Friday 3 February 2012

Fantasy Writing

Got an interesting topic for today and yeah I know I’ve not been writing again, but I’ve been busy working on two different novels. I’m going to write about my second one today and its a fantasy/paranormal one. It’s still different from my normal writing really (often is horror/vampires/romance) but I do have a small love for fantasy though I’m not big on ScFi. This story is different because it has its roots in the Japan manga Bleach and though it doesn’t take any elements for it really, its about Soul Reapers -I don’t call them that, but its easier to explain it using that term. With all my stories I’ve no idea what’s going to happen! I’ll be showing it in workshop too on Monday and I’m not sure how people are going to react.

I know how difficult it can be for writers to break away from the genre/subjects they like to write about. It’s important to do so though, because it just expenses your skills and gives you another area in which to write about. Fantasy for me is all about escaping in an extreme way, going to different worlds and stuff. I like to think it can go as far as the writers imagination can, but its no easy task creating whole new worlds, new cultures, peoples, animals and plants! Making them believable can be even harder. Novels like Lord Of the Rings, Discworld and the ones based in the world of Warhammer are my inspiration. I take what I know from this novels, lay down roots with them and create/build upon. This allows a much more better development then doing it from scratch. Plus it gives you the change to great new twists and ideas.

My new story is more paranormal then those though and is more about spirits and ghosts based on earth with there being connecting realms were spirits live. Like I said though, it might become more fantasy like as I go on. I wouldn’t say that fantasy writing is for every writer, but it is often worth having a bash at, just to see what happens and best of all it can be a lot of fun!