My fellow kinsmen; welcome to York College’s first fantasy creative writing group. It’s time to grab your battleaxes, lunge for your swords and also, to pick up your quills, because it’s time to learn about the ultimate fantasy tales and construct your very own!
When looking at the fantasy genre in great deal, it can be subdivided into five main categories. First off there is ‘High fantasy’. These types are constructed in entirely different worlds concocted entirely from the author’s imagination. This type of fantasy is commonly referred to as the ‘purest form’ of fantasy. Some good examples of this type that you are all bound to know of  are the Terry Pratchett Disc World Series, the classic Lord of the Rings series and the famous Harry potter.
The next type of fantasy is Cross-over fantasy which entails the characters travelling from our reality world to fantasy land. Or perhaps the other way round where the character visits our world. The fantasy land the characters are from or travel to are very similar to the ‘High fantasy’ lands where strange creatures dwell and magic holds great power. A good example and a personal favourite of mine is ‘The Eldarn Sequence’ written by Robert Scott & Jay Gordon. The characters find themselves transported through a strange portal to a fascinating world filled with history and treachery circumstances which gives them their ultimate quest.
The third type of fantasy is called ‘Dream fantasy’ is presented by the author as a dream. As the story is in a dream fashion the story will often be very bizarre and illogical.
The next type of fantasy is ‘Science fiction fantasy’ which is not to be confused with the other genre of just straight science fiction. These stories are situated on other planets or in the distant future. It can be very difficult to accurately define the difference between science fiction and science fiction fantasy but a good example of the fantasy is Andre Norton’s Witch World.
The last type of fantasy is ‘Travelling fantasy’ which involves the extraordinary creatures and places but doesn’t use the principals of magic and is therefore considered more ‘normal’ than any of the other types of fantasy.
Unfortunately the genre of fantasy is often looked down upon and is claimed as being childish and is not always taken seriously. Ultimately all fiction is fantasy; some is just imagined to a higher extent. Fantasy is one of the purest forms of fiction there is and also the first form of fiction that we come across as children. They range from basic children’s stories to fables and fairy tales to the more advanced fantasy genre so it is illogical to think that this type of fantasy is any less of a literature genre. But of course by showing up here, it shows that you are all willing to embrace the fantasy world and join in on our very own battle.
So you want to write your very own fantasy tale? There are a few things you’re going to need first; I mean let’s not arm our bow without a quiver. The most essential thing you’re going to have to create is your characters, and trust me there’s a lot to create. As most of these guys are going to be with you out this throughout this journey (unless you plan on killing a few of them off, which usually isn’t a too bad idea) it’s quite important that you make them interesting enough.
The first and most obvious way to make a character interesting is powers. Be it magical sorcery or a discovery of a peculiar skills, these are almost always a big plus for stories. The main reason that these things are found so interesting is that they allow the story to take unexpected twists and turns that grab the reader’s attention.
The race of a character can be a useful tool as it can open up many opportunities for your story with logical reasons (or at least as logical as you can get in these fantasy tales). People are fascinated by difference and this is one of the easiest ways to inject a piece of variation in. In my own personal experience, dwarves are rather serious business, elves are curiously intriguing and goblins are just plain funny. I’m pretty sure most successful fantasy tales have at least some sort of strange race or creature but the decision is ultimately up to you and you will all have your own individual imaginations. Take ‘The hobbit’ for example in the very first chapter we are introduced to a very old wizard called Gandalf as most of you will know, and then the dwarves; Thorin Oakenshield, Dori, Nori, Ori, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur. These thirteen little heroes certainly lighten up the story and make the book a pleasure to read.

Once you have decided on your characters, that’s the easy part out of the way. Now comes the real fun; your long adventure battling evil with all your might (or it might be battling good if that’s your thing). But with all this evil to slay, you’re going to need somewhere to do it. The setting of your piece will heavily influence your entire story so it’s important to think of place interesting enough. It doesn’t have to even be on planet Earth, many authors prefer to completely scrap our own continents and create there own epic world but then again you can always keep little old earth and inject some of your imagination into it. On a smaller scale, a mountainous area sprinkled with vast expanses of forests and little villages could possibly serve you well, but that’s only one of thousands of possibilities.
As this is such a wide and influencing area of the work I feel a few examples are necessary. They say it has no end to it and that it just carries on to the end of earth, and now I’m beginning to see why. The mountains were made up of large sandy coloured rock and seemed to be the only thing providing any sort of cover from the unforgiving sun that sun beat down on the dry cracked earth. Each step I took crunched down on the burnt dirt.






















Commentary
The primary purpose of my narrative short story is to entertain. There is a very wide range of audience whom would read pieces like this from teenagers to adults; the only necessity being that person is interested and gripped by this specific crime genre. As this piece is a short story you could expect it to appear in some sort of magazine of crime fiction or more likely on the internet on a writing website where people are free to read work at the leisure. The main feature of the genre I have tried to emulate is the steady build up of tension that occurs with the progression of time throughout the short story.
Whilst drafting my piece I encountered many problems which I have had to try and solve. The main thing I found particularly difficult was selecting a genre suitable enough to be crafted into a short story. My original piece was of a fantasy genre but there were far many problems I encountered; one being that I had trouble fitting everything I wanted to say into the word limit and when I did have a suitable word count the story lacked plot development. I then progressed to selecting the crime genre and I found this entirely more suitable for then length I wanted to achieve.
A progressive increase of tension is a key feature to this particular style of writing. Initially I started the tension of as being merely doubt such as when the man says “She was probably just distracted” this then quickly escalates to fear and confusion and he says “I couldn’t think  straight”. My intention was to make the man’s tension increase dramatically and by describing this, the reader’s tension would simultaneously mimic it. As I tried to set in the fear I began using shorter sentence lengths such as “No sign” and “Then his fear set in”. By doing this I intended to raise the pace of the story and so as he more frantically searched for his wife the reader would become more frantically engaged.
Repetition