Time for a pop quiz! (Just for fun, to get you thinking. No right answers, and, sadly, no prizes awarded.)
1. Name your main character's preferred shoes
a) leather wrapped and tied with thongs
b) silk dancing slippers
c) Hobbit feet
d) iron-reinforced heavy-duty knightly boots
e) no shoes
f) other
2. What's the main difference between guy/girl shoes in your world?
a) size of the shoe (wrong answer!)
b) color (forest-green vs. lilac purple)
c) style (open-toe, high-heeled, boot, etc.)
d) function (fighting, dancing, etc.)
e) fabric (metal, leather, silk, "exotic" materials, etc.)
f) other
3. Your villain is shoe-shopping. What shoes does he/she buy?
a) the newly-released super-expensive black diamond Sultan Cushioned Supreme 2000x
b) iron studded Sauron armor boots with genuine flames on the sides
c) invisible ninja slippers
d) dragonscale-reinforced riding boots
e) sadistic fairy-dust shoes made for crushing and pounding, in style
f) other
4. So you've got a lot of fantastic creatures in your world. What's your most fantastic footwear option?
a) mer-fin slippers, especially good for swimming
b) dwarf-beard-hair woven shoes--practically indestructible
c) a glass slipper, excellent for dancing with Prince Charming
d) 100-league boots that cause extreme nausea, granted unwillingly by the Faerie Queen
e) chameleon shoes made from fibers that bend to look and feel exactly like the surroundings. By special order only.
f) other
Tally your score and...go write! :)
I hope that mini-quiz only served to spark your interest in your fantasy world's footwear. This is one of the most neglected elements when writing a fantasy world, so there's plenty of room to be original.
Your "exercise," if you'd like one, is to go back and look at a character description your wrote (whether in the story or in your notes) and include a description of the character's shoes. Is he/she wearing any? If so, what do they look like? What is their purpose? Use the ideas above, as well as the pictures below, as a launching pad for your dreaming.
