So You Want To / Write a High Fantasy

High Fantasy! The adventures on an epic scale of good and evil in imaginary worlds, filled with magic, dragons, and no more than medieval tech! Where the young person finds the MacGuffin and defeats the Evil Overlord and saves the world!

You may want to also read Write a Heroic Fantasy — the lines between that subgenre and this one are not set in stone. See also Be the Next J. R. R. Tolkien for specific advice on how to follow in the footsteps of one of the most noted figureheads of High Fantasy.

Necessary Tropes

• Setting — A world other than ours. It may have a nominal connection with present day Earth, such as being our remote past or future, but this plays no role in the plot. Mythopoeia is often put into play to define the very metaphysics of the world (see Create a Mythopoeia for more help with that). Nevertheless it often resembles medieval Europe.
• Scale — Epic. Power politics, wars, the death of nations, gods walking the earth, and the real threat of The End of the World as We Know It — which is why the genre is also known as epic fantasy.
• The Big Bad is the Evil Overlord and really, really, really bad. He tends to be not so much a man as a personification of some evil and destructive force.
• Winning by sheer brute force is more typical of Heroic Fantasy. The MacGuffin or some such piece of magic is commonly needed, though usually a fair amount of sneaking is needed.
• Functional Magic

Choices, Choices

• Standard Fantasy Races. Most High Fantasies will be stocked to the brim with non-human races, but for the most part the classic human-elf-dwarf-hobbit/gnome-orc/troll quintet is the most common.
  Or not. Chose the races you want. Or invent your own. You can even choose to forgo non-humans altogether — People of Hair Color is common to tell humans apart — or no humans.
• Dragons. There will most likely be dragons. If you do include dragons in your story, there are a lot of necessary decisions to make. Are they sentient? Do they breathe fire? Do they bring rain? Do they hoard treasure? Are they Always Lawful Good, Always Chaotic Evil, or does it vary based on individual? Are they descended from dinosaurs? Do people ride them? And honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Pitfalls

• Farm Boy saves the day! But the danger is that it can be too contrived. The innocent young hero has many virtues, but you have to make convincing reasons why he happens to be the one to do it.
• Secret Legacy. The Farm Boy often turns out to have Royal Blood and be the sole heir to the throne. Making it plausible that someone who's never been off the farm for his entire childhood can actually rule a kingdom is rather difficult.
• The MacGuffin and the Plot Coupons. High Fantasy is notorious for having these work as Plot Devices. Disguise them well if you use them.
• Because Destiny Says So. Too many writers use a prophecy as a substitute for Character Development.
• Making Races of Hats. All too often fantasy setting have all dwarves be gold-obsessed drunkards, all elves be stuck up snobs, and all Hobbits halflings be child-like or tricksters, and such. While Tolkien did show there were different kinds of people in each race in the manual, others have copied these designs to the point where they have become cliche. Nowhere in nature is there an entire race of stuck up snobs (well, maybe cats). This is easily avoided if you are making races from scratch, but if you are using mythical races, showing races aren't all clones of one person (that is, unless they are all clones of one person) is a good idea.
  • On the same note, making a race Always Chaotic Evil. Orcs and other "cannon fodder" races are always shown as violent barbarians, willing to kill/rape/eat any other creatures they come across. However, this trope has essentially become discredited, for as the trope entry says...
    "even in the most toxic culture, someone will choose decency".
    • One also must be careful of invoking unfortunate real-life racial imagery when deciding to go for an Always Chaotic Evil angle for an entire race of people; the other part of the discrediting noted above stems from the fact that in recent times there has been substantial criticism of seminal works like The Lord of the Rings from a civil rights perspective. All things considered, this is territory you likely want to avoid, so stay conscious of it.

Potential Subversions

• Because Destiny Says So is the commonest reason why the Farm Boy has to succeed. Developing other reasons can work. Perhaps the littlest wizard has to do the job because all the more powerful ones were massacred. Perhaps being a hero helps pays the bills in your fantasy universe? It could be an interesting way to explore the moralities of the people who maintain such an occupation.
• Morals. Black-and-White Morality is common. But shades of gray among the heroes and lower ranking villains often works. (Lighting up the Evil Overlord generally moves you out of the genre entirely.)
• Try incorporating an interesting spin on the common fantasy races. If your works has elves then why not make them a little more alien? One-Gender Race wouldn't hurt.
  • To add to the above example try tackling the downside of elves being eternally beautiful, such as drawing a lot of unwanted attention.
• How about a story where a character wants to become an evil overlord? In doing so the character becomes a Noble Demon who is up against an evil overlord that is a Complete Monster.
• To step further outside the Black-and-White Morality try having the group in your fantasy setting consist of a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits. The kind of fantasy characters that nobody expects to root for but we do in the long run.
• Instead of the Farm Boy being a Nice Guy (or the fantastical equivalent of The All-American Boy), have him be a crass, brutish, Lower-Class Lout, and more akin to a barbarian that just so happens to own a farm. You can even make him a claymore-swinging Violent Glaswegian! And as such, if said Farm Boy had been reading too many novels with Eat the Rich as its motifs, make him develop an anger and hatred for "those arrogant, snobbish, pretentious Upper Class Twits", and for an even better subversion, make the higher class actually nice even with all those snooty mannerisms and speech pattern.
  • If this Lower-Class Lout were to come around to the whole world, expect nobody to be respected by him. Those high elves who nobody can argue with? The lout proceeds to dump 15 kilos of unidentifiable animal manure (most certainly a mix of multiple animal manures) without even being noticed on said high elves. The big, powerful ogres and orcs who could definitely smash anyone into the next decade? The lout bitch slaps the leader and takes Refuge in Audacity. It procedurally gets worse and worse from there.
• For a race of Always Chaotic Evil monsters, invert the stereotype by having them be Noble Savages, Cultured Badasses, and Genius Bruisers, those who are merely perceived as "uncultured" and "savage" by the standards of others, who are vice-ridden, corrupt, and ironically way more savage than the allegedly Always Chaotic Evil races.
• How about switching around the Farm Boy of the High Fantasy with the Barbarian Hero of the Heroic Fantasy? It could make for some interesting (and comedic) moments when the so-called hero of the land is just a comically musclebound powerhouse who lives somewhere in the mountains and robs people of their weapons.

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Writers' Lounge

Suggested Themes and Aesops

Potential Motifs

Suggested Plots

• Revolt! The normally mook races (such as ogres, orcs, goblins, trolls, and beastmen) are bloody sick of being herded off to die in their thousands, and it's time for a change! Who is this upstart champion of the downtrodden and musclebound? None other than your main character!
• War! An Evil Overlord bent on world domination is razing every kingdom in his wake. The heroes must unite the ever-bickering races of the world to stand against him!

Departments

Set Designer / Location Scout

• Good guys commonly go for The Good Kingdom, the Enchanted Forest, and Arcadia.
• The Evil Overlord favors the Evil Tower of Ominousness, The Empire, and some variety of Mordor.
• Remember the readers will often be expecting the Fisher King. If the land does not match the inhabitants' character, there must be a reason for it.

Props Department

• Functional magic items work well.
• Swords with some sort of plot significance are staples of this genre, usually imbued with magical power.

Costume Designer

• Tunics and cloaks are common, mainly because they were worn in medieval Europe.
• Wizards sometimes wear pointy and/or raggedy hats. These sometimes have plot significance.

Casting Director

• Because of the traditional high stakes, the Reluctant Hero works well; the most home-loving hero can tell he has to move if the world will be destroyed without it. Note that if you lower the stakes, the motivations have to change.
• Well, for a heroic quest, you might go with Heterosexual Life-Partners, the Power Trio, the Four-Girl Ensemble, the Five-Man Band....
• A Five-Man Band is the most common way to arrange the protagonists, oftentimes so that it's also a Five-Token Band where each member of the cast is of different race.

Stunt Department

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Extra Credit

The Greats

• J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
• Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions
• Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn
• Patricia A. McKillip's The Riddle Master Trilogy
• Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain

The Epic Fails

• Gloria Tesch's Maradonia Saga
• Robert Newcomb's Chronicles of Blood and Stone

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