How to Write Fantasy

by Greg Strandberg

This fantasy writing book offers tips to those who want to write fantasy books. It starts out with ideas for your fantasy world. Then it delves into a small example fantasy world. After that we’ll look at some marketing and cover ideas that might get your writing jumpstarted. From there it’s onto some actual fantasy worlds that appear in print. If you’ve wanted to write fantasy but just can’t make it work, this book will give you tips. Stop dreaming of that awesome book and make it happen. Use these ideas to finally write that fantasy novel.

Genres: Writing

153 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 20, 2015

About the author

I was born and raised in Helena, Montana, and graduated from the University of Montana in 2008 with a BA in History.

When the American economy began to collapse I quickly moved to China, where I became a slave for the English language industry. After five years of that nonsense I returned to Montana.

I have 80+ books up on Amazon and iTunes and other retailers. Thanks for reading!

Reviews

[Peter Longden · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books for aspiring writers of fiction, whether it's fantasy or science fiction, mystery or crime, that helps with planning a book, if that is the way you want to write; i.e. to have thought of every possible element, sketched it, before putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) to actually write the story. (One alternative way, my preferred mode of writing, is more organic, often starting with an idea, writing and seeing how it develops, planning along the way).
Taking the reader through an aide memoire of headings and sections from world-building to characterisation, Greg Strandberg draws from experience of writing over 50 novels and novelettes to give a model of writing to be used to write your own.
Straightforward and clearly written with a considerable amount of first-hand examples from one of his books, if a fantasy novel is what you aspire to, then this book should have markers sticking out from every other page to help you navigate through the plethora of good ideas and helpful tips. Another self-help book for writers to have at their fingertips.

[John D DeWeese · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid book for anyone thinking of planning to write a fantasy novel. It outlines how to come up with interesting characters, settings, and histories for your fantasy world. I especially liked how the author describes thinking about how a character survives, their belief system, and how their culture would shape their world view.

The book nods down a bit when it dives heavily into the world building of Jonguria. Since I haven’t read those novels, I had no real vested interest in that setting. That being said, I enjoyed this book and took some great tidbits for my own novel.

[Saba · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though author gives some good advice but the sentences are not coherent. Not only this, I find hard time to make sense of the words author is trying to say. It is like author has published first draft and didn't bother to edit it. I left reading it after few chapters.