Day Nine - Creating a Fantasy World

In yesterday's post I joked about my lack of research into fight scenes. That sort of thing, which is usually kept short and sweet, doesn't always need an incredible amount of detail to be believable. However, there are some things in fantasy novels that DO require detail in order to be believable. The biggest one is the general world in which the characters dwell.

Most of the first book is set in the tree-top town in which the protagonist has spent her entire life. There are complications to having a setting like this that do not occur in other fantasy worlds, such as Lord of the Rings or The Sword of Shannara. While the focus of the story is not exactly on survival, it is still an issue that looms in the characters' backgrounds. How do people get by living in a place like this? Where do they get their food from? How do they make clothing? There are a lot of things that are limited by the sheer fact that these people do not farm.

I didn't get far in the story before running into these issues. What I did on my outline was create a list of questions that needed answers before I could continue. Here are a few:

Why were forest towns formed? 

Were the settlements sanctioned by the Leader?

How do people feed themselves?
 How do they clothe themselves?

Are they able to trade with the western farms during wartime?

I've spent quite a bit of time looking up information to answer some of these questions. First of all, I had to find out what kinds of animals are native to forests, and what animals could be domesticated in a forest environment. There were many answers to the first question, and few for the second. As I threw my hands up in despair, a friend asked, "Why don't you just make up something? It's your world, after all."

DING DING DING! I created a creature native to the Great Forest that is similar to a goat, but is claw-footed. It is able to climb the enormous trees and lives off a diet of mostly bark and leaves. It grows thick wooly fur in the winter months that can be shorn and made into yarn and cloth, and the females produce a slightly sour milk that can be drank or used to make cheese. That solved that problem.

Essentially, when creating a fantasy world, even though it is make believe, it still has to be believable to the reader. (Nobody is going to believe that the people living in the forest wander around wearing silk clothing unless a trade route has been established and mentioned.) So, in this kind of setting, it is sometimes useful to do a bit of background checking before writing. This being a fantasy novel, however, gives me a bit of extra leeway. When in doubt: make it up!