This week: Preparing a Novel Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.
― Joss Whedon
The trouble with writing fiction is that it has to make sense, whereas real life doesn't.
― Iain M. Banks
Writing - the act of one person giving a piece of their soul to another.
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Whether you're planning on participating in NaNoWriMo or not, if you plan to write a novel, it pays to plan to write the novel.
The cornerstone of popular fantasy is the novel-length work of fiction - and often, the even longer epic fantasy series. To read one seems daunting enough; how in this world or infinite others are we supposed to tackle writing one?
Fantasy can be one of the most complex genres to plan and write. With more realistic fiction, we already have a world that we know to some degree. Even with science fiction, the tendency is to extrapolate from what we already know. In fantasy, though, often the milieu is straight out of the author's mind - and that takes work. Even if it's modern, or "urban," fantasy, the fantastical elements need to be internally consistent to hold a reader's attention.
I've written before about world-building, and you can find many ideas about it on the internet, so I won't cover it again here. But with most works of fiction, especially in the fantasy genre, it pays to do your homework first.
Now is a good time to start if you're planning on doing NaNo. You can take all of October to flesh out settings, characters, and other features unique to the world in which you'll live in November. While the idea is to begin writing on November 1, there's no reason not to work up some backstory beforehand.
Any longer work of fiction benefits from this sort of planning, but with fantasy, extra work is usually required. You might even have a setting in mind, having thought about it for some time - if so, take the time to write down the details. Chances are, you're forgetting something, and you don't want to interrupt the flow of words while writing the novel to work on some detail you've neglected. For stories taking place on other worlds or imaginary realms, maps help too; you need to know where different places are in relation to each other, and you won't have Google Maps as a resource.
To be honest, sometimes the planning process works for me, and sometimes it doesn't. But failing to plan never works for me. If you were going to do this anyway, let this be your reminder; if not, maybe give it a shot? |
Right here on Writing.Com, we have an activity that helps you prep for your NaNo work:
This forum has been around for over a decade now, and the techniques and exercises are useful whether you're doing NaNo or not. Just remember, fantasy novels might take extra work - in some cases, a lot of extra work.
And now, some shorter works of fantasy:
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Fantasy: September 25, 2019 Issue [#9769]
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