Your Type of Fantasy
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@skylarynn Nice! Are there any certain culture’s legends which you are more partial to?
@imwritehere1920 I’ve been meaning to read The Girl Who Drank The Moon, actually! Best of luck with your research!
@obrian-of-the-surface-world Haha, thank you for the warm welcome. I’ve actually been here since the day Story Embers was established (you can find my intro thread maybe somewhere along the three years ago forum topics) but these days I rarely frequent the forum anymore, so I am quite out of touch with who everyone is. I’m glad that the place is still as encouraging as when I left it! I hope to become an active member again, perhaps.Wow, long replies! You’ve put into so much thought with this; I’m impressed! I’ve always loved dragons, and yours sound so cool! Which is your favorite out of these types?
You mention a lot about the Bible, so I’m assuming your story is allegorical. Is it a one-to-one allegory, following the story of Jesus, or does it only invoke Biblical themes?
@rose-colored-fancy Ah, yes, high or low fantasy, the debate of my own works as well. Though sometimes I forget that I’m writing fantasy completely, so perhaps I’m more on the latter end of things. Your tribes sound so cool! Do you have main characters from each different tribe? And those are quite an interesting combination of cultures! And I’d love to see those eras mixed together! Should prove to be highly interesting."I set a melody upon the scenery I saw outside my window;
It's beginning in my spacy world."
- TKThanks for the tag @imwritehere1920 !
I would classify the kind of fantasy I write as epic fantasy (high-stakes plot, large scale, traditional heroes and villains, etc). My worldbuilding is very different from Tolkien’s, but I have drawn a lot of inspiration from him in terms of the overall scale of the world and story, the way he incorporates Christian themes, and the influence of lore and history in the world (I think Lord of the Rings is a perfect novel). My worldbuilding is different in that I don’t have elves, dwarves, etc. and wouldn’t classify the world as medieval by any means. Maybe a little more influenced by the amount of nineteenth century British and Russian novels I read!
these days I rarely frequent the forum anymore, so I am quite out of touch with who everyone is.
Yeah, me too… I think I joined in March or April of 2018 back before they started doing the Guilds. I was in <span class=”x_gmail-il”>Parimi</span> <span class=”x_gmail-il”>Alca until they stopped</span>. Life was so busy and I worked so many hours and traveled so far, I just had no time other than just to write in the dark seclusion. I tend to like solitude, but after what just happened in 2020, I realized what it was like to feel that disconnection from everybody and stopped taking it for granted that they would wait for me to be “sociable again”. I determined to be one who doesn’t wait for everyone to wonder where I disappeared to. Human connection is important. That’s why God put us in families and gathers in His Chosen into His personal family by ransoming us and adopting us away from the “Father of Lies”. So welcome back, my dear sister! Don’t be a stranger.
So to your questions…
DragonsWhich is your favorite out of these types?
It is kinda hard to say, because these are demonic princes embodied in those forms when they crawl, slither or swim into “The Mid-World”. The Red Dragon is in a kind of “aware sleep” through the first two books, and is a personification of Lucifer himself, so I can never say he is a favorite, but he is a sinister, pride filled, thief, and massive in size, but curled and wedged into a stone crevasse high in the Walls of Stone mountain chain. It, unlike the other two has seven heads and each complete the other’s sentences, so that is an odd quirk. And each of the seven heads can come out of any one of the porous rock to seize a victim even while it is talking to it with another of its heads. Misdirection seems to be its specialty. Each head has a nest of bony spires and crowns of melted gold fused to its heads. Its attitude matches that of his account in Ezekiel 28:13-15 & Isaiah 14:12-14. This creature is a “Prince of the Power of The Air” and all “wicked elemental wind spirits” are loyal to it, even above their seeming service to the other dragon princes. (See also Ephesians 2:2)
The second dragon is a Leviathan, taking its description closely from that water dragon described in Job 41 and Isaiah 27:1. In fact, Psalms 74:14 includes a passage describing the breaking of the head of leviathan and giving its carcass as meat for a people inhabiting the wilderness. In the story, the leviathan dragon is killed in a pitched sea battle and its head is severed and crushed between the collision of two ships. Its body is hauled ashore by fishermen, and from its rotting maw a golem emerges from a forming chamber in its jaw gills, inhabited by a wind spirit called Torlah, who shapes shifts the golem into the image of the human woman who was taken under and devoured by the leviathan and whose blood was used by the dragon/leviathan to form it. I am still formulating this one for Book 3, so I may favor it more, once it is fully fleshed out in the story.
So far, my favorite has to be The Dust Dragon, because that one is already written, and I, in a sense, now know it best.
I take some creative license with it, in that I make it serve God’s judgement during its time in the Surface World. It is the agent of destruction that causes the ground to open during Korah’s rebellion against Moses’s leadership in the account of Numbers 16:32. Here is the verse quote:
32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that [appertained] unto Korah, and all [their] goods. [Numbers 16:32 KJV]
Since this “Dust Dragon” shuns the daylight, it would make sense that it attacks from underground, literally opening up the earth and swallowing its hapless victims. I do love the hidden tie in to Scripture.
To you other question…
I’m assuming your story is allegorical. Is it a one-to-one allegory, following the story of Jesus, or does it only invoke Biblical themes?
No these are more the thematic types and shadows, rather than any one-to-one allegory, though there are elements that are directly correlated to a one to one. I resist allegory as much as Tolkien did. I gravitate more to themes, that are woven into the historical background of what we know to be infallible truth as the Scriptural account delivers it.
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.SOMEONE HATH SUMMONED ME!!!!
Lol, what are we doing? Ohmygosh, your profile pic is gorgeous @devastate-lasting!!!
*skims over everything in ten seconds*
Ooooh! This looks fun, so many interesting ideas @everybody!!!
Ok, uh, hi I guess XD. My WIP is a psychological high fantasy thriller that involves accurate mental illnesses, daemon fighting, puzzle quests, excessive sarcasm, quirkiness and just plain insanity :P!
Honestly I just make up crazy stuff whenever I want like upsidedown rain (pulls out of the earth to the clouds instead of the other way around) and then be like “oh look, I can add symbolism!” (everything “reaching for the sky/meaning/heaven”) and boom plot problem (upsidedown rain makes for dry soil). So, uh, yeah totally high-fantasy XD. Pretty much every chapter has something weird like that 😛
The more “important” (blah blah) setting aspects involve like this really super long war that’s been going on and on and everybody’s on their last leg from it but nobody’s surrendering and then this necromancer with his creepy secret guilds and experimentation coming to take over. It’s in a world were some people are born with special abilities–called gifteds, or ability-borns, then aberrants which is a rascal slur–used to be like Old Testament prophets and saints and all that and would guide the people kinda separate from political power had a lot of religious responsibility but then–they say–the power got to their heads and they started to abuse their powers and there was this huge rebellion and now gifteds are a hated minority group. (In fact they’re so rare the running medieval conspiracy-theorist gag is that they never existed, but only conspiracy-theorists think that 😉 )
But with the loss of the gifteds their religion also was outlawed and the people turned away and there’s a struggle to fill that void where there was a lot of cultural power and check on other powers. And then there’s embittered ability-borns (gifted has the religious connotation; ability-born denotes the powers one was simply born with) formed secret guilds to take back power or just avenge themselves needlessly.
Oh and there’s also a plague *LOL…no seriously XD*To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Ah, yes, high or low fantasy, the debate of my own works as well. Though sometimes I forget that I’m writing fantasy completely, so perhaps I’m more on the latter end of things. Your tribes sound so cool! Do you have main characters from each different tribe? And those are quite an interesting combination of cultures! And I’d love to see those eras mixed together! Should prove to be highly interesting.
Thank you! Kinda! I have six main characters, but only three are POV characters and I do have a definite main character, the others are in between main and side characters.
The six main characters are each from a different tribe, so I’m only missing one tribe, but it’s geographically quite far from the main events, so it makes sense.
It’s quite amusing to put all of them together since you get conversations like “Why do you guys knock before you go in? That’s so rude!” “Wait, you don’t?” and I’m severely tempted to write a heated discussion on whether oral or written storytelling is more important XD Stuff like that amuses me XD
Some tribes do get way more screentime than others, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t have favorites XD Some just have a cooler aesthetic or setting than others.
The idea with the era is going to be really tricky since I’m trying to combine an Art Noveau style with the golden age of piracy. The tricky thing about this is that it’s set before any kind of Industrial revolution, so I have to figure out how the Industrial revolution impacted society and subtract that from the Edwardian era, and figure out how that works, so that should be interesting/complicated XD Still, I’m trying to save that idea for later XD
Without darkness, there is no light. If there was no nighttime, would the stars be as bright?
@ashley-tegart Very interesting! I do have a love for British and Russian literature. What aspects would you say you draw from them？
@obrian-of-the-surface-world Ah, yes, guilds…I miss my Erekdale. Wow, all three of these dragons sound very cool. I love how you have Bible verses from which they are based. And which themes in particular would you say that you are incorporating into your story?
@this-is-not-an-alien Thank you! I made it with Picrew. And your profile picture is beautiful as well! Whoa, your WIP sounds like something I would read. A fantasy psychological thriller? I’m all in. Maybe I should take a leaf out of your book, haha, and make up strange things more often. I find that I put more realistic things in my fantasy these days than made-up stuff. Wow, your setting seems really fleshed out! Which group do your main characters fall into？
@rose-colored-fancy Your characters sound really fun to write! And fun to read XD It sounds like you do a lot of research before writing, and I must applaud you! I’m sure that your hard work will come to fruit when you do pick up that idea."I set a melody upon the scenery I saw outside my window;
It's beginning in my spacy world."
- TKHey Linyang!
I haven’t done much actual drafting, but I have done some worldbuilding. I have so much stuff I want to cram in that I’m not sure whether to split it up into several worlds or not. Anyone else have this problem?
But anyway, they all involve elemental magic, multiple races, and either an unlikely hero or an antihero. I’m fascinated by myths and cultures, and how every myth has a shred of truth. I get a lot of inspiration from ancient cultures, especially Greece and Rome.
I basically have three groups of races: humans (also called aetherians), elementals, and wilderkin (anthropomorphic animals). Each can use different element(s). They are four different types of elementals corresponding to the four different elements, but within each element they vary. For example, a stone and fire elemental could be short and stocky like a dwarf or big and powerful like a giant. Because I HATE interspecies relationships in fantasy that have zero explanation as to how that even works, I am still figuring out how that works in my world. It’s a bit confusing, and I’m sure it would hardly ever be explained to a reader, but I need to know how it works. One thing I do know is that wilderkin only have relationships within their own kind. Because we don’t need a mutant tortoise man-child or a freaky fish-bird hybrid.
"Can't have dirty garbage."
Your WIP sounds so cool Cathy! I love symbolism, puzzles, and of course sarcasm is the best.
"Can't have dirty garbage."
Your WIP sounds grand too. I love elemental magic and mythology, and relating it all in a Biblical framework is super cool. I’m trying to do something similar, but my world is completely other, even though it has some real-world parallels.
"Can't have dirty garbage."
Thanks for the tag @imwritehere1920
@devastate-lasting This is such a cool topic!I have two different types of fantasy worlds in my stories, but they have similarities. One is your typical Narnia-ish feel (castles, mythical creatures, dragons, magic spells, etc.) and the other is what’s called Adventure Fantasy. It’s really just fantasy with no magic.
I love the crazy world-building side of regular fantasy…lava people, tiger centaurs, magical lights, and lots and lots of wizards, but Adventure Fantasy just has a grittiness to it that I feel fantasy is often lacking. There’s no magical way out of a situation. There’s no spells, or special words. A character gets what they work for. But I keep it fantasy because I like creating cultures and ideas that our world doesn’t have.
"If I'm gonna break, I'll break like the dawn." -Nightbirde
Hi Linyang ( @devastate-lasting ),
To your question:
And which themes in particular would you say that you are incorporating into your story?
My overall theme is “Lordship”. I find that one lacking in the myriad offerings of Christian fiction. “Redemption” is always the more prevalent one since the story arc is fairly clear, but I wanted to take it further than just into the “saving” of the MC or ancillary characters. To me, salvation is the beginning of life for the redeemed. It is a powerful and compelling story to be sure, but the real challenge that influences the wider world is seeing how that redemption is worked out into the person’s life and the difference it makes in how they adjust to the renewing of their mind.
Romans 12:2 says:
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”If the difference doesn’t show in the rebirth, one wonders whether true repentance actually occurred. The walking into the “newness of life” is what gets people’s attention. It is not just in securing salvation, by faith alone, but by the evidence of the fruit that comes out of learning to abide as a newly grafted branch into The Vine. What fruits are in the DNA of The Vine, should show up in the grafted branch, but there is a pruning that God as “The Vinedresser” does to us. See the following:
“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every [branch] that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. [John 15:2 NKJV]
When we are saved by grace, our spirit is reborn and we are called a “new creation”, but we are awakened onto a battlefield, where the Enemy of our soul has just suffered a defeat and loss of us as his possession. He declares war on us, but greater is He that is IN us, than “he” that is in the world, so the outworking is our realization of who we NOW are in Christ, and how we have to reassess our old way of living according to the flesh and yield to the urgings of the new nature that is placed within us. Jesus is not just the Savior of our lives, He wants to be Lord of it, and as we learn more of this new faith, we learn to rely on Him more and not our old way of doing things. We find greater liberty in that and greater freedom, because we are no longer in bondage to the chains of sin that held us, prisoner, for so long. In that Lordship walk, we are met with temporary defeats, because we are fledglings, infants in our new discoveries. But as we gain momentum by learning to take all of our cares and directions from Him in His patient teaching and things revealed to us in Scripture and our own personal learning curve, we develop, we grow, we become more battle-ready and battle-hardened with each building experience of God’s evident power meeting us in each challenge and difficulty we face. As we surrender the old ways and strongholds, He takes Lordship over them, and that is a powerful transformation to witness. This is what my WIP is about. Finding and discovering the implications of our newborn faith, employing these conclusions in the conflicts. Taking back territory that the enemies of our souls have stolen, under the authority of He who now lives in us, and wants to transform our lives by living through us, even if it means storming the very gates of hell.
For this reason, my principal characters are all believers in various stages of maturity in their new life.
I wanted to address the creditability issue of Christian messaging. I have often thought, how can I tell a lost person that Jesus is THEIR answer, if I am not learning that He first is MY answer in a real and meaningful way that transforms me and cause me to bear fruit in evidence of my heart change.
It struck me that the Great Commission always begins in the immediate spot where it lands and only then it is charged to expand outward. If Jesus isn’t making a difference in Me then I will always have a problem convincing someone else that He can make a difference for them. What is needed is for me to grow up in experiential and experimental faith walking, and letting God be Himself through me. My focus then is for those who are Jesus’s sheep. We are told to make disciples, not converts. God does the converting. But we are called to join with one another and encourage one another to live out loud this freedom and liberty that now comes from making Him Lord. That is my WIP mission. It is for Christians, like me, to find that sweet spot, where God does amazing things through a yielded vessel that seeks His sufficiency and not their own.
I know I give long answers, but it is because I respect the question and the questioners too much not to give a thoughtful and considered reply. I hope you and all the others can be patient with me.
Brian Stansell (aka O'Brian of the Surface World)
I was born in war.
Fighting from my first breath.@sparrowhawke Awesome username, first and foremost. Ah, yes, I have thirteen different worlds in my main fantasy…tbh there’s nothing special about most of them, they’re more like different countries at this point. Your ideas sound so cool! I love how much thought you’re putting into your worldbuilding. Will your main characters have one from each race? And, yeah, I always wonder about interspecies relationships. It makes my head hurt.
@arindown Hi Arindown! Lovely to see you! Wow, Adventure Fantasy sounds like the exact opposite of what I usually write. I have magic but nothing else is different. What in the world are tiger centaurs? Wow, I really admire all the things you’ve come up with! I feel like nowadays I have little imagination to worldbuild, haha. What are some of your favorite things that you’ve created so far?"I set a melody upon the scenery I saw outside my window;
It's beginning in my spacy world."
- TK@obrian-of-the-surface-world Hey, forums are a place for long answers! Usually mine are on the shorter side because I don’t have much to say.
Ah, Lordship! I haven’t heard of that very often. I think it’s definitely a very interesting topic to tackle. What is the premise of your novel, btw?
"I set a melody upon the scenery I saw outside my window;
It's beginning in my spacy world."
- TKHmm, I just started experimenting with fantasy so I don’t know all the ropes yet (hence the reason I joined this group to learn from y’all’s expertise), but I’ve been thinking lately about what type I’d like to explore. I like medieval fantasy and also find time-traveling really interesting. Or maybe something in space, like C.S. Lewis’ Space trilogy? Perhaps one day, even a contemporary world with fantasy elements, like our lovely Jenna Terese’s Ignite lol. But I think I’ve discovered that the contemporary world isn’t really for me, as I don’t enjoy writing it nearly as much as other genres.
So as you can probably tell, I have no idea. I’m gonna read through everyone else’s responses and see what else is out there!
https://discipleshipwithjoy.com
@joy-caroline Ah, yes, time-travelling, my old love. Still love, but unsure of what to do with it. Space would be cool1 I’ve been meaning to read that. Ah, hope you find what you like here! I can always dig up a list of genres as well but I think fantasy is best left up to the imagination first.
"I set a melody upon the scenery I saw outside my window;
It's beginning in my spacy world."
- TK
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