Writers often dabble in the surreal, especially when writing fantasy or science fiction. We asked a few writers to share how they approach creating magical worlds. Today, Zanzibar 7, writer and participant, shares four tips to ground your flights of fancy:
Writing fantasy should be the easiest of all genres. You can write almost anything and it can be believed—simply because you wrote it. But there can be a line between believable fantasy and fantasy that is too absurd for belief.
The late, amazing Sir Terry Pratchett wrote about a world in the shape of a disc, carried on the back of four elephants who are carried on the back of a giant turtle. It’s absurd in the highest, but Pratchett turns this mytheme on its head by using odd twists to somehow make the entire premise more believable, not less.
So what is it that takes something absurd and surreal and makes it believable? When I’m writing humor, I do the following:
