For my speech class, we had to give an informative speech. It took me awhile to figure out a topic but I soon figured out a perfect topic. I gave my informative speech on creative writing. When I had finished presenting my speech, I actually was asked questions by my peers. Later when my teacher told me my grade, she said how she loved how passionate I was when I presented my speech and how it could be seen that I really loved what I was talking about and how I showed that I wanted to be a creative writer. She even said that even the students could tell I wanted to be a writer. And she was propably write. So I thought that I could share my speech with you who bother to read mein blog.
Many people as you know want to become authors of fantasy fiction, but they lack the structure and style to do so. There are several key ideas that authors of fantasy take into account that help authors write their story. As someone who wants to become a fantasy author, I too must think about these key ideas. An author must create their magic world, must create their characters, must develop the plot, and so on.
First we start with the basics: creating the world and the characters. First we create the world. When creating a world, you need to come up with an idea of what the world looks like. But more importantly, if the world is not the planet we live on like say, Final Fantasy XIII's world of Cocoon and Grand Pulse, one must think about the world's history. Either the history of the world is important or it isn't. If it is important make sure you make a clear history of the world and make sure that it's understandable and makes sense. If the history of your fantasy world is not important, than don't start spouting out these idols, or historic events. Otherwise your story will be terrible. If you don't explain the history of your world, the reader will become confused and will put the book in a trash can. (If people do throw books into trash cans, they're comitting a crime.)
For example, in Bazil Broketail a book about a dragon warrior and his boy, written by Christopher Rowley, the world that the author created was very...confusing and...horrible. This is what he did wrong. As I read the book, he started spouting out names that didn't make sense. He explained some of his enemies, but it was just to vague. Plus he doesn't explain who this empire is. My assumptions are that there is another world and that the kingdom we were reading about was a state that served as a colinizing city that served an empire in some other world. But that's not the point. His thoughts were disorganized and it was just not good. I became very confused and just gave up reading it. (Do not read this book, it is not very good because the characters are not well developed at all. His characters are flat and don't grow at all because he's too busy talking about something else. Not that great. I expected more.)
Usually when creating a world, authors create these races of creatures. Take J.R.R.Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trillogy. He creates several races and describes them. However, let's use dragons as an example race. You as an author need to think about your race. What do your dragons look like? How do they behave? What is their culture? All these sort of questions need to be taking into place. You need to know these things to create your race, otherwise you might contradict yourself.
Another thing that helps is to research your story. Research dragonlore, knights, kings and queens, mythology and folklore. It helps inspire, and also helps with your story. Research the time period you story is based off of in real history and learn the culture of that time period. It helps to know these things so that you can write a more believable story.
Next stop is the character. The best kind of story is a character story is a character story. Everyone loves to read about a character that grows throughout the story. So basically the first step to making a character is this. Do not make a flat character. A flat character is basically a character that remains single emotioned and does not change throughout the story. So the first step is to give your character a unique personality. How does the character behave? What are it's actions? How does it handle a situation?
In order to write a good story, you must also have the character develop throughout the stoy. Make the character change. Have your character make a discovery. Make him or her learn something. Make the character change.
For example, in the Percy Jackson series, Percy changes from a young 12 year old boy to a young brave hero. Although his personality is the same, he develops a sense of maturity throughout the series.
Now we get to the plot. When writing a plot, be sure you stay true to your story. According to Daniel Arenson, author of fantasy books such as Song of the Dragons: Blood of Requiem, he suggests to do one of two things. Write an outline, detailed or general, or just head in there and start writing.
Don't forget the flow. Write with the flow of the story. The characters. Let them decide where the story goes.
Now here is a very important part of writing a story. You must balance your Dialogue and description. When writing description, don't go overboard. If its too much it imbalances the story and turns the story into something worthless. Too much that is vague and broad and unclear makes a story really terrible. With dialogue, too much dialogue, you lose sight of what's happening around the characters. All you have is talking and no explanation of what's happening around them. That is why when you balance the two, it creates a really good story.
The next step is editing and publishing. Go over your grammer. I really hate it when I see grammer errors in books that I might really be enjoying. Oh and just a bit of advice, a good book is one that has great diction and vocabulary. Make sure you communicate your thoughts to your audience. Make sure you're saying to them what you want them to hear. Make sure your message is communicated. And when publishing, if a publishing company rejects your book, don't panic. It's not the end of the world. Keep sending your book, promote it and join writing forums to help get yourself out there.
In conclusion, a writer must create their world, characters, and plot. They must write fluidly, and must also balance dialogue and description. They must edit and make sure they communicate their thoughts. If authors do this, they will write a very good fantasy book.
I hope you, my audience, whomever you are, take this advice if you want to be authors as well. I hope you learned something, and thank you for reading.
Forgive me if I sound a little off. My document that I wrote my speech on dissapeared and so I'm having to recall what I wrote. I could remember most of it. I hope to fix it later. I do hope you enjoyed.
Starvix Draxon
