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This is just FantasyMain MenuThis is Just FantasyPrefaceIntroChoose Your FantasyWhat's your world?Enlarging Your WorldBringing your setting to lifeWhat's Up People?Creating your racesSo You Want to Play With Magic?Developing and refining magic systemsWhat Makes Us Who We AreCreating your main characterAll Together NowFinal project-combining all the parts to make a sceneMetacognitionWorks CitedGarrett Wintersf9df0f9fe69c75ab29682a3ff52db39341b21935
Paranormal Mystery
12017-11-29T13:08:54-08:00Garrett Wintersf9df0f9fe69c75ab29682a3ff52db39341b21935250381plain2017-11-29T13:08:54-08:00Garrett Wintersf9df0f9fe69c75ab29682a3ff52db39341b21935Paranormal mystery refers to a large subset of urban fantasy that combines the detective hunting for a culprit (though usually not actually a detective) with paranormal elements. One quote about it said that the fusion is unique because in a straight mystery novel if you find someone drained of blood someone is pretending to be a vampire, in a straight fantasy if you find someone drained of blood it is a vampire, but when you combine both are evenly possible, human or monster.
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12017-12-15T23:23:53-08:00Garrett Wintersf9df0f9fe69c75ab29682a3ff52db39341b21935Choose your fantasy notesGarrett Winters1plain2017-12-15T23:23:53-08:00Garrett Wintersf9df0f9fe69c75ab29682a3ff52db39341b21935
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12017-11-08T12:23:48-08:00Choose Your Fantasy26What's your world?image_header2020-09-03T11:06:46-07:00The first step to building a fantasy world is choosing what type of setting the world will be in. The options of what it can be are only limited by your imaginations and desires. However, that doesn't exactly guide you much so let's go into some of the main types (that I've read):
Epic Fantasy. This is the setting that Tolkien started and is still huge today. Medieval-ish setting with castles and knights, brave heroes and hidden mystical villains. While usually these include elves, goblins, gnomes, and trolls, they don't need to. Magic is usually a huge deal permeating the world but this is most definitely your choice as well. While radically different in many ways, Game of Thrones also falls under this genre. Game of Thrones has everything that I said in the first sentence with no dwarves except Tyrion, and doesn't have much magic.
Urban Fantasy: Urban Fantasy is the opposite of Epic Fantasy in many ways. Instead of being Medieval, it's set in modern-day Earth (usually, might be in worlds that have technology and mimic modern Earth, Earth-Adjacent worlds that are connected to Earth like Bordertown or Nightside, or future settings like Dante Valentine or Age of X). When something is called Epic Fantasy, you know to expect a lot of tropes. However, as the exceptions I've already given show, Urban Fantasy is so much broader than that, with only real thread is its modern setting. Quite often however the Urban Fantasy genre has books that fall into the paranormal mystery genre. Examples I've seen:
A world where magic comes from the city not nature
A world where all the Gods exist along with vampires and werewolves and various other unique things
A world with the Fae from Celtic myth (and others) in San Francisco
The story of a Chicago wizard who engages with Gods, vampires, fae, demons, Native American evil spirits, and much more
Dark Fantasy: mixture of fantasy and horror. While this is listed as a genre for books unlike the two before this it's more about a mood than a setting (though it's really good to label stuff this so people know what they'll be getting into). My favorite series that has ever fallen into this trope has to be the trilogy of trilogies Age of Misrule/The Dark Age/The Kingdom of the Serpent by Mark Chadbournwhich I reviewed all of them here.
Paranormal Romance: often recognizable by some dude's bare chest on the cover (maybe they have an open shirt, maybe no shirt, there are...a lot of these that look the exact same), romance novels where the guy might be a werewolf or a demon or some sort. I'm obviously biased against this, quite often the other genres do have romance in them which I do enjoy, but self-labeled paranormal romance novels are just not my thing whatsoever. That said, if you choose this you won't get any judgement from me.
Or...your own ideas! While there are so many established paths to go you don't need to care or follow about any of these. I want you to think of these as potential paths that you can take not the only ones that exist. This is your world, your imagination, and you can do whatever you want if you have something in your head.
Activity: Tell me your genre and the concept of your world. This doesn't need to be incredibly specific, just brainstorm what mood the world is going to have. I'll give both the world as a whole and the scene I'm sampling as examples, most of the time books aren't as complex. Example: Genre of overarching story: Mythic Fantasy. Gods of old are returning to Earth to take over as a part of an ancient organization's plot to rule the world, with only 5 heroes as the hope of defeating them both. Genre of scene: Celtic Fantasy. Three of the heroes get trapped in a city in Faerie and have to rely on the treacherous fae to ever escape to save the world.
