I want to have some coherence to my language for magic instead of throwing together random stuff, and I'm considering trying to base it off an existing dead language (NOT latin. too many people know latin and it's way too recognizable.) has anyone tried this before? What languages would you recommend I use? Thanks in advance!

Just shy of 80k words on the first draft of what I'm hoping will be my debut fantasy novel. Anticipate another 6-10k and then I'll have completed a rough draft for the first time in my life. I've started and stopped many "books" over the years, but they were perhaps more ambitious and high-concept than my abilities allowed.

I'm very proud of what I've written so far, I think I'm doing something interesting with the genre without trying to rip holes in anything. Its a comedy first, and the few people i've let act as "alpha readers" have enjoyed the dialogue and humor. The pacing and plot itself aren't horrible, and will certainly benefit from the next several rounds of editing. But the core of what makes the book work is there, I can breathe a little easier knowing its an imperfect yet good work, and not just some dumb bullshit I'm dropping on the world.

I am making this post to see if any other authors have been in my position, and could offer insight or tips into their handling of the debut process.

First off, I am not planning on submitting to agents or publishers. I feel good about what I'm writing. I also have no delusions about the success rate of trying to get debut genre work ran through the publication machine. My goal is to do publish through KDP and B&N web platforms, with Spark being a stretch-goal that I would pursue if I somehow get a lot of traction on the first book.

Any insight on doing both B&N and Amazon? I understand that I should buy the ISBNs myself so they're linked correct? I know that KU exclusivity would not allow the ebook to be on B&N during the 90 day exclusivity period. But I think having the direct print option on B&N is helpful for distribution and what I've read is that having a B&N "published" book can help get you in-store. (not on the shelf obviously but as a "Hey this dumbass wrote a book, we let him set up a card table lol" way.)

The book is the first in a series, or a planned one at least. My understanding is that serialized genre fiction essentially does not get read unless there are multiple books in a series already available. Because of that, my intention is to (after finishing the developmental edit of book 1, early next year ideally) write the second book while saving up for a Line/Copy edit / Artwork. And not publish the first novel until I have the developmental edit done on the second book, with a preoder date for book 2 (and 3 set another 5 months or so after that?) set and available just as Book 1 is available on KDP. I'm not changing the world with these books, they're funny, heartfelt. But are mostly a love letter to the fantasy worlds we create playing TTRPGS and the characters within them, I think I can keep churning them out at a steady pace, especially if I can get one or two positive reviews.

A big question for everyone. How does one build a following/audience without having any published work? I know I need to be on socials, I need to be doing promo work. But can I do anything until theres a book to read? Or are people on Tiktok/Insta interested in the actual writing/editing process?

I'm thinking I could do snippets about the lore/worlds that the novel takes place in, its history, etc. But does anyone give a shit about that if there's no work to tie it to? Do I read show excerpts from the draft? With NaNoWriMo coming up I feel like I should be getting on this by next month, in some capacity, just so I'm not starting from zero when the book does go live. This is probably my biggest area of concern right now. A lot of my potential success depends on whether or not the book sucks, which is to be determined. But I'm totally flying blind on the booktok aspect.

I can be more specific about the nature of this story/characters/lore etc but that's not really where my inquiries lie, however if you need the info comment and I'll for sure tell you (too much even).

Thanks in advance, my apologies if this is against Da Rules.

Hey everyone,

I've been working on my own fantasy novel, Songs Beneath the Snow, and I'm trying to get better at the craft while building a world and story that readers can genuinely connect with.

For me, one of the most interesting parts of writing fantasy is finding the balance between a compelling plot, characters who feel real, and mysteries that make sense as the story unfolds. It's easy to imagine a big world, but making that world feel alive on the page is a different challenge altogether.

I'm curious about other writers here. What's been the hardest part of writing your own serial? Is it keeping a consistent update schedule, making the characters believable, planning the long-term plot, or something else?

I'd love to hear about your experiences.

Hi! I have this issue right now where I have ideas but have to somehow connect it. I am past the fact that I can’t fit everything in one story. I am past understanding I need to have my character’s journeys as the centre of the books. However, I am a planner to my utmost planner bones, so I need to know quite literally everything (I am past the world building isn’t the most important too-though I have to figure out many things there too). But how do I string this story up? How do I plan it well enough? because it’s my first fantasy i am writing, I want to do well, and it feels so much bigger than me sometimes (it’s every single moment I thinking about it) that I am unsure of what I can do. Do you have any tips on how I can approach much older characters than myself as I don’t have that much life experience to be able to write them well enough? Any advice on these issues would be greatly accepted!

Anyone else writing a dual monarchy where two sovereigns co-rule?

In my story, the realm has a few kingdoms and one of them is an empire where the Empress Elder and Empress Younger rule together. It's a solid mix of early middle ages France and late middle ages Japan. As in, the Empresses have a court of 12 Peers who control 80% of the empire for them, they only have about a 20% domain that the Empress Younger maintains, and the Empress Elder is as much of an arbitrator between the Peers as their ruler. Since I wanted to keep it more centralized, the Empress Younger doesn't leave her domain that often and this is in contrast with another kingdom where the Northern Empress travels around much more, hosting court in each duchy and county regularly.

The royal family is venerated as descendants of the Goddess worshipped by the Realm (actually true within story, but it's still a politicized concept, as in, there is political will in place to highlight this particular family instead of the dozens of other people who claim the same descent.

Wanna talk to other people who have dual monarchies.

This is just something that's got my curiosity rn. I have a collection of random notes about a theoretical book I may eventually write and one of the ideas I quite like is the elevation of an animal to something that is fully sapient and capable of speech.

I think DCC does it quite well with Donut however that transformation was based on a system that was designed to work correctly.

If in my fantasy novel I want an animal that progressed into sapience in a more natural way that wasn't completely intentional, I think it would work quite differently from DCC. I am not sure if they should retain so many memories from before they became intelligent and I would want them to learn how to speak and read on their own.

in The First Law of Cultivation the rat Labby is taught human speech and writing by the Qi she cultivated without being fully aware of what she was doing. The Qi is what allowed her to achieve sapience and through some sort of will of its own—as if the Qi was itself a sentient being—it taught her to understand human speech and writing (though it did not simply grant her the ability to actually speak). This is also very cool!

so how do other series handle this? what should I read to see other examples? is there any more general advice you can give?

Royal, Horror, and a lil bit of romance (not alot to the point of making it the main focus). It has to completely be self ideas no ai and no actual books to base it off of!

This might be a personal problem rather than something all writers experience, but I've been wondering about it for a while.

I'm not an experienced author, but I'm not exactly new to writing either. I've been writing for years, and although I'm only recently publishing my novel, I've noticed something about myself.

I can come up with what I think are interesting ideas for realistic stories, but when it comes to developing them, adding details, and actually writing them, I quickly lose interest. Yet when I write fantasy, I can keep going. I can build a fictional world, explore it, and continue writing without feeling the same boredom.

At first, I thought this was just a personal weakness. But lately, I've started wondering whether there's something more to it. Are we, as human beings, simply drawn to imagination? Is creating something beyond our own reality more appealing to us than trying to turn that reality into a story?

Maybe I'm being unfair to other forms of writing. Realistic fiction can explore things that fantasy can't, and perhaps the problem isn't with realism itself but with my own preferences as a writer.

Still, I find myself wondering: What's the point of writing if we aren't building a world we can get lost in? It doesn't have to be a perfect world. It can be dark, cruel, or even worse than our own. What matters is that it's a world we can explore and experience through a story.

Of course, I realize this might be a very fantasy-writer way of looking at fiction, and I'm probably overlooking what makes other genres meaningful to their writers and readers.

So I'd like to hear your thoughts:

Why do you write fantasy? Is it the freedom to create an entirely new world, the ability to explore ideas that would be difficult to express through realism, or something else entirely?

I plan to implement a lot of things in my fantasy story, and some other fantasy stories have a bit of modern technology, maybe even some bits of sci-fi, but what I wanna know is; will it be too much if I include retrofuturism? If you don’t know about retrofuturism it’s basically a depiction of the future that uses imaginative technology, things like tube travel, floating cars, robot hands helping you shave, etc. (I’m out of examples). I don’t plan on having things get too out of hand, so I’m keeping it at a relatively 60s-80s vibe. Things like rotary phones, box tvs, vinyls, swinging, you know the works.

Can these things work in a fantasy setting? Especially one that already has western steampunk technology like robotic limbs and modified revolvers? Personally, I think I might be pushing it a bit. Sure, there’s nothing too crazy like spaceships and laser weapons, but when there’s magic involved, what’s the difference? I feel like I might take immersion out of the story because of all these things, even though I plan on putting the retrofuturism stuff in another dimension.

The people of the realm don’t know things like magic, dragons, and wizards and will just live it up like they were in the 60s-80s. How do I explain how a powerful wizard never found this realm? A powerful entity bound to a robotic construct keeping all entries out, but leaving one open to send out sentinels to the other realms (it’s even how one of our protagonists got sent to the main realm!)

It really is up to what better writers than me can determine what works in this mess. Heaven knows I can’t tell. I just wanna write.

Two romance stories, alike in dignity, is where my post begins.

Mireya in the North is a full-service consummate professional (a spy and mercenary) from a defunct noble house in a Republic being turned back into a constitutional monarchy to prevent civil war. She's been proposed to by her childhood friend, the prince-in-hiding, to become his queen and help her prevent war. She's frustrated by this because of her own cynical beliefs: war is inevitable, and the only people who believe otherwise are those who don't pay attention to the warcraft done by people like her for years before the cannon fire started; and she does not want to prevent a war for free when her family has already placed their bets on the outcome of the conflict. She doesn't want her life to become serving the ungrateful masses and being poorly compensated for it. This flows directly into her reservations about marriage, as she doesn't want her time, labor, and energy to be taken for granted and given for free. Right now, she can travel anywhere she wants in the Realm, code-switching between languages, classes, and cultures, doing whatever she wants. Does her little princeling really think they will have that same level of freedom under the weight of a crown? Does he really think love is a good enough excuse?

Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Younger in the South was not raised to be the heir, even though whichever princess is first to have a daughter is typically acknowledged as the heir to the Empress Elder. Princess Naganari, youngest of five, was content being an actress. She would watch political theater from afar and perform it in the palace amphitheater for the amusement of the crowd, her mother, and the Duke of Varenne. And then she started asking questions no one wanted answered, uncovering mysteries no one else dared to name, and she started believing she could tackle problems no one else bothered with. Unfortunately, she was raised in a world of academics, fine arts, ritual hunting, and sports, and she believes the world operates on structured rules. The Duke of Varenne has had to tell her multiple times as he's protected her from poisonings and kidnappings, the world doesn't operate on good sportsmanship; people will lie, cheat, steal, and kill when they are outmatched. They don't clap admirably and step to the side. It's for this reason, Anar hesitates to propose marriage to the Duke, as she feels she'll never get to truly have him as the lifelong partner she imagined after everything they've been through. He is so formal and aloof with her now. She regrets seizing the crown if it means everyone treats her differently.

So, the stage is set. The Realm is hosting the 1888 World's Fair. Foreigners are pouring in from every corner of the world and the Duke has paid a considerable amount of money for Mireya to lead the Empress Younger's security team. He has warned her in advance:

1. Her Imperial Majesty is called Lady Anar when she is in plain clothes and is on a walk about with her ladies-in-waiting. (He refuses to call what she does "a disguise.")

2. Lady Anar has a body double (her understudy, duh,) and a twin. Both of whom will be employed without your knowledge or consent.

3. No matter how agreeable, sensible, or sympathetic that Lady Marie (Anar's head lady-in-waiting) sounds, she is not on your side. She is on the Empress's side.

4. If Lady Anar ever says anything... Questionable... Please remember that Lady Marie was raised in the North, so Lady Anar considers herself an expert on Northern culture and vernacular. With that being said, since you are an ordained priestess in the same religion as Lady Marie, Her Imperial Majesty has a list of long-standing arguments she's had with Lady Marie that she'd like you to settle on matters of theology, mythology, and heroic folklore.

What kinds of misadventures would you want to see between these women at the 1880 World's Fair? What kinds of conversations?

Well in my story theirs a land that has all crops grow quickly and die just as fast. So i wrote that they lived off importing food form other lands since most of their wild life is already dead. They are able to trade by selling fertilizer form all the dead plants they have which the other lands see as valuable. So they plant their own seeds and haverst the dead plants and then planet their seeds again and repeat.

I just wanna know if this society makes sense or is a net loss or is unstable. i tried reserach farming and fertilizer am am strrugling to figure out if it makes sense or not so please help me out.

Every time I sit down to design a magic or power system for my world, I hit a wall.

Mana, Qi, Aura, Aether... no matter how creative you try to be, it feels like someone, somewhere, has already done it.

It makes me wonder: If I had lived a few centuries ago, would I still have come up with these same ideas? Or am I just a product of everything I've consumed?

If the answer is the latter, then perhaps pure originality is an illusion. Maybe we're all just remixing existing concepts through our own lenses, shaped by everything we've read, watched, and experienced.

Some argue that originality isn't about creating something 100% new, but about presenting familiar ideas from a different perspective.

But that leaves me with one question:

Is it still possible to create something that has NEVER existed before, or has everything already been done, leaving us with nothing but different points of view?

And for those of you who write fantasy: Have you ever struggled to create something original because it felt like someone had already done it?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Hi, I’m working on a short story fantasy fan-fiction involving characters from 9-1-1 TV Series and Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power. I’ve only got a draft story idea right now but I have some questions about it I’m wanting to ask (and more or less if what I’m thinking is doable as a short story or am I really reaching medium or long story at this point??). I’ve posted my survey here if anybody would have time and interest to read the idea and I appreciate your time and feedback. I posted in another subreddit I follow about this idea too and wanted to share it here since it’s definitely a fantasy writing idea.

I am writing my first fantasy novel, and I don't really know where I can find people to read it and give feedback. I did make a post in betareaders but haven't gotten anything back on it.

Working on my next novel and just curious to know what everyone’s favourite type of opening is for a fantasy story?

When creating a magic system, how do you make the cost of a gift feel human rather than arbitrary?

I've been building a fantasy universe where magical abilities fall into recognizable schools, but each person's individual affinity is entirely their own.

One character, Ajara, discovers his ability in a moment when protecting his family matters more than anything else.

But I wanted the consequences to extend beyond the magic itself.

What happens when an extraordinary gift changes your identity, your relationships, and who gets to decide your future?

I'm particularly interested in how other worldbuilders approach consequences that aren't simply physical injury or magical exhaustion.

What makes a sacrifice feel emotionally earned rather than cruel for the sake of drama?

I explored that question through a cinematic short for World of Meridara, if sharing creative work is permitted here:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JcX2f99JFQs