Traditional Fantasy was probably the first kind of fantasy (ehem… “traditional” fantasy). In a traditional fantasy world, everything goes and the world is completely unpredictable. Fairy tales are a great example of this. Chronicles of Narnia are a more modern version.
If you’re considering writing traditional fantasy, here’s a guide for making laws of physics and magical laws.
- Add. Give something a new purpose. Suppose your world has trees, but instead of giving fruit, they’re equipped with swords and are supposed to guard the entrance to this underground hideout. Give your normal creations a little twist by allowing them more purpose.
- Remove. From now on, birds can’t fly. In your world, you’ve got this species of eagle that digs underground trenches and mines bendy straws for nests from the sewer.
- Change the purpose. Instead of sitting there, (keyword “instead” of,) certain rocks grow bigger and bigger and hungrier and hungrier every day until they grow fangs and eat stuff.
- Exaggerate. So you’re writing about an oak tree, and it grows 10 feet every day. By the end of it’s life span, if a but it dropped from the top, it would pellet down so hard that it could pierce through the ground and go to the other side of the planet (if your world is round, that is.)
- Flip. No, it’s quite the opposite. Sheep don’t eat grass, mutant horned lava grass eats sheep (this is great if your story takes place in Soviet Russia.)
- Change the stem. So you’ve got a tree. Trees start from seeds — right? Wrong. You bury a fork in the ground and it turns into huge metallic rods that branch off into little mini forks.
Have fun making your own Science textbook!
