Writing Realistic Fantasy

Writing realistic fantasy? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of fantasy? At first, it definitely sounds like it does. Yet with any story, there needs to be some semblance of realism.

In writing fantasy, we’re already expecting the reader to have a willing suspension of disbelief, but going too far with that can be detrimental to keeping the reader's attention. So today we will be going over a few ways to write believable and realistic fantasy.

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Willing Suspension of Disbelief

First, let’s go over what willing suspension of disbelief is. Suspension of disbelief, sometimes called willing suspension of disbelief, is the avoidance of critical thinking or logic in examining something unreal or impossible in reality, such as a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for the sake of enjoyment.

How can this be used in writing? Well in fantasy, readers will already be going into the story with some amount of this, but it is up to the writer to keep it up throughout the story.

How might one do this? The main way is through worldbuilding. Through creating consistent laws and rules as to why things such as magic work will keep the reader believing in the story. In short, don’t just explain things by simply saying magic, stay consistent in the limitations and rules of the magic of your story.

Worldbuilding

It is important to develop your fantasy world either before writing or during editing to make it more realistic and believable. Starting off by creating the arts of rules and regulations the world works by.

How does the world work? What is its history? What kinds of people and creatures exist within this world? Are any considered rarer than others? If the world is magical, is it rare to use magic? Difficult? What are the effects of using magic? Answer questions like this and stick to them throughout the story. There of course can be exceptions if you allow it, but breaking the rules you’ve set in this world makes the world unbelievable and unrealistic.

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Use Reality as Inspiration

Many things, in reality, can help to inspire fantasy stories, history is the main thing used to help writers with fantasy. Using the research of history and many cultures in the world can help you to develop your own fantasy world’s history and cultures.

Try studying a specific time period in history, and you might learn a few facts about that time that can be used to really flesh out the world of your book. For example: if you are writing a gothic-style fantasy, you might look into the 1800s victorian gothic era.

Another thing to consider is how different many regions can be. In creating languages (if you want to go that deep into worldbuilding) consider the different dialects or accents that could be found across the world.

Remain True to Fantasy, in Moderation

Just because you want the fantasy story to be realistic, doesn’t mean you need to remove fantastical or magical aspects of the genre. Balancing realism and fantasy is important, but that doesn’t mean you need to give up fantasy aspects.

The most important thing is to handle each magical part of the story with a certain amount of realism. For example: If a certain form of magic is considered extremely rare, and you make all of the main characters able to use this form of magic, it doesn’t handle enough realism — but by making it rare and having only a select few characters able to use it, the laws regarding this magic are consistent and realistic to the reader.

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In Conclusion

In crafting realistic fantasy, there are many little tidbits to look into such as worldbuilding, use of reality, willing suspension of disbelief, and many more, but it all boils down to being believable.

If you keep scenes, events, and abilities in your world consistent with the laws you have created then you have made a realistic and believable fantasy world.