Fantasy Settings Around the World

Typically, when I think of the setting of fantasy books, the image that comes to mind is medieval: girls in long dresses, curses, castles, dragons, dungeons…you get the picture. But fantasy settings can actually span the whole course of history, plus some more. In fact, the settings that you draw inspiration from in creating your fantasy world can be any culture and any time in history.

 So before you decide to stick with tradition, why don’t you take a look at the wide range of possible settings that fantasy has to offer. Here’s a list of the pros & cons of fantastic times and places to get your imagination fired up.

1. Medieval

• 
  Examples: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, Eragon by Christopher Paolini, Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan, most books by Robin McKinley

• Pros: Lots of traditions and ideas in literature to draw on. Plenty of examples to study. Also, the medieval setting is perfect for fairy tales with their usual delightful magic.

• Cons: can be very, very, very extremely cliché. You can exploit these clichés, as Patricia C. Wrede did in her hilariously witty Enchanted Forest Chronicles. However, if your story is the same old-same old that readers have read so many times before, they might get rather bored.

2. Arabian

• 
  Examples: Castle in the Air (part of Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle series), The Book of Wonders by Jasmine Richards

• Pros: much less cliché than a medieval fantasy. Plenty of atmosphere.

• Cons: needs careful research. Also, since Arabian culture is so tied to Islamic culture, there may be religious complications or overtones in your setting. Plus, you’re pretty much forced to use a genie or two.

3. Oriental

• 
  Examples: Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (Mongolian fantasy), Eon (which I don’t recommend, incidentally, but it is an example of Oriental-style fantasy)

• Pros: very unique, even more than Arabian. Works well with dragons and the color red.

• Cons: Again, it does require some research to make it seem authentically Oriental. Plus, again, the major religions of either Buddhism or ancestor worship really clash with the Christian worldview and faith.

4. Egyptian

• 
  Examples: Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan (which are technically modern fantasies, but they’re the closest I could think of to Egyptian)

• Pros: As with Oriental fantasy, it’s very unique—so unique I couldn’t even think of a true example of one. Plus, those pyramids are just begging for fantastic explanations, right?

• Cons: Again, there’s the Ancient Egyptian religion to deal with. It’s a very messy mythology that doesn’t really make sense, but a book set in Egypt without Egyptian mythology seems incomplete.

5. Ancient Greek/Roman

• 
  Examples: Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan (again, technically modern fantasy, but with a few elements of the ancient settings as well)

• Pros: Once again, it’s unusual and not entirely cliché, although it does seem like Ancient Greece has been done a lot. Personally, I think it would be fascinating to take just a few elements from this time period—togas, for example—and insert them into a medieval fantasy world just to see the damage they’d cause.

• Cons: It requires research, of course, just like most other settings. And as with Egyptian fantasy, there’s a whole load of mythology to deal with and explain or eradicate (which also begs the question, can/should Christians write a non-Christian mythology? But maybe more on that question in my next post).

6. Other Historical Time Periods

• 
  Examples: Peter’s Angel by Aubrey Hansen (soon-to-be-released, set in a fantasy setting that’s much like the American Revolution), The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (a beautiful book written in flowing old style set in mid-1800s England), The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb (ties in the Russian Revolution and WWI)

• Pros: Tons of freedom to explore elements of history and setting from any time in history that strikes your fancy, whether Aztecs and Incas or African legends or Indian tales or WWII-era fantasy. If you can dream it, you can write it. Sweet deal, right?

• Cons: The more obscure the time period you use, the less people will be familiar with it and the more you’ll have to research and carefully explain everything.

7. Modern/Crossover

• 
  Examples of Modern-only: Percy Jackson series (see above), Raising Dragons by Bryan Davis, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott, The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

• Examples of Crossover: Chronicles of Narnia, Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke

• Pros: not as much research involved and less explanation required. Much easier for modern readers to relate to modern characters in a modern world.

• 
  Cons: Let’s face it: these two types of fantasy have been done over and over again. They’re almost as popular as medieval fantasy, if not more so. Still, popularity has its reasons, so even though it’s cliché it’s a popular cliché.

• Tip: If you’d like to write modern fantasy, try setting your story in an unusual but modern setting, like what Susan Cooper did by setting her Dark is Rising series in Scotland. That added a lot of atmosphere and character to her stories that many other modern fantasies lack.

8. A Whole New World

• 
  Examples: Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, The Lord of the Rings (although it does stem from medieval fantasy in some ways), A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

• Pros: You get to create your own world, unconnected from any culture on earth! What could be more exciting for a writer than pure world-creation?

• Cons: You have to create a whole entire world. Isn’t that a little much to ask of a mere human? Shouldn’t we leave world-building to God? Theological questions aside, creating a cohesive and non-cliché world is a huge task, so don’t start on it lightly. It’s often easier to take a certain time or place as a starting point and build from there rather than creating from scratch.

Since we’re talking about fantasy, it’s impossible to summarize all possible settings in one post. So why don’t you share your story’s setting, plus any inspirations you may have gotten from historical times and places. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Are you a Planner or a Pantser?

Do you have stacks of plot cards neatly printed and piled according to color-code on your desk? Or do you sit down on the couch, grab your computer, and think, "What am I going to write today?" Find out whether you are a planner, a planner-who-pants, a pantser-who-plans, or a pantser in today's quiz.

1. What time of day do you like to write?
a) before breakfast
b) after breakfast/after lunch
c) before dinner
d) the late hours of the night

2. You're stuck. You...
a) go back to your plot outline to figure out what went wrong
b) brainstorm a list of ideas and pick your favorite
c) call a writer friend and chat about your story
d) keep writing but add a dragon to make the story more interesting

3. What do you write with/on?
a) computer
b) ipad (for all you hipsters out there)
c) spiral notebook
d) looseleaf paper

4. You have a brilliant new story idea about a girl who travels in time and meets Galileo. (Your current story is a fantasy.) What do you do?
a) leave it - you've got your hands full already
b) write it down in your ideas notebook, but save it for after you've finished writing your current story
c) come up with a plot outline, then promise yourself you won't touch it until you're finished
d) sit down and start writing it now

5. Your main character is stuck in a dungeon without food or water. How do you get him/her out?
a) escape by means of the main character's lock-picking skills (as introduced in chapter 3)
b) research "ways to escape a dungeon" on Google, and pick the one you like best
c) add a dragon to the mix and see how your main character reacts
d) let your characters solve their own problems. They have to grow up someday, right?

Results

Mostly As: A Planner

You're a confirmed and stereotypical planner. Embrace your organized, think-things-through-in-advance self! It can be quite an asset to your writing when you know what happens in advance; plus, it frees you up to churn out large chunks of draft at once. However, remember not to be afraid to think outside the box.

Mostly Bs: A Planner-Who-Pants

Your basic underlying philosophy is planning. You want to work things out in advance. You want a roadmap for your story. However, there are plenty of times when you forget the plan or else you forget to plan, at which point you may pant along cheerfully for a while. This particular writing style has a nice balance of structure and spontaneity, but it can sometimes lead to an imbalanced story where some parts seem tightly connected while others appear random and unrelated.

Mostly Cs: A Pantser-Who-Plans

While similar to the planner-who-pants, in this particular writing style your underlying structure is that of pantsing. You start without a plan. When you sit down to write, you don't usually have anything but rough ideas in your head. However, you will occasionally write your ideas down before you begin writing the story or while you're writing or even after you've finished writing. Mostly spontaneous yet partly planned, this style of writing, too, has a nice flexibility to it plus a free flow of ideas, some fabulous and some...less so. As with the planner-who-pants, your story may appear unconnected in places, and you may have too many ideas all at once (that's where planning comes in handy).

Mostly Ds: A Pantser

You probably know this already, but you're a pantser. Your notes may be scribbled on the back of receipts (or else in your head). Your story may have morphed about five times already. Your main character has probably changed genders twice now. This gives a lot of freedom to your story, but be warned: it's easy to lose the essence of your plot and characters in the whirlwind of ideas.

The Joy of Books

I discovered this brilliant video through some friends from GoTeenWriters. It's a stop-motion film titled "The Joy of Books." For those of you who love books as much as I do -- and even for those who don't -- you're sure to enjoy the cute and fantastic world of books in this video.

By the way, if you're wondering why today's post is a bit light on content, that's because I'm currently away on a mission trip to Japan. Best wishes to everyone from the land of cherry blossoms!

How to Deal with Criticism

For all American Idol Fans :)

We all get it: “Your story is pretty interesting, but I hate the ending.” Or, “Your characters don’t seem real. In fact, they’re quite cliché.” Or even, “I fell asleep in the first five pages.” As writers, criticism is a part of life. Let’s face it: not everyone is going to love your story. So what do you do? Here are a few suggestions on dealing with criticism.

1. Cry and eat chocolate (in moderation). 

• There’s nothing wrong with feeling bad about getting negative feedback—in fact, it’s perfectly normal. So don’t be afraid to be disappointed. One caution, though: don’t wallow in your misery. Have a cry, eat a bit of chocolate, then move on.

2. Talk to someone supportive, who can remind you what you loved about your story.

• Sometimes criticism can blind us to our story and make us think that the whole thing is rubbish or that we should scrap all of it. But remember, just because you received negative comments doesn’t mean the entire story is trash-worthy. So instead of throwing it out, talk to someone who likes your story and get your passion for the story back.

3. Distract your mind from your writing by doing something entirely different. 

• Paint a portrait of your puppy. Plant petunias. Practice piano. Bake scones (and send me some!). Learn to knit or crochet. Do something productive, but make sure it’s not related to your writing.

4. Don’t look at or think about the criticism for at least a few days to a week. 

• Give yourself time to sleep on the feedback. During that time, don’t go near your writing. Don’t read it, don’t edit it, and definitely don’t throw it away. Just let it hibernate for a week or so.

5. Use the criticism! 

• Once you’ve waited a few days and occupied your mind with other things, you’re ready to return to your story with fresh eyes. Read the criticism and see where it might be true. Then edit your story using the feedback. Make sure you keep a spare copy of the original version, in case you don’t care for something you’ve edited.

• Honestly, although it’s difficult to edit something that we’re in love with, this step is the most crucial for the growth and improvement of your story. For myself, I’ve found that when I accept feedback and radically alter something I’ve written, it always comes out much stronger. Sure, it’s tough hearing your work criticized as “vague” or “flowery” (I’ve gotten both), but by the end of the editing process, I hope that you will be able to see that the criticism really helped propel your writing to the next level.

The hardest type of criticism to deal with is outright rejection without any reasons being given. If you don’t have any comments to work with, then follow steps 1-3 and then try to analyze your story by looking for weak parts that might have led to the rejection.

Criticism is tough. Still, I’ve found that it’s one of the most helpful and necessary steps in any writing. I’ve even grown to enjoy it over the years. What about you—is there anything you like about criticism? How do you deal with rejection?

From the Pixar film "Ratatouille"

Market Research - What? How?

Market research means gathering information about a particular category of products—in our case, information about books in the genre that we want to publish. It’s scouting out the opposition, so to speak. Here are 3 suggested steps for conducting market research for your story. Pay close attention to the questions in step 3—they’re the meat of this post.

1. Identify the genre of your book.

• Are you writing young adult fantasy or thrillers? Mysteries or chick-flicks? Picture books or poetry? Dystopian? Scifi? Steampunk? Whatever it is that you write, try to identify its niche (or, in the case of a cross-genre book, identify the two or three closest genres).

2. Look at bestseller lists and select the top 5-10 most popular books in your genre.

• For this step, the more books you identify and the closer they are to your story the better. However, only pick as many books as you have time to read and study. Whether or not you’re planning to self-publish, be sure to gather a sample from the top self-published books in your genre.

3. Read the top books you picked and study them using the following questions.

• First, read them just for the entertainment value. Notice the places that make you laugh or pull on your emotional heartstrings. See if the ending satisfies you or leaves you hanging.

• Then, take a closer look at the components of the book: are the characters male or female? What’s their age group? Their profession? Their goals and dreams? What about the characters’ names—are they strange alien names with numbers, old-fashioned Dorothy and Maude, or something new and quirky?

• Next, what about the plot of the book—is it fast-paced or slow-moving? Does it end abruptly? Is the villain vanquished in the end, or does he/she survive to fight another day?

• What about the setting—where does the story take place? What details made the setting feel compelling or vivid to you? Was there a sense of being enveloped a new world?

• Take a look at the details of the formatting of the book: how long are the chapters, roughly? Are they specially formatted? What sort of titles do they have? Is the book divided into parts? What typeface does the book use? What colors are in the cover, and does it feature a person or art or computer-designed graphics?

• Is it part of a series or a stand-alone book? If it’s in a series, how many books are there in the series?

• In what media are the books available—libraries? Bookshops? Amazon.com? Smashwords/other online ebook stores? Were the majority traditionally published? For self-published books, how successful were they? If you have access to information on how these books were advertised, pay close attention to that and take notes.

You can also repeat steps 2-3 with books that weren’t in the bestseller category, this time asking “What prevented this book from being a bestseller?” and “What did these books do that the bestsellers didn’t, and vice versa?”

One last caveat: your goal for your writing might not be to write and publish an incredibly popular bestselling book. In that case, you’ll need to re-define “success”: does it mean being a bestselling author? Does it mean being less popular but receiving rave reviews from everyone who reads your book? Once you’ve set your goals, look for books that have achieved what you want to achieve (preferably in your genre). Then, using those books, ask the questions in step 3.

Now for you: have you done market research before? Any interesting results? Any tips or advice for those just starting out?

Costs & Benefits of Self-Publishing

At one point or another, most of us will face the question that could determine the path of our writing career: “Should I try to publish traditionally or self-publish?” Right now, I’m debating about that question myself, so in today’s blog post I’ll consider the costs and benefits of self-publishing. Of course, every writer’s journey is different, and what works for some may not work for others. With that in mind, here we go.

Costs of Self-Publishing

• Lack of credibility. This is the single greatest drawback to self-publishing: when someone asks you, “So I hear you’re a published author?” you’ll have to reply, “Yes, I self-published.” And then you’ll hear the inevitable, “Oh. Then your book must not be that great.”

• Marketing yourself. While this is a drawback in that it takes more effort, energy, and boldness on your part, it also leaves room for a lot of freedom for you. You can market yourself however you want to. Additionally, keep in mind that most traditionally published authors are expected to market themselves to a great extent.

• Need for a certain amount of technical knowledge and connections to graphic designers, ebook formatters, etc. To be perfectly honest, self-publishing takes a bit of expertise—not that much, but a bit. I’d recommend finding a mentor who’s done it before to guide you through the process.

• Bearing the expenses yourself. It shouldn’t be that expensive—depending on whether you advertise at all and how much you pay for the graphic designer and other features—but you’ll still be paying out-of-pocket. And, sad to say, it might take a very long time before the profit accumulates enough to cover even a portion of your costs.

• Not as much editorial guidance. In traditional publishing, you’ll work with a professional editor to make sure your manuscript is truly the best it can be. With self-publishing, though, you need to find your own test-readers and line-editors and any other feedback that you need.

• No advance. I know most of us are not in it for the profit, but still…the thought of a nice tidy sum to reward all that hard work seems pretty beguiling. However, just to warn you, most advances for new authors are not that substantial anyway – especially when combined with positively feeble royalty rates (amounting to just a few percent per copy sold).

Benefits of Self-Publishing

• Control of elements like the cover, the title, the plot, the characters, the publication date, and so on. In fact, when you self-publish, you get to control absolutely everything. No more boring (or worse, completely mistaken) cover disasters here!

• A large percentage of the profit. Compared with miniscule royalty rates in traditional publishing, when you self-publish, you get most of the profit (even 80% or more).

• No waiting on others—the responsibility for progress is in your hands. This is both a scary thought and a motivating one. It's up to you.

• No need to wait for months or years of anxious querying to secure an agent and then have to face another round of months or years to secure a publisher.

• You can market your book however you want to, whenever you want to.

• Self-publishing is very flexible for length and genre of the book. If you have an out-of-the-box story that might not sell in traditional publishing, try self-publishing.

• All the rights. Forever. This includes the rights to sequels, to individual characters, and, yes, to movies.

Of course, there are many more considerations in self-publishing; this list is just the tip of the iceburg (to use a cliche). If you're interested in reading more on the subject, I found Aubrey Hanson's article about self-publishing very helpful.

What about you--what do you think are the greatest drawbacks and/or blessings of self-publishing?

All pictures courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.

It's All in the Details

The details you use in your story could be the most important part of your writing, because they are what brings your story alive to the reader. Without physical details, we wouldn’t know that Harry wears round spectacles or that Mr. Tumnus carries an umbrella.

To illustrate my point, let me show you a few examples. Which of the following makes the scene come to life in your mind’s eye?

A girl and a man walked down the street.

Or:

Two people walked down the sidewalk along Main Street: a little girl with serious brown bangs over her eyes and a middle-aged man, his charcoal suit hanging on him lopsidedly.

Or:

A 5-year-old girl wearing a floaty pink dress, her blue eyes wide, held her father’s hand as he led her down the cobblestone street of Paris, past Nicholas Flamel’s house.

In both of these latter versions, we can see the people and the place much more clearly. It would be even more clear if we could add another sentence describing the sensations of taste or sound or touch or smell that the two were feeling. In other words, the subtle placement of physical details in all five senses is the key to bringing your writing to life.

Easier said than done, right? Wrong! Here are some obvious places to inject more details into your writing:

1. In Names

We’ve been talking a lot about names the past few weeks (here, here, and here). Well, that’s because they’re so important—in real life, when we meet someone new, we typically learn their name. It should be the same in writing. Names are the one universal part of human experience. So use them!

2. In Character Descriptions

Introduce new characters by giving us more than just hair color/eye color. Sure, their physical appearance is important, but as someone once told me, “You don’t choose to be pretty. You’re born that way. It’s what you do with your looks that counts.”

So, in the same way, go beyond a character’s looks and focus on a key detail like a favorite concert t-shirt or the Beats headphones and pink iPod a character incessantly uses. Doing so makes that character come to life as a multidimensional person. For fantasy, use the wooden carved necklace a hunter never takes off or the moon-white earring of an assassin or the curved scars on a princess’ cheek. All of these little details can cut to the core of the personality of your character in seconds.

3. In Setting

Introduce each new setting using a minimum of two senses (usually sight would be essential). That means every time you have a new scene or your characters go to a new place or even enter a car, you should take a few seconds to describe the white leather lining of the seats, the peeling aqua paint, the smell of Chinese takeout lingering in the baby’s car seat. Let the place become real in your mind’s eye, then describe it so your readers can be engulfed by your story.

4. In Dialogue

Pepper your dialogue with gestures and descriptions. Make your characters interact with the setting: have your cleanliness-obsessed astronomer fiddle with her bottle of sanitation gel. Let your Rangers move around, checking that the horses are saddled properly, that the sentries are distracted.

Also, give your characters habitual gestures and hand motions to illustrate their speech—make your evil villain’s sidekick have a nervous habit of nodding, or maybe have your drama queen fiddle with her eyebrows when she’s nervous.

Whatever you do, add detail. Go back to each page of your writing and make sure you’ve added the necessary physical details so that, to your readers, your writing happens in a real place with real people. I guarantee you that you’ll learn a lot more about your story and your characters than you expect.

Can you think of any details you’ve read in stories lately that really stood out to you? Or what about in your own writing—written any cool details you’d like to share?

All photos courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.