12/15/2023 0 Comments Fantasy world magic engine![]() This is a place where people have had hundreds of years to consider how magic works and how best to apply it. With much greater access to information, warfare is made up of complex maneuvers and precise strikes, not the lumbering battles of history.īy diving deep into the application of her magic, Marks builds a world that feels concrete and solid. Scouting is handled by those who can see through the eyes of animals, and interrogation is given over to individuals with the gift to see through lies. In this conflict, leaders are often chosen because they can predict where the enemy will march before the next battle. In this story, magic isn’t exceptionally powerful, but its uses are heavily explored within the context of a long war. This is so common it’s become a joke: settings that are identical to Medieval Europe except that some people can shoot fire from their hands.īut there’s a better way, as demonstrated in Laurie J. And yet, many fantasy stories treat magic as something that can be pasted over a historical setting without any changes. It’s a critical factor in showing how a fantasy setting is different from the Earth we live on. Magic separates fantasy worlds from our own. Once you teach your audience to associate a specific action with a specific emotion, you can skip further explanation and simply describe the action. Shayla jabbed their third and fourth arms in front of them with fists clenched so hard veins pulsed visibly beneath the skin. Saying a character “moved their hands in the pattern that indicated anger” doesn’t help, it’s not much better than stating the character was angry. In order for this tool to work properly, the body language must be something you can physically describe to the audience. If you have a fantasy creature that flashes colors to indicate emotion, red and yellow are easy to remember for anger, while blue is an easy way to represent calm. Addison’s elves have ear positions very similar to those of dogs, so the audience never needs a refresher course. You’ll still need to explain what each signal means, but if the body language is intuitive, you won’t have to repeat yourselves. When employing this tactic in your story, it’s best to stick with body language that’s easy for your audience to remember. ![]() ![]() They add an extra dimension to elven social interaction and make the world feel much more real. Second, the ears prevent these elves from feeling like dressed-up humans. The protagonist can tell another elf is angry because he sees their ears flatten against their head. First, they give Addison another avenue for communicating a character’s emotional state while staying within the story’s close viewpoint. These mobile elf ears bring two major advantages to the story. Her elves feature mobile ears, and their position indicates what an elf is feeling. This physical feature is common among fantasy settings, but Addison takes it a step further. At first glance, they are nearly indistinguishable from humans, but there’s one notable difference: their long, pointed ears. On the other hand, non-human body language can be as specific as you need it to be.Ĭonsider Katherine Addison’s novel The Goblin Emperor, where most of the characters are elves. Crossed arms could mean anger, defensiveness, or that it’s cold outside. But this method has limits, both because humans have a limited degree of motion and because human body language is so sensitive to context. Clever writers can say a lot about a character by describing their body language. Human communication is very complex, and a lot of it is nonverbal. Fortunately, fantasy is a well-explored genre, and we now have numerous tricks for making our worlds more immersive. We all have disappointing memories of picking up a fantasy novel, only to find the world was a clumsy cut-and-paste of 1100s England. Either way, a fantasy world should sweep the audience away, making them feel like they’re walking the streets of a strange and wondrous place.īut it’s not that easy. Or it can transport us to grim and gritty worlds where basic survival is a struggle and everything is covered in mud. Fantasy can transport us to beautiful worlds where ancient gods walk the land and magic flows through the air.
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