Sword and Sorcery, Dungeons and Dragons, Witches and Warlocks, along with many other alliterative duos are a great part of what is called “High Fantasy”. I don’t want to hear any jokes about wizards smoking too much pipe-weed here, the “High” part of it simply comes from the fact that there is a high amount of fantastical elements to the settings. It’s true, I just looked it up.
The Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Name of the Wind are but a few examples of this genre, and you may know, if you’ve seen any of these on a shelf, that these are hefty, thick books. With good reason, as High Fantasy as a setting requires your story to be in an entirely made-up plane of existence. Middle-Earth, Westeros, Elendel, Discworld, Scadrial all do not exist (unfortunately) and were entirely made up. I am always very impressed when an author creates a dynamic and living world, one that you could believe actually exists, and the ‘rules’ are not too farfetched. What I mean by ‘rules’ I will go on to explain later, but for now I will go into a little more detail into what is a fantasy world.
Most often, a fantasy world is an entirely new planet, continent or universe where things not of this current world exist. The most common examples being magic (in some form, though to be High Fantasy does not require magic, though it helps), monsters, various races (humanoid or not), religions to new gods and goddess (which may even exist in the fantasy world), languages and perhaps even new concepts, such as a reworking of how time, seasons, weather or literally anything works. This world is not our Earth and can be whatever the hell you want it to be.
This brings in the most difficult part of fashioning a fantasy world, as to create a believable one you need to consider all these options before writing. Let us take the most famous of all High Fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, as an example. Middle-Earth is the world, a large landmass surrounded by water. This land is split into several regions, each with its own topographical ranges based of where it is located along with (most often) a specific race living primarily in these regions. The Hobbits, a race of short, gentle humanoids live in The Shire and the Bree-Lands. Humans also live in the Bree-Lands, but can be found also in Rohan and Gondor. The people of Rohan are quite different to the people of Gondor, but both hate the Orcs that live in Mordor. Orcs are a twisted, evil version of Elves, which are another race that can live for a very long time. See what I mean that there is a lot to a world?
And this was a very barebones example, and while I would wish to keep talking about Lord of the Rings it would not add much to the point I am making. Tolkien manages to make his world believable though, with the huge amount of thought and effort that went into designing Middle Earth and its inhabitants. While perhaps you don’t need to put in the same amount of effort (he made his own language for goodness sake), it is necessary to consider many things and how they all interact. Let’s do a little breakdown:
Races: Do more than just humans exist in your world? What do they look like? Do they get on with other races? Do they only live in certain places? What makes them unique (not just in looks, but perhaps how they age, their religion, the way they speak)?
Locations (Geographical): How is your world made up? Is it one huge continent or an archipelago? Are there mountains, volcanoes, huge oceans, forests, floating islands, underground labyrinths etc? Does this impact where and how people live?
Settlements: What kind of cities, towns and villages are there? Do different races build different kinds of buildings? Where is the main city (if there is one)? How do people like where they live, and how does it serve a function (aka a trading port, or a market-town)?
Religion: Are there Gods and do they really exist? Do they influence the mortal realms? Do they live in their own plane of existence or walk among the people? Who worships them? Are the gods good or evil?
History: How did the world come to be? How have things progressed since the creation? Have there been wars, new species emerging, new technology? Perhaps a calamity wiped out a race, or hunting has driven creatures into rarity? Is the world new or old, and has that shaped the land and its inhabitants?
Monsters and Fantastical Beasts: Are there creatures that are not normal, or magical that live in this world? Are there even normal animals or is everything a new thing (such as a replacement for cows or pigs for food)? Are monsters a problem in the world and so the cities need better defenders or that there are more adventurers around? Where do these monsters live (if there is a lot of water are there more water-based creatures around)?
And I leave best for last –
Magic.
Magic is a very dangerous game. Magic can be whatever you want it to be but needs ‘Rules’ that I mentioned earlier. A big problem with a lot of fantasy is that magic is this all powerful force that can sometimes be anything and have unlimited power. This begs the question of: Why doesn’t the bad guy just use extremely powerful magic to destroy everything, or perhaps using magic to bring people who die back to life, or use magic to freeze time? By all means you can use these levels of power, perhaps this influences your story, such as if people can’t die due to magic then is there an overpopulation problem or perhaps no more children are being born? Has the bad guy wiped out the world but there are some struggling survivors to fight back? Sometimes a small continuity error can be caused through magic’s “open rules”. In Harry Potter, a spell can open a locked door, but why then would there ever be locks if anyone can use this magic? Similarly, there is a spell that can turn someone to stone and then be shattered, but doesn’t count as an “unforgivable curse” (i.e. magic so evil you are imprisoned for life just using it) despite there being a killing curse, so what makes that any different?
Magic needs some sort of system in place that can prevent issues like this from popping up. Maybe the more powerful the spell, the more energy it requires to use or needs many more years of study before any practical use is gotten from it. Maybe only certain races can use spells (again a potential story driving point, where the first of a non-magical race can suddenly use magic). Maybe magic needs particular components to be used, be it a wand, staff or ingredients that channel the spells from its host. Can some monsters use magic, or are they themselves magical?
Many games and novels split magic into base forms, aka the nature of what kind of magic is being used. Perhaps it is the element of the spell, so a fireball spell would be a Fire Element Magic. Maybe turning yourself invisible comes under the Enchantment variety, and only lasts for a certain amount of time? This can help categorise your spells and help you keep track of what can be cast or used throughout your novel.
Fantasy is fantastic, and one of my favourite settings of all time. The sheer scale allows for incredible creative freedom; but can be a daunting and lengthy process if it is to be done right. The more you read, the better equipped you shall be when tackling this mountain of magic, monsters and mayhem. I can suggest The Lord of the Rings (if you have not read it), along with Urusla Leguin’s A Wizard of Earthsea and Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora. There is also a good list here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/50.The_Best_Epic_Fantasy
Basically, if a book starts with a nice map drawn on the first few pages, you know you are in for a treat.