Fantasy Settings: Out of This World or In?

I’ve been ruminating lately on fantasy worlds. Not that that’s that unusual for me, but fantasy worlds in specific regard to setting. Goodness knows there’s eight million different ways to classify various types of stories, but I don’t want to get into the weeds on terminology here. So, let’s have a chat at some of the most common ways fantasy stories set up their worlds, shall we?

            Now if you’re an writer trying to figure out where to start on a fantasy story, this is pretty much one of the very first things you’ll have to decide about your worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is always a massive part of creating a story, but it can be extremely intimidating when talking about fantasy. Some of notable examples like J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or Christopher Paolini’s The Inheritance Cycle for example feature broad countries, very complex magic systems, and lots of characters of distinct races that have their own cultures, languages, etc. That is a whole lot to think about when you’re just starting to ponder an idea. Then there are some fantasy stories that require nowhere near the same level of complex worldbuilding (not to say they still don’t need thought or uniqueness) as they’re set in a more familiar way.

            Here are some of the most common ways fantasy stories are set up for you to think about:

The Complete Fantasy World Scenario

            I decided to start here first as this is the scenario closest to the example I just gave. Setting your story in a complete fantasy world means the entirety of the plot takes place in a new world completely of your own making. This means you will have to determine everything about your new world yourself: the various cultures, magic/political/religious systems, etc.

            Though it is a whole lot you’ll have to figure out right off the bat, the good thing about this type of setting is it gives you complete creative freedom to design the world of your story in any way you choose.

            As mentioned above, The Lord of the Rings and The Inheritance Cycle take place entirely in their own self-contained worlds and operate on the rules set in place by their authors.

The Two-Worlds Scenario

            If you find the Complete Fantasy World Scenario a bit overwhelming as a writer, a slightly more transitional story setting is available in the Two-Worlds Scenario. Unlike a story that takes place entirely in it’s own world, this is a scenario where you have characters crossing between worlds. Though it could be reversed easily (and has been in some stories), this typically has a character in a world very similar to the one the writer lives in and starts with them finding some sort of portal into a world either similar or extremely unlike our own.

            Obvious examples are books like C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia series, Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart trilogy, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. Most of the Narnia series follows the Pevensie children and their friends as they stumble from 1940s England into a fantastical land where it’s prophesied they’ll bring about an age of prosperity, minus the technical first book, The Magician’s Nephew, where several Narnians take an unexpected reverse trip into our world. In the Inkheart series, there are characters with the magical ability to read people and objects out of books, which leads to the principal cast all being read into the fictional book "Inkheart" featured in the story. Pullman’s story is perhaps the most complexly written of these three examples, and features more of a characters jumping between parallel worlds scenario.

            As I’m writing this, I’m realizing too that all three of these books are typically marketed toward Middle Grade or lower YA, and I wonder if that’s because transitional worlds offer a little bit of an easier read in terms of familiarity. Now that’s not to say these books aren’t complicated. His Dark Materials is probably one of the most complex Middle Grade/YA series I’ve ever read and Inkheart has always proved to be a hard series to explain any time I’ve ever tried to recommend it to someone. (I’m also realizing that it is funny I’ve lopped Narnia and His Dark Materials together. I mean, they go together in terms of setting, but they are meant to be a bit antithetical toward each other, I’ve heard.) But if you’re starting off in a world that the reader is already familiar with, it does make it a little easier to understand how things operate and where the two worlds contrast.

            Between these books, you can see the variety available to a writer’s creativity. Your characters can stumble into different worlds, a fictional place known to them, or maybe an alternate universe. Starting things off in a world the reader is familiar with though allows you the opportunity to jump right in and start in a place that perhaps takes less immediate explanation and makes it easier to compare a world that’s different once your characters end up there. For example, stepping from the normal, unmagical world into one with lots of magic or fantastical creatures.

            This still would require a writer to develop the culture and systems of the second world (or vice versa, if someone’s stumbling from a fantasy world into ours), but it might cut you a bit of a break in regard to developing everything. It also allows you to write in a way that might be a bit more casual or modern than a complete fantasy world would allow- perhaps being able to use pop culture references or give a bit more wiggle room description-wise as a character might not know how things are referred to in a drastically different world.

            It’s a good idea to keep in mind for all stories, but relevant to this story scenario in particular, writers need to be aware of what their characters know about the world they’ll be stumbling into. In terms of Narnia’s Pevensies or Pullman’s Lyra and Will, they know little to nothing about the existence of other worlds before they happen through and are exploring a completely new place. They don’t know the way the world works (magic, the powers that be, what sort of people or creatures inhabiting it they might run across), what to expect, or the role they’re expected to play in it (in regard to prophecy, legend, or rumor, for example).

            The Inkheart series is a completely different story though, pun intended. Spoilers ahead. As several characters from the fictional book “Inkheart” among other books are running around causing trouble in B1 (Inkheart), the characters are acutely aware that every book holds a specific world with its own unique systems and characters. By the time Meggie and the other characters, one of whom is the author of the fictional “Inkheart”, end up in the “Inkworld” in B2 and B3 (Inkspell and Inkdeath), they have considerable knowledge of the world they’re in: politics, creatures, specific characters that play a part in the original story that might be sought for help or avoided.

If you’re planning a story where your characters have prior knowledge of a world before they stumble into it, keep specific tabs on what they know and what they don’t. How much does the world challenge what they think they know about it?

Another important thought for writers regarding the Two-Worlds Scenario is how much time do your characters actually spend there? Do you have a situation where your characters are going in and out, spending a fair amount of time in both worlds? Or are they starting in one world and then the vast majority takes place in the fantastical world?

The first of Pullman’s His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass, takes place almost entirely in Lyra’s “normal” world, but then moves in B2 (The Subtle Knife) to Will’s world and another world Lyra has found, B3 (The Amber Spyglass) jumps between many different worlds. So there’s a slow progression as the characters find their way out and begin exploring the plethora of worlds deeper.

To use some other examples, Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air series, begins with characters born in our “human” world that were taken to Faerie. Though the characters have some human upbringing and do occasionally return to the normal world a reader would be familiar with, most of the story takes place in Faerie where all the rules, characters, and principles are different.

Another Cornelia Funke example, her Reckless or Mirrorworld series, has characters entering through a mirror into a fantasy world that’s very similar to our own in terms of layout, but has developed differently. Meaning there’s countries that seem very similar to Europe or Asia, to use some examples, but they’re not quite like the ones in our world. Beyond the geographical similarities or historical dissimilarities, the Mirrorworld is very heavily populated by fairytale creatures and tropes, which the main character Jacob Reckless finds as sort of a swashbuckling treasure hunter. So, though there’s a world very similar to ours in some senses, there’s also like gingerbread houses and magic items/creatures. The Mirrorworld too is also at a different level of technological development than ours. Unlike a lot of fantasy worlds that pop you right into, say, medieval times, the Mirrorworld has steam-powered things like trains or weapons like guns. It’s a very interesting conglomerate.

Something like a mashup world like this, writers, raises a question of how much our world/the 2nd world influences the other, as the Mirrorworld’s advanced development might have been hastened by people with knowledge of our world coming through and profiting. It is clear that creatures from their world have come through to our world with their knowledge of magic as well.

Raising another good question of is the pathway between worlds accessible to all? His Dark Materials and Reckless both pose the idea of gateways open to anyone if they are fortunate enough to find a way through. I guess the wardrobe in Narnia works a bit of the same way, although you’d have to get through one specific magic wardrobe. The Folk of the Air series does make it clear humans can come and go from Faerie, but it’s very difficult to make the journey between and Inkheart requires a Silvertongue to read in/out of a story- these two are more limited in entrance then. Something to think about as a writer. Can anyone happen through or must there be something special about you to do so?

The Our World, But Not Scenario

            Perhaps the least strenuous setting of those included development-wise is a story that takes place in the normal world of the reader but has fantastical elements that most people are “unaware of”. Meaning most of the magical/supernatural/fantastic world takes place right under the nose of most people in a modern setting. That being said, I want to break this down a bit further into two ways stories like this are typically set up:

1.     Fantasy is Everywhere

The first way writers can approach fantastical elements in our world is to make it clear that these are hidden everywhere in our world, but they must be discovered or are accessible only to certain people.

Rick Riordan’s various mythological series are set up this way. Take Percy Jackson: it takes place completely in the modern world, featuring a ton of real world locations, but gods and monsters are hidden among us at every twist and turn. Mythological things are hidden from most mortals by a distorted magical barrier referred to as the Mist, which keeps most normal people from catching on to the secret world around them unless they have “true sight”. But essentially, the fantastical and normal worlds co-exist right on top of each other.

2.     Fantasy is Sequestered

If a story is written this way, it means there are fantastical things happening in the reader’s known world, but these things are hidden away or isolated to a specific spot.

Something like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series I would classify much more as being this way. Though there are sections of the books that take place in the “normal” world, most of the fantastical elements take place once Harry makes his yearly journey to Hogwarts for school. This can be contributed to the fact that students are not supposed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, and that the magical community in Harry Potter does want to remain under the radar to the “Muggle” world. Still, most of the magic takes place in a specific, isolated place.

Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi’s The Spiderwick Chronicles operates much the same way as (at least for the first five books I’ve read) nearly the entire story takes place within the confines of the Spiderwick family estate and the surrounding area. There’s still a ton of magical creatures and mystery, but the three Grace children never venture far. (Granted, this is an elementary to Middle Grade book with very young characters, so I’m sure they probably did not want to introduce the idea of them going very far out. That being said, Percy Jackson does feature very young characters crossing the country on their own, so maybe that’s not particularly relevant.)

            See the difference though? I think some of this decision might be determined by the type of plot you’re working with. In homage to Greek mythology, a story like Percy Jackson is almost always built around the concept of a “quest” or journey plotline. The entire story is about the main characters traveling to specific places to achieve a goal, so it makes sense that they’d visit lots of locations with various challenges and fantastical guardians in the way. A story like Harry Potter or Spiderwick Chronicles is more centered around a prime location or an evolving cast of characters, maybe solving mysteries of the past and how they connect to a present problem.

            Fantasy is a genre that has an unlimited amount of options and avenues for writers to be creative. As you can see, these are only three specific examples of common ways to write fantasy worlds, but I hope they might still help you consider some plots and questions to ask as you get started on that new idea. Let us know other great examples I maybe didn’t mention or any other forms of worldbuilding not covered here!

            Thanks for reading! Write on.

            -Kamryn