Last week’s blog listed the different writing genres and promised to go a little more in depth in the following weeks with each one of them. This week’s blog post is about Fantasy.

This type of writing includes settings that occur somewhere else in the universe. Even though characters may seem strange, they are “normal, or typical” of the “new, or created” universe for which it is written.

Fantasy typically features the use of magic or supernatural phenomena in the plot, setting, or theme. Mystical or mythological creatures such as elves, dwarves, or goblins are a part of fantasy.

Fantasy is freeing and fun to write because it has few boundaries. The setting drives the characters and the plot.

The following are some familiar/famous fantasy books: The Hobbit, Harry Potter, The Wizard of Earthsea, A Wrinkle in Time, and The Last Unicorn.

Books about how to write fantasy you may want to read: The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction by Philip Athans; The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, Volume 1, Edited by Darin Park and Tom Dullemond; and Writing Fantasy Heroes, edited by Jason M. Waltz.