Fictional Writing

6 Tips To Help You Create Diverse Fictional Worlds (That Actually Make Sense)

Catherine Shaffer 03/02/2020 Blog, Fictional Writing Fantasy, Fiction, Fictional

From science fiction to high fantasy there are dozens of fantastical fictional worlds to get lost in. If you’re a fiction writer, you’ve probably tackled the task of creating your own world.

Was it easy? Probably not. Creating a successful fantasy world is a long process that can be made easier with a few simple tips.

Develop some ground rules.

Although fictional worlds can be nearly as wacky as you want them to be, the best ones have some ground rules with a basis in reality. Before you delve too deep into the creation of your world, set some rules.

For example, magic exists and is widely known but always costs an unfortunate price, time travel is possible but the future and/or past cannot be changed etc.

Draw inspiration from the real world.

Some of the best inspiration comes from the world around us. So when you’re crafting your fictional world, take a look at a variety of cultures and figure out how they’re rights of passage and customs would work in the modern day.

Also, research cities, landscapes, art, and music that you can draw inspirations from.

Get creative with names and words.

The best fictional worlds come with their own creative names and language.

You don’t have to spend hours coming up with an entire alphabet and language, but if you’re going with a world that has fantastical place and character names, you might want to also come up with a few basic phrases that can be used throughout your story.

Play around with sounds and spelling, and, if needed, look up meanings of preexisting names in order to tweak them to fit your unique world.

Make a map.

The planning part of your world is the most important part. This being said, it’s never a bad idea to draw a map of your world. Focus on the distances between cities and where forests, rivers, and mountain ranges are located.

Create diverse cultures.

Most fictional worlds have more than one culture. When creating the cultures to live in your world, be sure to make each culture have multiple sides.

As an example, create a space alien race that abducts children but also enjoys jazz music or a man-eating mermaid race that also happens to be highly artistic and creative.

Decide on a person of power and currency.

All worlds -fictional or not- will need to have a governing body. Whether this be a ruling family, a king or queen, or a whole government system, your world will need a ruler and, thanks to the freedom you have as the writer, you can decide who or what rules.

Along with this, you’ll need to decide on an economy. What makes the characters in your world rich? Poor? How do they make money? Do they use money or do they use resources as currency?

Defining Fictional Writing

Catherine Shaffer 20/08/2017 Fictional Writing

Fictional writing is a form of non-factual writing, and can be regarded as the opposite of non-fiction, which describes real facts and events. Some popular examples of fictional books and stories include Alice in Wonderland, The Little Prince, and Lord of the Rings.

Writing fiction can be performed in a wide variety of approaches and may come in different forms depending on your own style and preferences. It can also fall in various genres such as romance, fantasy, and thriller.

Fiction Writers

Fiction writers are talented and creative people who craft interesting stories that prompt readers to use their imagination and critical thinking to learn new ideas, concepts, perspectives, and truths. Hence, works of fiction can definitely transform people’s lives.

The Fictional Writing Process

Although storytelling may seem like an easy task, it actually takes a long time for fiction writers to weave that perfect plot and develop fascinating made-up characters. Moreover, contrary to common belief, even fictional writing requires a significant amount of research. This is the reason you may often find fictional stories to be densely packed with great ideas and information.

Fictional pieces may come in various lengths—it can be as long as Dumas’ Count of Monte Cristo or as short as the stories by O. Henry. If you are planning to write fiction, it can be beneficial to determine the length of the story that you want to tell at the very beginning.

By doing so, you will have a better idea of how much room you have in terms of developing your plot and will help you decide on the most suitable type of approach to take. Have a clear mindset on whether you want to write a fantasy story set in the medieval times and packed with amazing journeys and battles for instance, or just a story with a non-complex plot. If you decide to do the latter, you may want to go for a short story. However, for the other one with a complicated plot, a novel or several novels may be more appropriate.

Final Thoughts

Fictional writing allows writers to create a whole new different world and set of characters that are purely based on their imagination and creativity. With fictional writing, nothing is impossible—you can create anything that your mind can come up with.

Fictional Writing 101: How to Make Your Characters Believable

Catherine Shaffer 25/07/2017 Fictional Writing, General Life Rants

Believable characters can make a lasting impact to readers and make a story much better. Unless your characters are believable and relatable, your audience will not find your work interesting. So how do you actually breathe life into your fictional characters? Here are some tips in creating believable characters.

Observe different people.

By observing different kinds of people, you will have some ideas for the personalities and traits that you can integrate into your character. Take note of how people speak, behave, do their mannerisms, stutter, express themselves, and what verbal fillers they use. From these observations, you can choose which ones to incorporate—in short, imitate real people to make your characters seem real.

Play with their personalities and characteristics.

If you want to make your characters realistic, you should never categorize them into purely “black” or “white”. By this I mean you should not make your protagonists all good, and your antagonists absolutely evil. Make them multidimensional—add layers into their personality. This is what will make them more appealing and bring a significant impact to your audience.

Play with their personalities—make them complex individuals and even add what seems like contradictions. For instance, your evil antagonist who beats the crap out of people and can kill mercilessly is extremely affectionate with animals.

On the other hand, your main protagonists must also have weaknesses and faults. Let them fail and allow the villains to win occasionally. This will stir up your readers’ minds and emotions. Moreover, this will also make your story less predictable and much more interesting.

Establish individuality.

Just like in real life, people are different from one another. With this, if you want to make your characters realistic and recognizable, establish individuality and uniqueness. This will make your characters more alive.

Make sure that they are very different from one another—they have distinct voices, varying points of view, as well as beliefs and principles. For example, if one of your characters is a crackhead teenager and another one is a respected middle-aged professor, but the two thinks the same and have the same manner of speaking, you are definitely doing it wrong. If necessary, don’t hesitate to make multiple revisions to ensure this.

Making your characters believable and interesting may seem like a challenging task at first. However, by performing the strategies I shared in this article, you will surely be able to do this much easier and more effectively. Always keep in mind that no matter how awesome your idea for your plot is, you won’t be able to execute it properly without great characters. Furthermore, your readers won’t stay interested if the characters are not multidimensional and believable.

Top Tips in Writing Fiction

Catherine Shaffer 03/07/2017 Fictional Writing

If you are planning to write fiction for the first time and find the task overwhelming, getting some tips from more experienced writers may do the trick. In this article, I will give you some useful pieces of advice on fictional writing to help you get started.

Know your audience.

By identifying for whom are you writing your fictional story for and trying to understand them, you’ll definitely be able to write a better story. Accept the fact that not everyone will appreciate your work, and keep in mind that what you should focus on is to appeal to your target audience.

Identify the demographics of your target audience such as their age group and gender to be able to discern what elements should be added into your fictional story for it to become more interesting.

Develop realistic characters.

Perfect characters are boring. Make them realistic and relatable for your characters to appeal to your readers. Develop interesting personalities, give them phobias, and add flaws.

Moreover, as your story progresses, make sure that your characters evolve. Just as how real people change with each event in their life, your fictional characters must also undergo this development process.

Put your characters in certain circumstances that will force them to make a difficult decision, and decide when they should make the right choice or the wrong one. Keep in mind that if your characters are not developing and they are just static, they would not make a huge impact on your readers.

Try to stick to your main plot.

One of the most common mistakes made by fiction writers is that they get too caught up with the subplots that do not actually help with the development of the characters and the story itself.

Try to focus and stick to your main plot. However, if you decide to include subplots that will spice up your piece, ensure that they are all connected to the main plot, have a real impact on your characters’ evolution, and support your story’s progression.

Allow the events to play out.

Don’t try to wrap up each event too quickly, almost like you’re rushing to get to the end. Most often in real life, you don’t get to a certain goal that easily. Hence, you should let every circumstance to play out. By doing this, you will also be able to keep your readers hooked with your work and encourage them to keep reading. An additional advice is to add nice cliffhangers at the end of your chapters.

Develop powerful conflicts in different parts of your story.

The conflicts in the story are what make people excited and interested with what happens next. Naturally, if there is a conflict, you will get excited about what the outcome will be and how this will affect the characters. Hence, a weak conflict will just leave your characters where they were at the beginning of the story and will not give them room to grow.

As a beginner, you may feel that fictional writing is a daunting task. However, by reading and practicing constantly, you will surely get the hang of it. Before you know it, you’ve already produced various fictional stories. Trust me, fictional writing is a rewarding endeavour that is definitely worth pursuing. So don’t ever stop and strive to become a great writer—you’ll get there!

4 major differences between fiction and non-fiction writing

Catherine Shaffer 23/06/2017 Blog, Fictional Writing, Writing Tips

In simple terms, fiction is something imaginary and non-fiction is something that’s true. In non-fiction writing, real people and real places are involved. On the other hand, in fiction stories, everything is from the writer’s imagination. Here are some major differences between the two types of writing.

Fiction is made up, non-fiction is fact

Fiction stories are all made up. All the characters and places come from the authors’ imagination. Non-fiction writing, on the other hand, is fact-based and informative. Fiction books are written for entertaining readers and the non-fiction books are written to give more knowledge to the readers. Examples of fictions are novels, short stories, etc. History books, autobiography, etc. are non-fictions.

Fiction is more elaborate

In fiction, the writer can go along with his or her imagination without any limit. They can elaborate on a plot or character as far as their imagination goes. In non-fiction, the writer has to be straight forward. There is no scope for any imagination. It is actually reallocation of facts.

Fiction can be interpreted in different ways

The story that is written by a fictional writer can be interpreted in various ways by the audience. But non-fiction writings are simple and direct. They can have only one interpretation.

Non-fiction writing needs references

In non-fiction writing, you may need to give references for your writing and include quotes to the story. This is needed to make your story or writing more credible. But in fiction writing, no such references are required.

These are the differences between fiction and non-fiction writing that you must remember. You should simply remember that fiction is imaginative and non-fiction is true. Fiction writing is fun to read and non-fiction writing is informative. So, next time when you read a book, you will be able to tell easily whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.

3 reasons you should read fiction books

Catherine Shaffer 23/06/2017 0 Blog, Fictional Writing

Academic reading is important to do well on your exam, but you shouldn’t overlook the importance of reading fiction books. Many parents discourage their children from reading fiction books as they think it’s waste of time. But in reality, fiction books can benefit people in many ways.

It opens up your mind

Fiction is the author’s imagination. It also opens up the readers’ mind. You will read about different characters, places, and stories. You will become more creative. You will easily be able to come up with new ideas and have different perspectives about things. Your cognitive function can improve by reading fiction books.

It makes you more compassionate

By reading fiction, people usually get swept away by the story. They start to get deeply involved with the character and they start to characterize with the main character. They go through various emotional experiences. Reading fiction will make you more compassionate.

Improves vocabulary

When you read lots of books your vocabulary improves. You will notice that your writing style has improved as well. The more you read books, the more your writing skills will improve. You will be able to express yourself better with new words.

Reading fiction develops your mind and writing skills. You will be able to perform better in your academic lessons and professional life as well. So, it is important to develop the habit of reading fictions in children. They will grow to become better performers in their lives.