. That’s the rumour that drives Alisa Ganieva’s 2012 novel, set in a dystopian-yet-real version of her hometown of Makhachkala, Dagestan’s coastal capital city. Shamil, a young Dagestani reporter, wanders the streets while his girlfriend, Madina, dons a hijab and heads for the hills to marry a murderous zealot. It’s another prophetic narrative and Ganieva’s picture of the social and psychological fallout of apocalyptic events feels a bit near the knuckle in 2020. A few years ago, I joined a press trip to Makhachkala to see a new art exhibition and take a trip (with armed escort) into the waterfall-braided mountains. Dagestan is not really a holiday destination, even when there’s no pandemic, and a novel about Islamic radicalisation isn’t likely to encourage tourists. But Ganieva skilfully uses words from some of the 30-odd local languages and fragments of poems, fables, dreams and diaries to evoke this diverse republic sandwiched between war-torn Chechnya and the Caspian Sea. Translated by Carol Apollonio, Deep Vellum

Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov

A statue of Alexander Pushkin outside the manor house at a museum on the e Pushkin estate.

Boris Alikhanov, an alcoholic, unpublished author, finds work as a summer guide in the Pushkin Hills museum, as Dovlatov himself once did. The atmosphere of Russia’s old towns and zapovedniki (nature/heritage reserves) is conjured up in this novel, set on Alexander Pushkin’s old family estate. It’s not just the physical details that resonate (log houses girdled by birch trees, linden-shaded boulevards, old ladies selling flowers outside the monastery), but also the absurdly reverential guides and clueless tourists. The comedy of Pushkin Hills coexists with bittersweet meditations on creativity, loss and identity. Alikhanov derides Soviet authors who hanker after folk verses and embroidered towels but, explaining to his wife why he won’t emigrate, he says that while he “couldn’t care less about birch trees”, he would miss “my language, my people, my crazy country”. Translated by Katherine Dovlatov, Alma Classics

The Women of Lazarus by Marina Stepnova

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A Literary Tour of Moscow

fantasy writing resources

It’s hard to count the exact number of great Russian writers who showed their love for Moscow. The city has attracted and prompted stories for a long time now, inspiring many to express their writing talent. Thus, Moscow’s literary sights are fully deserving of our attention, and this guide gladly presents you six of them, from museums to apartments.

1. nikolay gogol museum.

Library, Museum

House-museum of Gogol in Moscow

2. The State Museum of Mayakovsky

Mayakovsy

3. Turgenev's Family House

The portrait of Ivan Turgenev by Vasiliy Perov (1872)

4. Novodevichy Cemetery

Cemetery, Monastery, Museum

Novodevichy Cemetery

5. The Apartment of Dostoevsky

Building, Memorial, Museum

56-3941803-1441302856840439ed4e7b401ebe751c0a0add0e0c

6. The Mikhail Bulgakov Museum

Mikhail Bulgakov Museum

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A Guide to Cautionary Russian Proverbs and What They Mean

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The Soviet Union’s Best Heart-Throbs and Pinups

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Guides & Tips

A 48 hour guide to astrakhan, russia.

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Zhenotdel: The Soviet Union's Feminist Movement

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Unusual Facts About the Soviet Union

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A Soviet Pilot Went Missing in Afghanistan and Was Found 30 Years Later

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Food & Drink

The best halal restaurants in kazan.

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Russian Last Names and Their Meanings

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The Mystery Behind Russia's Buddhist "Miracle"

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Incredible Photos From the Longest Bike Race in the World

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See & Do

Russia's most remote holiday destinations.

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Restaurants

The best halal restaurants in kaliningrad, winter sale offers on our trips, incredible savings.

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IMAGES

  1. 70+ Fantasy Writing Prompts (+ Free Printable)

    fantasy writing resources

  2. Fantasy Fiction Writing Graphic Organizer by Miss Bee's Hive Materials

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  3. Step-by-step guide on how to write a fantasy novel, along with expert

    fantasy writing resources

  4. Epic Fantasy Writing Prompts

    fantasy writing resources

  5. 4 outside of the Box Tips for Writing a Fantasy Novel

    fantasy writing resources

  6. 10 Writing Resources: Fantasy

    fantasy writing resources

COMMENTS

  1. Writing a Fantasy Novel

    These 34 must-visit fantasy writing resources will help you with every aspect from creating fantasy maps to naming your fantasy characters. General advice on worldbuilding Many fantasy writers working on their first (or even second or third) novels struggle with worldbuilding.

  2. 10 Writing Resources: Fantasy

    1. Writing a fantasy novel: 34 must-visit websites Writing a fantasy novel involves many considerations: Worldbuilding, avoiding clichés of the genre, using popular elements such as magic originally and more. These 34 must-visit fantasy writing resources will help you with every aspect from creating fantasy maps to naming your fantasy characters.

  3. Fantasy-Writers.org

    Fantasy-Writers.org is the perfect site for writers and readers of fantasy fiction, providing a space to post your stories and receive friendly, constructive advice from our large community, including many published authors.

  4. How to Write a Fantasy Novel: Tips From Professional Fantasy ...

    1. Start by researching the fantasy fiction market If you don't know your market, you've already made a mistake, says Erin Young, an agent for Dystel Goderich & Bourret, which represents authors such as James Dashner of Maze Runner fame. "Oh, my market is fantasy," you might say, waving your monthly subscription of Imagination And Me.

  5. Worldbuilding Resources

    Worldbuilding resources can make the lives of fantasy writers a hell of a lot easier. From templates and questionnaires to podcasts and workshops, there are a plethora of options to learn new skills and find inspiration for ideas. Below, you can find a huge list of resources to help you build your fantasy worlds.

  6. Richie Billing

    A Fantasy Writers' Handbook. A Fantasy Writers' Handbook is the complete guide on how to write fantasy.It first takes a look at how to write fiction, exploring characters, plot, dialogue, theme, conflict, writing prose and more. The Handbook then turns to fantasy writing tips, exploring every aspect of how to write a fantasy novel, from creating original races and worldbuilding to how to ...

  7. How to Write Mind-Blowing Fantasy Fiction

    In this free 10-day course, you will be thrown headlong into the world of fantasy writing. With the help of bonus resources and plenty of cool examples, you will discover what it takes to craft a compelling fantasy story from the ground up. What you'll learn in this course When you sign you, you can expect to learn:

  8. How to Write a Great Fantasy Novel

    5 Tips for Writing a Fantasy Novel. To close out, I'm going to leave you with my top five tips for writing a fantasy novel: Read a lot, and read widely. Don't just reread your favorite fantasy authors, no matter how brilliant they are. All are different, and often many fall into the same patterns with sentence and story structure.

  9. Turn Fantasy Into Reality: How to Write a Fantasy Novel

    It's lazy writing that usually renders conflict and character arcs meaningless, and is all too easy to do when you're throwing magic left and right in your story. Make sure everything makes sense and is consistent in your fantasy story. Get writing. Yeah, I'm going to be that guy. But the only way you can actually bring all these elements ...

  10. The Ultimate Guide To Writing A Fantasy Novel

    The Ultimate Guide To Writing A Fantasy Novel. August 14, 2022 by Barrie Davenport. You just finished reading a fantasy series that has left you reeling. You're satisfied with the way things turned out, but the thought of saying goodbye to those characters just hurts. You want to keep the magic going.

  11. Fantasy Writing Resources

    Here is a collection of fantasy writing resources: Fantasy Name Generators A collection of tools to help you come up with fantasy character names. Fantasy Writing Topic on Writers Write Coverage of fantasy writing here on Writers Write in our blogs. Gothic.net

  12. How to Write Fantasy Novels: 10 Tips for Writing Fantasy

    1. Read and re-read. You can only write as well as you read. Study the classics of the fantasy genre, taking note of what grabs you about each fantasy author's approach—for example, world-building, character development, or plot twists—and how the storyteller navigates the aspects you find most daunting.

  13. Big List of Resources for Fantasy Writers : r/fantasywriters

    Writing Fantasy Heroes by Jason M. Waltz (Editor), Alex Bledsoe, Jennifer Brozek, Orson Scott Card, Glen Cook, Ian C. Esslemont, Steven Erikson (Foreword), Cecelia Holland , Howard Andrew Jones, Paul Kearney, Ari Marmell, Janet E. Morris, Chris Morris, Cat Rambo, Brandon Sanderson, and C.L. Werner

  14. 33 Fantasy Writing Classes in 2024

    A comprehensive directory of 33 fantasy writing classes in 2024, vetted by the team at Reedsy. Filter for the perfect writing course by genre, location, and more! ... More fantasy creative writing resources. Whether you're a new or established author, there are always evergreen resources out there to how to get a headstart on writing fantasy. ...

  15. 67 Fantasy Writing Ideas You Haven't Thought Of Yet

    Abi Wurdeman April 20, 2023 It seems like fantasy writing ideas should come easily. I mean, this is fantasy. Anything could be anything. You could write about a nation of sentient toothbrushes. Your heroine could be a dragon witch who teaches preschool. Want to set your novel in a tiny groove on a pebble on the surface of the moon? You can do it.

  16. Natural Resources and Trade in Fantasy Worldbuilding

    Start off with a list of basic resources and goods that your country or countries will need. I'm sure many more things could be added, but here are a few ideas: - Grain, wheat. - Meat & fish. - Iron, tin, copper, gold, silver. - Olives, oil, grapes & wine. - Salt, spices. - Oak, pine. - Limestone, marble, granite.

  17. Resources for Fantasy Writers

    Odyssey - The Fantasy Writing Workshop. Odyssey is an annual six-week summer writing workshop directed by Jeanne Cavelos at Southern New Hampshire University for writers of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. The Market List - A market resource for writers of science fiction, fantasy and horror. TOP.

  18. 20 Incredibly Useful Resources for Aspiring Authors

    While Medium is a better fit for non-fiction writers, Wattpad is the equivalent for those who write fiction. Highly recommend. Scrivener. When I first tried writing my book, I attempted to do so using Google Docs, which resulted in a bit of a nightmare. Scrivener — a word-processing software designed with aspiring authors in mind — saved me ...

  19. Fiction Writing Links

    Fiction Writing Resources. Here is a collection of fiction writing resources to help you learn more about fiction genres, story and novel components, the business of fiction writing and more. Genre Specific Resources Children's Fantasy Horror Mystery Romance Science Fiction Western Writing Prompts. Story Components Resources

  20. List of Writer's Conferences and Workshops in North America: Updated

    We get excited about learning new things and gain a solid understanding of writing and publishing. Writer's conferences give new insights about writing craft, give you encouragement and support, and gives you real actionable advice about the journey of becoming a successful writer. 3. Improve Professional Effectiveness

  21. Description: Bring Your Writing to Life

    2024 February Flash Fiction Challenge: Day 17. Write a piece of flash fiction each day of February with the February Flash Fiction Challenge, led by Managing Editor Moriah Richard. Each day, receive a prompt, example story, and write your own. Today's prompt is to write a story with a title that starts with "A Portrait of…"

  22. The Short Fiction International Short Story Prize 2024

    The Short Fiction International Short Story Prize 2024 is open for entries. This year's prize will close for entries at midnight (GMT) on March 31st, 2024. Entries cost £10 in January and February, and £12 in March (to encourage early submissions!). 40 free entries are available to those for whom the fee represents a barrier to entry ...

  23. 10 of the best novels set in Russia

    Yevgeny Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. The River Neva in St Petersburg. Photograph: Peter Kovalev/Tass. A bored young man inherits a country estate, where a shy, book-loving local girl falls for him ...

  24. A Literary Tour Of Moscow

    A Literary Tour of Moscow. Valeria Nikonova 14 May 2020. It's hard to count the exact number of great Russian writers who showed their love for Moscow. The city has attracted and prompted stories for a long time now, inspiring many to express their writing talent. Thus, Moscow's literary sights are fully deserving of our attention, and this ...

  25. [4K] Walking Streets Moscow. Moscow-City

    Walking tour around Moscow-City.Thanks for watching!MY GEAR THAT I USEMinimalist Handheld SetupiPhone 11 128GB https://amzn.to/3zfqbboMic for Street https://...