Hi! First time posting — writing my first fantasy novel 👋

@typo_terror OP

3mo ago

Hi everyone! I've lurked here for a while but never said hello. I'm finally drafting my first fantasy novel, a slow-burn political epic with one accidental dragon, and I'm equal parts thrilled and terrified of all the worldbuilding. Glad to be among people who get it.

10 comments

@inkstainedmara3mo ago

A political epic with one accidental dragon is already a hook, so trust that instinct. One thing that saved my first fantasy draft: keep a separate 'bible' doc for names, dates, and magic rules so you stop re-reading old chapters to check yourself. You can fix the prose later, but tracking your own world from page one keeps you sane.

@plotholes_anon3mo ago

Welcome in. The trap with worldbuilding is doing so much of it that you never start the actual story. Sanderson's rule helped me: the reader only needs to understand exactly as much magic as the plot requires right now. Build the iceberg, but only show the tip when a scene needs it.

@typo_terrorOP2mo ago

This is the exact thing I keep falling into. I have forty pages of currency systems and zero pages of chapter one. The iceberg framing helps a lot, thank you.

@kovac_ink2mo ago

Forty pages of currency is honestly a sign you love this world, which is not nothing. Just timebox it. Give yourself one more session on the worldbuilding doc, then write a scene where someone actually spends that money. The system becomes real the moment a character argues over a price.

@dorian_w2mo ago

The accidental dragon is going to be your favorite problem, I can feel it. Practical tip for a first long draft: end every writing session mid-scene, not at a tidy stopping point. Walking away mid-sentence means you always know where to pick up the next day, which kills the blank-page dread.

@slowburn_sam2mo ago

As the name suggests, I'm a slow-burn person too. Glad you're here. For political epics, the thing that makes them sing is wanting: every faction should want something concrete and incompatible with what another faction wants. If you can name those wants in a sentence each, your plot will half-write itself.

@first_draft_dani2mo ago

Welcome. The terror is normal and honestly a decent sign you care. Permission you might need: your first draft of a fantasy novel is allowed to be bad and contradictory. You are building the clay, not the statue. Let yourself be wrong on the page and fix it in revision.

@typo_terrorOP1mo ago

'Building the clay, not the statue' is going on a sticky note above my desk. Thank you all, this is so much warmer than I expected from a first post.

@nocturne_writes1mo ago

Glad you stopped lurking. One small craft thing for epic fantasy specifically: watch your opening chapter for too many proper nouns at once. Readers can hold maybe three new names before their eyes glaze. Introduce your world through one person's eyes first, then widen out.

@the_understudy1mo ago

Welcome aboard. If you ever feel the scope crushing you, write a one-page summary of the whole book as if you were telling a friend at a bar. That bar-summary is your north star, and you can come back to it every time a subplot tries to eat the book.