Adding The Fantastic

Hello and welcome back to the Shores of Night! 

 As it's a Wednesday and I still haven't run out of advice on creating worlds, welcome to the latest section of the World-Building Series. 

If you're new, hello, and please don't run away, I'm really quite friendly. I'm just a little bit obsessed with building settings and worlds for roleplaying, fiction, or just for the sake of doing it. Making fictional settings is something I find very rewarding, and in showing you how to go about it I hope you'll find a love for it too. 

 This week, we'll start discussing how to include the Fantastic in your worlds. I know we've discussed magic and so on as part of the building process before, but I want to get right into the details of what, how, and most importantly, why to include something outside the mundane. Whether we're adding magic, super powers, psionics, advanced technology, or anything else that shifts the world away from what's outside our windows - to coin a tired phrase - it's important to consider the implications upon the rest of your world. 

I'm one of these people who often finds the world building in things like superhero comics a little disappointing. We're sold an idea of a world where superpowers exist, and where heroes in bright colours battle villains in similar attire. The world that most of them live in, however, remains stubbornly mundane. Of course, there are Sentinels in Marvel's universe (I still don't understand why countries don't get fidgety about those in the same way they do about nuclear missiles), or the Justice League operating out of a space station, but wider society doesn't seem to have adapted to the presence of superheroes. I feel a world with superheroes would have TV channels dedicated to nothing but their battles, cults that celebrated them as gods, and other - less pleasant or family friendly - elements that I'm not going to go into here. The presence of super geniuses also makes me think there should be more commercially available super technology, and its so odd to me that there just isn't. I understand the reasoning for this is that companies want their worlds to be more easily accessible, which means operating from a "normal world plus" perspective, but I just don't really feel that it really works. Settings like the Marvel and DC universes aren't like our world and they shouldn't be presented as if they are. 

 I hope this gives you a flavour of the things I'm going to bring up in this piece which - like the first instalment of this series - will set out some core principles and then we'll dive into each point over the coming weeks. Finally, we'll consider specific challenges presented by each type of fantastical element. So, broad strokes at first, before narrowing down into very specific points. 

 Before we dive into the meat of it though, I want to say that the main thing I want to underscore is that consistency is key. If we go back to Marvel's universe for a moment, we could consider the fact that mutants are feared and hated, and how silly that is. How is the average person supposed to know who's a mutant and who's not? A person with powers is... well, a person with powers. Marvel, however, have consistently maintained the idea that mutants are somehow different and more scary which makes their narrative powerful and believable. So, separate to the five points, the first piece of advice I'd make is to stay consistent in what your creation's tone. 

With that out of the way, let's get into it: 

1) Why include the Fantastic? So, why should you write something other than realistic fiction? Perhaps you have a deep love of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Horror or one of the many subgenres that straddle two, or even all of those different flavours of setting. Perhaps you have something specific you want to discuss and it's simply easier to talk about that if you're utilising these genres as a vehicle. 

Charles Stross' Glasshouse, for example, is a novel based around the idea of identity and the stifling nature of enforced conformity. Stross talks about the nature of identity and impact of its denial, exploring it far more effectively through science fiction than it would be possible to in a "realistic" setting. 

While it's darkly comic, Judge Dredd does the same thing - exploring a totalitarian future and the way a society ruled by law enforcement that is above the law - does the same.

By pulling out a theme or train of thought this way, you can explore your themes more seriously in a way that would seem unrealistic in work set in the "real world". This means you can focus on the philosophical aspect or emotion you're talking about and really bring those elements out in your world.

2) How can including the Fantastic support your creation's essence? As much as anything, you should consider how adding magical and other elements enhance what you've already created. You need to make sure that these things fit the tone of your world. You may wish to consider the Fantastic early into your creation. That may be something that comes naturally; if you're writing about a magical boy going to a special school (be it Roke, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters or Hogwarts) it rather means you have to think about what magic looks like and how it functions early on, because it will be so integral to your creation. 

On the other hand, if magic appears in your creation but isn't its core, you might look at it later in the process. With more of an idea of the tone of your work, you can then start to tailor the supernatural to fit the tone of your world. In one of my worlds, magic is a power that's rooted in bloodlines and the people who can cast magic are busy hunting for more families with the gift, because its so rare. This supports my theme for the world where magic is rare and the population fears it. 

3) What effect can the Fantastic have on your world? As I detailed above, one of my bugbears is when the Fantastic doesn't change fictional worlds enough. Sadly, I can't say which settings don't pull their punches, so I'm going to revert to using hypothetical examples and my own ideas. However, the transformative nature of magic, uncommon technology and so on should really be at the top of your mind as you approach this aspect of world-building. 

In a Steampunk world, does the technology remain cordoned off from society at large, or does it spread into the domestic sphere? What effect does this have on society on the whole? Similarly, if your world is high magic with magical cures for every ailment, how does that change things? These elements can be used to drive action.  

4) What flavour of the Fantastic supports your creation? In many ways, when we talk about the Fantastic we're talking about flavour. As with most of the points I'm making this week, this touches on your creation's essence and the feeling you want to evoke. Steampunk worlds might be choked with soot, with its mechanical marvels kept out of the hands of most people by their price. The machines may work to reinforce the feeling of oppression and darkness by underlining the poverty experienced by 90% of people. Alternatively, their flavour might be very different, with swashbuckling buccaneers on the run from Royal Navy Aeronauts as they navigate their dirigible across the Pacific Ocean. Confusingly, you may use the same pieces of technology to create the different flavours. 

In the same way, the High Fantasy world above, may seem well ordered and so prosperous it's almost decadent. When magic is so easily available, perhaps it ceases to be valued as much because people assume it will solve every problem. Taking a step into this direction, as world-builders, we can ask what other assumptions might be made. Perhaps some people are viewed with suspicion because there are assumptions being made about them, starting to create conflicts that can lead to action. 

5) How can including the Fantastic drive action? I hope by this point, you're starting to see how these seeds can build into drama. Whatever the Fantastic looks like in your world, you can use it to either be the heart of the action or to at least inform it. Leaping all the way back to the idea of the magical school we can see how the presence of magic could be the heart of the conflict. All you need is a couple of people who are determined to tell the general public the truth about the existence of magic, and suddenly you have a plot. With the High Fantasy setting, you simply need to identify who's not benefitting from the magic to work out who might have an interest in changing the status quo. 

When adding the Fantastic think about what effect it will have and how it can drive your world. Everything you put into your setting can and should either create change or have the potential to do so. Nothing should sit on its own, in splendid isolation. 

Let's go back to the High Fantasy world. I've built a more or less idyllic society that's dependent on magic users to make it work. We've established one assumption - that magic will always be there to make things work, We can add two more assumptions in that the people wielding the magic are trustworthy and that they won't grow resentful of their part in society. Now, there may be ways to offset feelings of resentfulness, from good pay to free housing, education, and food. Perhaps in the main they are trustworthy... but what if they're not? What if a small group of them are tempted to do explore something forbidden. At the same time, perhaps there's a second group of people who perhaps don't have access to magic at all and who are angry because when this idyllic world was created, they were forced out into the less pleasant parts of the world and they don't have access to things the people in the magic rich environment take for granted. Suddenly, we have two conflicts waiting for someone to do something with them. 

By now, I hope it’s clear the Fantastic isn’t just about throwing dragons or spaceships into your world—it’s about making sure those elements matter. They should shape societies, change economies, and create conflicts that wouldn’t exist in a mundane world. If the Fantastic isn’t influencing the world meaningfully, it might as well not be there at all.

Next time, we’ll start breaking down these ideas in detail, looking at the different kinds of Fantastic elements you can introduce, and how to make them feel like a natural, essential part of your setting.

Until then, keep building those worlds!