I'm working on a new story idea, and since a lot of what I read is fantasy, I guess I just assumed that might be a good fit for me. I love my idea, and I think it could make a great book, but I find myself balking at creating this fantasy world. I have so many questions and I don't know how many of them need answers.
If there's magic in your story, is it a given, or do you need to know where the magic comes from?
How do people like Brandon Sanderson create an entire new world from scratch and make it feel so real? How much do I need to know about my world to create that kind of feeling?
What are the conventions of a fantasy that are an absolute must, like how there is usually a boy-meets-girl scene in a romance?
And even though I've done it before, I find myself wondering again how to get from a premise to a full blown plot. I'm trying the Snowflake Method again, by Randy Ingermanson. Premises are easy for me. Plot not so much.
But I'm excited to learn, so here we go again.
2 comments:
I think writing method is entirely individual, so I'm not sure anybody could really answer your questions, least of all under-experienced me. But I can tell you the two ways I get from premise to plot: go for a long walk on the mountain, or just sit down and start to write and see what comes out. Sometimes I do both. I never know where I'm going, and maybe that's a bad thing, but otherwise it always ends up feeling contrived and untrue. I have to write and write sometimes before my story tells me where it's going.
I heard one author say that before she can find her plot, she has to know her setting absolutely. She digs and researches and travels until she's sure of her place. Then she picks a character and puts him in the setting and the story takes off. Something to think about. I'm sure there are as many ways as authors.
Thanks Elena. I guess I'm just wishing I were more of an outliner because I wrote my last book 3 times before I decided to scrap it and start over again. I probably just need to go back to seat-of-my-pants discovery writing for a while to figure it out.
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