Creating a fantasy world from scratch and making people believe in possibilities outside reality is a work of art. It takes a lot of time, energy, and dedication to stand out as a fantasy author, especially when the competition in your sub-genre is high.
If you are planning to write a fantasy fiction novel, you may have thought extensively about the rules that must be adhered to and avoided.
Here is a comprehensive guide that outlines what should be avoided.
1. Unsatisfactory Writing Skills
It goes without saying that every writer must have good writing skills to engage their audience. If your writing fails to engage the reader from the beginning, you may not be able to ensure the success of your fantasy book.
Instead of making the best of the situation with badly written prose, you can try to improve on your weaknesses as a writer. From poor use of literary devices to high verbosity, you must avoid all factors that make your writing confusing and complex.
2. Uninspiring Clichés
Writing effective fantasy can take more effort and creativity than is often perceived. Avid fantasy readers know all the fantasy clichés out there. While they may not mind a few clichés, you cannot expect to write groundbreaking fantasy fiction with nothing new to offer.
If you fail to offer original content, readers may stop reading your book and never pick up another book written by you. Remember, the readers have read enough about dwarves, elves, and orcs. Before you write a brilliant fantasy fiction novel, you must have something new to offer.
3. Slow Beginnings
The start of any novel or story holds great importance. Any author who fails to engage their audience in the beginning may eventually fail. A slow beginning will make any fantasy ready, so put down the book and never look back.
Instead of relying on long and slow beginnings, you must try and create amazing hooks right from the beginning. You must create strong hooks in the beginning to ensure the readers that there is a lot more for them to find as they keep reading your work.
4. Multiple Perspectives
One of the worst things you can do as a fantasy writer is to introduce too many points of view all at once. Even the most experienced readers find it confusing and may get overwhelmed by multiple main characters and spines all at once.
Remember, making a fiction book interesting is not the same as making it complex. Yes, you can have multiple characters and several points of view, but many problems can arise when you make this decision.
When writing fantasy fiction, it’s essential to focus on world-building without overwhelming readers with excessive detail and using a comprehensive platform like Spines can help you streamline your manuscript from draft to publication. . Eventually, the reader will forget and stop caring about your characters’ storylines. This disrupts their reading experience, and they will eventually lose interest.
5. Excessive Exposition
Another common mistake in fantasy fiction writing often made by novice authors in the genre is imposing an information overload on their audience. While readers do love rich fantasy worlds, they do not have the time or energy to read long and unbroken passages.
You must remember that creating a rich fantasy world is not the equivalent of sharing long and boring information with your readers. Instead, you must be able to weave details into your story seamlessly. This way, your work will have all the depth that you envisioned without boring the readers.
6. Bland Characters
Characters are one of the most important factors that determine the success and failure of your work. If your characters fail to impress the readers, your time and energy spent on writing will not matter much. Characters that are not interesting will never succeed in engaging your audience.
A main character needs unique traits, a distinct voice, and flaws to be interesting and make readers care about the story. Of course, they should also be relatable for your readers. A mix of novelty and uniqueness can help to create memorable characters for your audience.
7. Excessive Action
It is not just an assumption that fantasy readers love action. Whether it is a battle with swords or a cyborg assassin at work, seeing characters on duty is always a rewarding experience for the readers. Looking at the importance of action in fantasy fiction, authors often forget that action is not all that makes great fantasy fiction.
Brilliant fantasy fiction is a mix of action and an excellent story. One aspect must not overpower the other. This approach can ensure that your readers will have no choice but to turn one page after another.
8. Stereotyping
One of the most important things you must pay attention to while writing a fantasy fiction novel is diversification. Every fantasy fiction writer must make their setting as diverse as possible to engage a wider audience. This practice makes every bit of effort you put into your fantasy fiction worth it.
One of the most important things you must remember while writing your fantasy fiction is that making it diverse is not all about race. You must also cater to other important aspects such as sexual orientation, religion, social status, political views, and economic background to win over a diverse audience and make your work stand out.
9. Abandonment of Rules
Every fantasy world is unique, and things work distinctly in it. World-building is a time-consuming effort, among several other factors and the authors also have to establish the rules of their fantasy world. These rules cannot be overlooked.
Before drafting your fantasy story, it is important to plan it out. Make sure that your story has a consistent set of rules to help readers understand the concept of your world better and establish yourself as an author worth their time and energy.
Everything in your fantasy world works a certain way because you decided it to be that way. Once these rules have been established, you cannot change them as you go. If you abandon your own rules, you will surely fail to engage the readers.
