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Howdy, y’all!

Not a very Saxon greeting, but whatever.

We’re talking about worldbuilding today and as I was thinking about this I remembered one of my favorite things about fantasy (this lesson applies to all genres, trust me). Fantasy, particularly, is the genre that revolves around the importance of the past. That might sound weird because HF takes place entirely in the past, but for the characters in an HF novel, our past is their present. I’m talking about what happens before the characters arrive on stage.

It’s hard to say exactly why the past is so important to fantasy. Maybe it’s because Fantasy often includes a lot of travel so the best way to keep it exciting is to make backstory keep causing trouble. Perhaps it’s because fantasy often focuses on things like the spiritual realm, magic, races, or cosmology that can only be understood with a look at the past.

At the end of the day, all I can say is that the past is the stuff that drives fantasy.

But I don’t just want to talk about fantasy here. I want to apply the lessons of fantasy to all writing. If fantasy is known for its worldbuilding, surely it has something to teach us.

Why is the past so important? As I hinted before, the past gives meaning to existence. It tells us what it means to be a human, or even what it means to be an American or a farmer or fill in the blank. Also, when we see that the present world has come from somewhere, it tells us it is going somewhere. It gets us excited as we see major trends and wonder where they will lead in the future and how they will change. It tells us that the story we are reading has historical consequence. A story world that has a past also just seems more real which helps us to immerse ourselves in the story world. Finally, a story where the past affects the present feel like a timeless story which will help your theme feel a little more timeless.

These are some reasons I enjoy stories where the past is discussed, shown, and affects the plot. What are some reasons you can think up? Can you think of any ways to apply this to your own novel?

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