midenianscholar:

5 Fantasy Research Tips & Resources

Building a fantasy world is frankly one of the best parts of writing, if you ask me. You get to pull together all this eccentric stuff like Cornish mythology and breakfast tea and pirates and talking dogs and viola, somehow it meshes into this new exciting world. And the crazy thing is you get to do all this cool research, and then you can blow it out the window and dance to your own jazz! It’s your world, baby, so let’s build something.

But first, we’re going to have to…

1. Steal Stuff
The most successful fantasy worlds are based on the real world, or real world myths. Tolkien’s Middle Earth was inspired by Norse sagas and Anglo-Saxon culture and Narnia was very influenced by Greek mythology. Garth Nix’s fantasy series Abhorsen drew heavily on trench warfare in WWI. So when you set out to create a new world, have a look at things already exist, and see what you can steal.

Medieval England has been plundered neigh to death, so maybe have a think about other times, places, or legends. Or maybe try to take on Medieval England from a different angle. Add some shazam to that soup!

One recommendation I’d give you: Try your hardest to base your fantasy story on something that isn’t someone else’s fantasy books. I’m not going to name names, but you can really tell when someone has just ripped off of Lord of the Rings. (Hint: It is called dragon but one of the letters is changed. You’ll never guess!)

Some fun places to look for inspiration: SurLaLune Fairytales, Planet Earth (that really long documentary your grandma likes), and ye local library.

2. Name Stuff
I find it really hard to brainstorm when I don’t have any names in place. So it’s time to name ALL the things! (Okay, not all of them, but all the really important stuff. Like countries.) I have been and always will be a fan of Behind the Name (and its cousin, Behind the Surname), where you can spend literal hours trolling through names. With fantasy, you might or might not want to change a letter or two, but for the uncreative or uninspired this is a good jumping point.

Keep in mind the sound of the names you choose. You may not be up for all-out language creation (see below), but you should try to think about what your character/country names sound like. For instance, it might be a little hard to believe that characters named Alfarsi, Freud, Victor, and Dayo are all from a country called Leesong (unless Leesong is a super diverse country full of immigrants, in which case that’s totally cool).

If real names are getting you down, you might want to take yourself to my two BFFs: Oxford English Dictionary Online or Online Etymology Dictionary. The OED is a blessed place of glory and beauty, but it is also not free (unless you’re still using your college login information long after you graduated I mean haha what). Ety is free, but not as thorough. (However, it is arguably easier to browse if you’re just mindlessly trolling for words.)

Last but not least, this is a good article on Writer’s Digest about what to do/not do when you’re making names.

3. Make Maps
I’m going to cheat on this and just give you guys the link to a master post that’s far more thorough than I have space to be: The Whole Map on Tumblr.

In case you don’t want to read that for some reason: Maps are important. You need maps to know where specifically your characters are moving and how far stuff is. If you hate the very thought of making a map, con one of your friends into doing it for you. (Hey, it worked for me!)

If you don’t need a full-scale country map, make a map of your characters’ environment. If it’s a boarding school, make floor plans (you can even use this handy floor plan builder). If it’s a ship, make ship plans. Do the thing! It will help with choreography, trust me.

4. Make Style-Guides
Take thineself to Pinterest and make a style guide (or take up thine glue stick and turn on thine printer). Then gather costume images from around the web, pick colors if you’d like (characters color favorites and/or country/flag colors), and paste them together (or post them on a Pinterest board) to create your characters’ unique wardrobes. Believe or not, the clothes your characters wear, and the material those clothes are made out of, says a lot about both the character and the world.

Other (non-Pinterest) places to look: Costumer’s Guide to Movie Costumes, National Costumes of the World (25 of them, anyway), and Costume Institute at the Met.

5. Make Traditions
In some ways, this goes back to #1: Steal stuff. Look at our real-world traditions and give some thought to how you can adapt them to your fantasy setting. What sort of music does your culture listen to? How do they dance? When does the new year start, and how do they celebrate it? Do they have a religion, and how is it observed?

Holidays and traditions should highlight what the cultures of your world value, and they can also be fun opportunities for showing off your characters and their beliefs.

(READ ON FOR THE BONUS RESOURCE. Or don’t. Whatever pleases you.)