[Shared Ellipsus Blog] Fantasy Worldbuilding, by Heather Sykes
A Fresh Blog On Fantasy Worldbuilding, Shared From Ellipsus
I’m sharing this blog post, written by Ellipsus guest blogger Heather Sykes. It’s a blog on fantasy worldbuilding, providing hints and tips.
I want to write more about Ellipsus here on my blog.
https://ellipsus.com/blog/writing-fantasy-worlds-tips
Summary
Tip 1: Let your readers live in your world (and make their own choices)
In other words, “What would I do in this world?”
Your worlds should be living things, to interact with and to be interacted with in return.
Tip 2: Use immersion anchors
Create an aspect of the fantasy world which adds depth; something to keep the readers, or players, in that world.
Examples include the Shek-Pvar schools of magic in Columbia Games’ Harnworld, and the multiple parallels of the Luther Arkwright setting.
Tip 3: Multi-dimensional world building is a must
Make your world multi-faceted. There should be many perspectives. Your protagonist offers on perspective - but there could be antagonists out there, and incidental characters, and each of them brings their own dimension, their own facets, to the setting.
Tip 4: Let there be mysteries!
Or at least a mystique. If your fantasy is a romance, at least one of the protagonists must have a little mystique to them - something withheld until you’ve got something else to replace it.
The blog post, over on the Ellipsus site, has more to offer. Go and read it. I’ll be writing my own post on writing fantasies, inspired by a number of different sources. Let’s just say that it’s about time we moved away from chainmail, swords, wizards, dragons, quests, and death squads raiding and looting dark, seedy basement real estate.