Its easy to enjoy a good fantasy book, or story. In fact, it is as easy as eating pie.
But if someone were to ask you to say what you liked about the pie, or Lord forgive, ask you to actually make the pie, only a select few amongst us mortals could. So it is easy fantasy stories. Even though many can enjoy the stories, very few can tell what actually makes a good fantasy story.
As a consequence, even fewer people know how to write a good, and unique fantasy story, on more levels than just the productive part of it. If you want to know how to write consistently, and how to be productive, you can click these.
So, what makes a good fantasy story? What qualities are embedded into it?
A great worldbuilding, a congruent magic system, a unique blend of genres for the plot, and amazing characters, all bound together with a resonant message is what makes a great fantasy story. The reason for this is that unlike most stories, fantasy stories visual express the stories central conflict and themes.
This is done through things like monster orcs, heavenly bright women, and all sorts of magic systems. Magic systems even characterize the characters, such as angry characters being given fire magic, while peaceful nurturing characters get water. A good fantasy story is one that takes advantage of these traits of fantasy to tell a fantastic story.
That is a pretty simple way of explaining it, and it would suffice for people. But if you find you need a more detailed description, then I am here for you. Here are the top 10 traits that make a good fantasy story.
1. Challenging Thematic Messages
The first thing that makes a good fantasy story is a thematic message that resonates with the viewers and challenges them.
The reason why this is probably the most important trait of fantasy is not because a good fantasy story teaches you things that you did not know about the world. It’s not just because you get to learn morals, but its also practicality.
Your whole story revolves around a central conflict. That’s what keeps the viewers engaged. The choice that the lead character must make, and how those choice change them, allowign them to grow. Or making them deteriorate.
These decisions are the theme of the story. if the character chooses to forgive, forgiveness is the theme. Even if the character chooses violence, and ends up losing their body to a suit of armor in a lava island, that is still forgiveness as a theme.
A good fantasy story is a story that has a resonant theme. The importance of the theme is that it propels characterization, world building, magic system, and everything tangible in a fantasy story.
2. Magic Systems
The second thing that makes a good fantasy story is the magic system.
The reason for this is also 2 fold. The first is the obvious one. What does everyone think of when they think of fantasy? That’s right, magic. People come here expecting to see wonderful, amazing, and truly awe-inspiring magically feats. Yes there are some people who don’t like magic, but those people would nto go read your fantasy book. Those who do are the ones who want to see something call, and imagine themselves being able to do the same thing.
However there is the 2nd and deeper reason.
The second reason why magic systems make a good fantasy book is because the magic systems are a physical manifestation of the conflict that the characters face, their personalization, their flaws and their characterization. The characters magic tells us something about their flaw, and their personality.
A character who is avoidant, and tries not to deal with the trauma of their past may have a quick wit. On top of that, they may have fast speed or teleportation. That’s the flaw and personality.
Then progression can be shown through the use of the magic, or the development of the magic. Maybe the story starts with them running away with their speed, but ends with them running towards their problem.
Additionally, it could be that the power evolves, and they gain super strength with their speed, showing how they’ve overcome their trauma, and are ready to wrestle it face on.
That’s why magic systems are important to a fantasy world.
3. Good Worldbuilding
The third thing that makes a good fantasy story would have to be the worldbuilding.
This one is also as important as the magic system. But unlike the magic system, this one serves mainly 3 purposes. The first is the characterization. How a world is built tells us a lot about the characters personality.
For example, things like profession, living arrangements, or social status could tell us about the characters personality. A character who lives at the bottom house in the town, who works as a garbage boy, and who is in the working class is far more defined to us than a random character.
This is without even knowing the character’s personality, temperament or anything. That is just amazing isn’t it?
The second reason why worldbuilding is so important is because this is fantasy. Readers come here to escape their own world. They want to see a world that they’ve never see before, and they want this to be an escapist experience.
So worldbuilding is absolutely paramount to attaining this goal for them.
4. An Iconic Main Character
The fourth thing that a great fantasy book needs is an easily recognizable character.
The next thing that a great fantasy story needs is a physical representation of its theme. Someone who will carry the them and allow it to blossom in the story, and explore the theme its most logical conclusions, proving it right with their success or their failures.
That person is the main character of the story.
The first thing that a person could think of when hearing the word icon is something like an apple icon, or the golden arches of McDonalds. It is an image that perfectly encapsulates a concept.
This is what your character has to be.
As a physical character, they need to be a proper representation and physical icon that symbolizes the main theme. When someone thinks of never giving up, they thing of Rocky.
So it should be with your fantasy book.
Have a theme, then have behaviors that validate that theme. Finally, have a character who is a physical embodiment of all of this. Make a character who is a physical description of all these.
5. Convenient Characters
The fifth thing that a good fantasy book needs is a class of characters that are charming, attractive, and compliment the main theme of the story.
The primary goal of your supporting characters is to prove the theme of the story. However, the theme is physically represented by the main character’s journey. Their success validates the theme, however, their failure also validates the theme.
Therefore, the supporting characters need to play a role that supports the main hero in regards to the theme. They should be whispering to your main character the nature of his flaws, or they should be going through things that will remind the main character of their themes.
6. Carl Jungian Archetypes
The sixth step for a great fantasy story is to possess elements that resonate with the collective unconscious of all humans, or simply, a story with elements of ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’ by Joseph Campbell.
Of course, you already know I was going to mention this. I already went almost half way through the article without mentioning the Carl Jungian psychology. So, for those who don’t know, Carl Jung was a Swiss Psychology. he was a student of Freud. Freud was a psychologist who realized that the unconscious exist. That there is a part that we are unaware of which controls our everyday movements.
Then there is Carl Jung.
Carl Jung took this a step farther and said there is a collective unconscious, shared by the entirety of the human race. This collective unconscious often communicates to us, much like how our individual unconsciousness communicates with us. Our collective unconscious communicates through certain archetypes. The magician, the warrior, the hero, the princess, etc. There are a number of archetypes.
But the point us, our unconscious tells us the same story. This story is repeated around the world with the same motifs, and the same characters, even between characters that never had any contact.
This is then shown through modern fantasy stories, where we see these symbols reappearing. These symbols that exist in our deepest subconscious. it is just awesome, and a great fantasy book is one where these can be found.
7. Good Plots
The seventh thing that a great fantasy book needs is a story that keeps traditional fantasy roots but gives it a refreshing new spin.
The biggest problem that fantasy has is that the plots tend to be repetitive, and people have grown sick of this, as shown here. So if you want to have an interesting fantasy story, then you should avoid the farm boy who is discovered by the wizard, and sent out on a great adventure. instead, the story must have a unique spin to it.
The simplest way to do this is to just fuse genres.
Take any other genre you are interested in; mystery, heist, sports, romance, of historical. Then, tell the story using the traditional hallmarks of that genre. Make sure there are fantastical elements in the story, but tell the story through a different genre.
Already many fantasy books are doing this. The most famous is Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series. If you here how he explains it, you will realize he is doing precisely what I am prescribing.
8. Escalating Stakes
The eighth thing that makes a great fantasy book is when the stakes of the story escalate, and they do so properly.
Firstly, it is boring to read a story where the stakes do not escalate. THe problem needs to get worse, the villain needs to appear undefeatable, and our hero has to appear completely hopeless. It is necessary in all stories for the stakes to raise if you wish to keep the viewers attention.
However, there is a problem if your stories stakes to not rise properly.
There are instances where the author will attempt to raise the stakes. Usually, they will promise to kill someone, or they will promise some sort of impossible thing that everyone and their mother knows they would never do.
This is bad.
The story needs stakes that escalate at a thematic level. At a personal level. If the hero was learning to be a more self-less person, the best way to raise the stakes is to place them in a situation where selfish-ness sees most reasonable, even to people who aren’t selfish, and selfless-ness seems irresponsible, maybe even wrong. Thus the stakes are raised, and the hero must make a choice
9. Epic Battles
The ninth way to make great fantasy book is to make epic battle scenes.
Finally, with everything complete, magic system, worldbuilding, main character, supporting cast, and raised stakes, it is important that we see one last piece of the puzzle; the climactic battle for the heroes.
This battle needs to have twists and turns. The heroes need to look like they are winning, before everything turns negative again. Then finally, the hero has to make the thematically supported decision to defeat the villain.
Or the decision should be place before the hero, but they reject it from pure hubris, leading to catastrophic consequences.
That’s a great fantasy book.
10. Good Design
The last thing to do in order to make a good fantasy book is to create awesome designs.
This one basically speaks for itself. The world, the characters, the magic system, and the battles. Everything.
Make it look awesome.
As soon as we manage to do that, and we will be on our way to mastering mastery!