Brian is an aspiring author with a B.S. in Marketing and Economics from NYU. He is currently working on a series of short stories which will introduce the characters for a novel.
Every time I ask other fantasy writers a question about the worlds I create, one of them will inevitably respond, “What does this matter to your story?”
That’s because many new writers, influenced by roleplaying games and the illustrations featured in our favorite fantasy novels, are prone to view worldbuilding as filling in the gaps on a map, cataloging the monsters, or finding new ways to justify fireballs. But these details alone do not create immersion.
Hobbyists build worlds. Authors build settings.
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The reality of marketing a self-published book and finding your audience presents a challenge somewhere in-between the faint dream of online success, and the sense of screaming unheard into the web’s dark and angry void.
Traditional publishers target their marketing towards their network of book reviewers and buying agents who, in turn, bring a book to the attention of readers. As a self-publisher, not only do you probably lack this network, but you also face an image deficit when you try to piece one together.
They think you’re trying to sell a story from the slush pile of traditional publishers.
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To find your voice as a writer, it’s important to develop a consistent style. As your style develops over time, you will find it helpful in learning to write quickly and in making stronger choices with your writing. You want to cultivate a writing style that delivers the full impact of the story that you’re telling. Your unique style will become an important part of your brand as an author.
Even a great story can be muddled behind poor technique.
Here are a few tips which I’ve found useful for improving your style and delivering your story in the most effective way possible.
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In two previous articles, I’ve talked about ways to help authors better understand their characters, as well as techniques for using fantasy to enhance the stories those characters are a part of.
With this article, I’m going to take a departure from the style and nature of those posts to try and put my words into context. I want to talk a little about how I’ve used this advice in one of my own fantasy projects as a Case Study to help other authors consider their own work.
Today I’m going to tell you about the story of a character named Breldin and the thought process I used to create a town called Trindall Grove.
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Even when the characters’ adventures are fantastic, a good story should have an emotional core which is personal, drawing from common human experience to help readers connect with our characters. A story written in this way needs little imagination to prop it up. Which is why, in my efforts to write fantasy, I’ve been asked:
If a story is universal, why do you need the magic?
Magic comes with the price of a built-in distance between your events and your reader which can keep you from achieving the potential of your story. Guarding the passageway to an important official, I can hint at the terror of a pair of trolls, or I can connect readers directly to the fear of two condescending and semi-sadistic guards. I can wound my character with the blast of a fireball from a distant wizard, or I can bring my readers the terror of being knifed by a killer.
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When sitting down to plan a story, I focus my attention on developing memorable heroes and horrendous villains, constructing epic settings filled with ancient magic, and crafting plots with satisfying endings. But what’s lacking is anything connected to the piece of advice that I’ve heard repeatedly:
Write what you know.
These words, which I’ve been told again and again, have vanished from my arsenal of aphorisms. I write fantasy, which means that I write from my imagination. I write about lives and experiences that have never existed in history. My characters are impossible to know before I meet them on the page.
That’s the downside. In fantasy, we don’t intuitively know our characters the way authors of another genre might.
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Every time I ask other fantasy writers a question about the worlds I create, one of them will inevitably respond, “What does this matter to your story?”
