Fire-breathing, winged lizards have long been one of the mainstays of fantasy novels. Dragons have been part of many a mythical world and will probably continue to become so as more and more writers build upon the popularity of recent fantasy offerings in books, film, and television. Here is a brief guide to help aspiring writers to easily integrate draconic beings into their own fantasy novels.

Origins

A good writer knows how to keep a fantasy species' history obscure enough to tease readers while giving just enough to ensure that they become an integrated part of the fantasy world's lore. Dragons can have a multitude of possible origin stories. An easy way to introduce them is as part of a fantasy world's origin myth, or as the pinnacle of a world's evolutionary tree. In a fantasy setting, dragons can be a product of magic, science, nature, or any other pervading force in the world.

Biology

Delving into the anatomy and physiology of fantastic beings has long been an interest of mine and I assume that most readers would also love to know more about the biological aspects of dragons. Writers should be able to make readers answer several important questions through the course of a novel or a series in order to fully flesh out how dragons fit into the natural world. Dragon anatomy should be described as clearly but as stylishly as possible, so that readers would have a sense of how large or small these creatures are. The use of wings, the mechanism to breathe fire and the general structure of a dragon's body are all things that writers should never fail to touch upon. Writers can even play around with the concept of dragons. In any fantasy novel, nothing is off-limits to the author: one can have a world's dragon be of mammalian descent, breathe ice instead of fire, or burrow in the ground instead of fly. When it comes to dragons and their analogues, the possibilities are endless. Dragon intelligence and behavior should also be delved into to make a novel's dragons stand out from all the other dragons in the myriad fantasy books that have been and will be written.

Limitations

An overpowered mythical being would do more harm than good to a fantasy novel. Although in most books, dragons are the apex predators and are considered world-shattering beings, it is always a good idea for writers to provide a counterpoint to a dragon's prowess. Limitations, be it a weakness main characters can exploit to bring a dragon down or a means for the author to make sure the entire fantasy world won't end up being a dragon's play place, must be put in place to make sure a dragon's role in the novel is well defined.

Dragons are fun mythical beings to include in any fantasy novel. It is the duty of any writer to make sure that their use of dragons is unique enough to set their novel apart, yet familiar enough that readers of fantasy novels would find comfort in knowing that in this world, there are dragon or dragon analogues that exist.