Creative Writing in Fantasy

Have you ever wanted to write fantasy, but perhaps did not know where to begin? Then this is the article for you. By the time you finish reading, you will know enough to write your first fantasy story.

Writing fantasy is making an impractical idea into a reality in the mind of your reader. It is using your imagination to find its deepest creative power. It is the ability to visualize things and places you have never seen. What a vast and exciting realm that opens!

Begin by freeing your mind of everything that is real and tangible. Escape this world of gravity and float beyond the ties of places and time. What do you see? Purple beings with six snouts and wings? A planet completely engulfed in water with underworld cities? An atmosphere where the inhabitants breathe gas and explode when they reach maturity? Fantasy is the place of no bounds, no limits - the place where anything is possible.

When you get your first vision of a new world or new life, go to the next step. What characters are in this world? What problems do they encounter? How will they solve the problems?

Remember that your characters must be three-dimensional, even in fantasy. You must have a physical description in mind. How do they typically act and what is out of the ordinary for them?

How do they communicate? How do they move from place to place? Do they fly? Slither? Swim? Waddle? Can they function on their own, or are they dependent on something else for life? Are your characters supposed to be royalty? Are they prisoners? Are they heading up a revolution? How intelligent are they? Do you want to involve some kind of magic? Is it a story of good versus evil? You must know all of this before you can advance your plot.

Take the time to write down fifty things about each of two main characters and the world they live in. What do the inhabitants eat? What things are unacceptable in their world? What is their vocation?

Now decide what your overall story is about - not just the middle conflict scene. The middle climactic scene is called the plot. The meaning in the overall story is the theme, so what will your theme be? Slithering lizards battling dinosaurs over human prey? Colliding worlds that give birth to a new planet?

When you have answered all of these questions to your own satisfaction, begin writing the middle conflict scene of the story. Next, write the ending. (You need not connect them just yet.) By that time you will know what needs to be in the beginning of the story to round it out fully. Develop that last. And finally, connect the three scenes.

This is called the DeBowen system of developing a story and it's very easy. If you will write your story in this order, everything will fall into place naturally, and that which you have only imagined will become a reality.