Building a magical fantasy world...

So I've decided to attempt a character-driven story set in a magical fantasy world... but how do you build a magical fantasy world that is both compelling and uniquely yours? How do you weave in fantasy tropes (magical trinkets, a perilous quest, etc.) without unwittingly copying everything that's come before?

Brandon Sanderson talks about how The Lord of the Rings changed the landscape of fantasy literature forever—and perhaps not for the better:

[Tolkien's] work was so revolutionary that the market couldn't deal with it. Readers wanted more books like LotR, but other authors weren't ready to produce high fantasy yet. The only thing they could do was try and do what Tolkien did.

But they didn't do what Tolkien did. They didn't create a new world, with its own mythology, its own society, its own technology, its own races and creatures. This wasn't their fault—they just weren't ready to jump to that level. So instead they applied their considerable creativity toward copying Tolkien. Instead of creating true high fantasy, everyone created more low fantasy—but they used Tolkien's world as a base instead of our own. The result was a kind of tainting of the entire genre, a 'Tolkienizing.' Fantasy didn't mean 'the genre where the author creates his or her own unique setting.' It meant 'the genre where the books include elves, dwarfs, wizards, and quests.'

(Link to the rest here.)

Well, crud. And conversely, if I am going to build an entire fantasy setting that's uniquely mine, owing nothing to Tolkien et al.... where do I start? The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America has a great series of fantasy worldbuilding questions to ask yourself... but now there's the threat of being overwhelmed by the scope of this thing before I've even written one word. For example:

• How are the continents laid out? If there is more than one moon/sun, how does this affect winds, tides, and weather generally?
• How much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?
• Is the axial tilt and orbit the same — i.e., does the world have the same seasons and same length of year as Earth?

I could of course just start writing the story and figure out these details later, but that's going to make for some tough writing.

Have you tried to build a magical fantasy world? If so, what was the experience like for you? What were some helpful things to keep in mind?

Comments

[Ellen]

I have experimented with urban fantasy, which means that you can keep the present day and then make up a cosmology/mythology that is operating at the same time. Takes the pressure off. But a magical fantasy world from scratch is impossible. So you just have to make it interesting. How many stories have you read about two people falling in love? A million, give or take, right? It's the writing, the characters, and the ideas surrounding it that make it still interesting.

All of this is to say: I have no idea.

[Brandon]

Very good idea, Ellen. I've also considered doing an "our world"/"their world" magic portal thingy, but then of course I'd still have to build a magical fantasy world in addition to tweaking our world... :-P

[Nick Fox]

Really interesting post, and I enjoyed reading the rest of Sanderson's article. That being said, it seems like you should stay off of that website with a million questions, knowing what you know about your penchant for not starting until everything is sorted out. ;)

To second what was said above, the characters matter more than the tilt of the moon. You can always write in a dwaft and then change him to some other crazy species later. One caveat: it seems figuring out the magic system is KEY, and this is one thing I'd have in my head before beginning, especially if that plays with gods, demons, etc.

[Brandon]

Thanks, Nick! And solid advice re: figuring out just enough to start and not so much that I never do—I absolutely adore setting traps like these for myself. :-P For the magic system, I know that I'd like it to be either rare or widely unknown, and thus a big deal when it does happen. But I'm still muddling through the rest...