Writing fantasy is not an easy task, especially considering that you will have to come up with a whole new world setup, new cultures, creative names and even dressing customs that haven’t been used before. The setting of your fantasy novel is not just for your main characters, but for the countless others who live there. You need to create a whole new world with new rules that are different from the world you are living in. Just simply stating the name of the place or the country will not be enough.

To help you out, here are some things that you should keep in your mind, especially when you want to build a concrete and believable world that engages your audience.

Tips for World Building for a Fantasy Novel

There is a time and place for everything, especially the setup of your fantasy novel. Sure, there is a certain pull towards setting your novel in a medieval era, writing an epic fantasy, but if you cannot do it justice, it is better that you don’t write it. It has become an overused trope and readers often roll their eyes every time one such novel hits the market. Try to think of something new, something different and something original to make it fresh.

Always do your research if you wish to base your fictional world on a certain culture. Doing a halfhearted job is not going to be enough, especially if you want your novel to be a success. It can be tempting to just start building your characters and plotting your story, but researching the time period and the culture is necessary. It will add depth to your story, enrich it and make your fantasy world believable. In this way, you will be able to pick the most important aspect of the world, keep it open for negotiation and easily ensure that readers are as engrossed in the story as you want them to be.

Trusting yourself, your abilities and your gut can be a little difficult in the beginning, but you have to do it. Trust yourself enough because you know where you want the story to go even if it does not look it at certain times. The worst-case scenario could be that you add too many details, but those can be removed or edited in the future. It is always better to have the details on the page and then cut them down to the size you want rather than having an unimaginative and bare world that appeals to no one.

It might be constricting, but only use your best ideas. It happens sometimes that authors have too many ideas for their fantasy world and they try to cram it all in, but that could be the worst thing for your story. Try to limit your use of ideas; only keep the ones that fit in with the story and its flow and keep the others tucked away for the future.

While you are building your fantasy world, make sure you give the world a history and a background. Your reader needs to know that the world existed somehow, that it had a history that mattered to the people and it somehow affects the characters. Without history, your fantasy world doesn’t even exist.