Fantasy and World Building

This past weekend, I gave a presentation on fantasy and world building at the Nebraska Writers Guild Fall Conference. This is my power point and as much of my random babblings about the topic that I can remember.

As much as I hate using Wikipedia, I found a fantastic line “[fantasy] differs from realistic fiction in that realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, where fantasy does not. Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature

Fantasy is one of the oldest, if not oldest genre of storytelling (Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Oddessy, creation myths, etc) although modern fantasy was born after the horrors of WWII. Tolkien and Lewis are attributed with really getting the genre going. Summary: Fantasy is a genre where the plot could not happen in real life.

Magic- elemental, herbs, incantations, crystals, magical objects, internal power
Special powers- mind reading, seeing the future, communicating with animals. Also found in superhero stories but different origins- mutated genes, radioactive spider bite, serum, etc. Fantasy- comes from family, spells, curses, etc.
Supernatural elements- Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, etc. also found in paranormal fiction (sub-genre under Horror). Lines between paranormal and fantasy started blurring about 20 years ago and lots of elements are crossing over.
Creatures- elves, dwarves, mer-people, centaurs, basilisks
Made up setting- can be in a made out town like Hogsmead which is in Scotland from Harry Potter or you can create a whole world like Middle Earth
Not all these elements are required for a story to be considered Fantasy, except magic. It is the element that ties the genre together.

 How many fantasy sub-genres are there? Over 50. It is a constantly changing genre- sub-genres are combining and new ones are being created. Many are very similar with very minute differences.

These are the major fantasy sub-genres, you can see some of them are combined. On the right are examples of each of the sub-genre. Tolkien is considered the father of High Fantasy while Robert E. Howard is considered the founder of sword and sorcery Fantasy with his Conan the Barbarian series.
Many books can be under multiple sub-genres, ex. Outlander- Historical/Portal (Portal is where the protagonist gets transported to a different world/time ex. Chronicles of Narnia, 10th Kingdom), also time travel romance which is a much-fought-over sub-genre because time travel is traditionally in Sci-Fi while romance also claims it; all over the place.
Harry Potter is low (fantasy that takes place in the real world, similar to urban fantasy) and young adult. Daughter of the Forest- high fantasy romance/fairy tale retelling (fairy tell is The Six Swans).

In fantasy, the writer is the master of the universe which is liberating and very daunting. Nobody can fact-check you because you created it, but you also have to make sure you explain everything well enough that the reader understands your story. Ex. If Nicholas Sparks says the protagonist walks into a high school basketball game, everybody knows what that looks, sounds, smells, tastes, and feels like. When Rowling introduced Quidditch, we didn't even know how to pronounce it. She had to go the extra mile to clearly explain how it was played, what it looked like, and what it felt like to play.
Our world sucks sometimes, reading and writing fantasy is a great way to escape that because the problems that occur in fantasy are different from our own.

Good vs. Evil is a very common theme across the entire fantasy genre which I think is amazing because you're taking one of the most human struggles and applying it to fantastical creatures and places.

Extra words! A standard fiction novel is usually between 80,000-100,000 words. You get extra words when you have to create worlds. :)
You will rarely find a stand-alone fantasy novel. Usually in trilogies but the series can go on forever. Outlander has approximately 87 books while Diskworld has around 192 (slight exaggerations may happen).
Don't get so caught up in the fantasy elements that you abandon the elements of good storytelling: plot, conflict, well-rounded realistic characters, and character development.
Nebula awards are give every year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for excellence in sci-fi and fantasy, different categories: novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, etc. I want one.

World building is creating the setting where your fantasy story takes place. In urban/low fantasy you have to figure out how to twine your fantasy world into the real world or you could go full Tolkien and create a whole world.

I have read a wide range of fantasy but I have, by no means, read the entire range of fantasy (50+ sub-genres, remember), but in my opinion, these are the best world buildings in the genre.
C.S. Lewis- Narnia
J.R.R. Tolkien- Middle Earth
J.K. Rowling- Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts
George R.R. Martin- Westeros
Terry Pratchett- Diskworld

 I'm a writer, not an artist. Please don't make fun of my map. I know it's terrible.
Geography- mountains, rivers, jungle, grasslands, tundra, etc. and corresponding climates.
Creatures:
Intelligent- elves, dwarves, humans, centaurs, etc. (have language, culture, civilization)
Unintelligent- horses, dogs, cats, unicorns, etc.
Line crossers- horse that can talk from The Horse and his Boy (Lewis)
Culture- etiquette & taboos, courtship rituals, economy (important because it helps dictate how your world looks, poor economy-mud huts, good economy-marble palaces), medicine (herbs, man-made, magic), clothing, food
Religion- involved gods (Percy Jackson, anything by David & Leigh Eddings) or uninvolved gods
Language- do all the species have their own or is there a common language that everybody uses
Cause & Effect- what happened in the world to make all hell break lose (where your book is)

Or need to (protagonist sneaking through the sewers to get to the castle/ traveling to find a magic thing on roads or wandering through the wilderness)

Do:
Make it as real as possible- this will make it more relateable to your reader and they will be engaged more. Usually, focus on making the characters realistic.
Usable- make sure your characters can function within the world, if it's too hard or too easy, it won't be interesting for the reader.
Don't:
Drown them in details- no info dumping at the beginning. Dole out details as the reader needs them to understand the story. Don't give them more details than they need.
Forget your own rules- will throw off the reader if the rules change in the middle of the book.
worldbuildingmonthly.com is a great website to go to if you need help with world building.

This is what the people in my presentation came up for the preliminary steps of world building. I thought it was fantastic and a good start to a very interesting world.