Fantasies make the readers think beyond concepts, and dream beyond imagination. They may be the ones to start detailing the Winterfell Castle from Game of Thrones or how Jon Snow won The Battle of the Bastards despite almost losing. But not all writers take their readers to a non-existing land. Urban fantasy is a sub-genre of literature that makes the contemporary world look different.
What is Urban Fantasy?
Urban fantasy books develop characters, villains, paranormal events like magic, and elements like vampires, witches, zombies, demons, animals, fairies, or dragons in real-lie settings. You can write about a sky-high troll wrecking the Brooklyn Bridge, Godzilla-style. Not just this, if you are a fan of supernatural legends and stories and spend your time imagining stories about routine subways or other familiar locations, you can build entirely new perspectives for your readers.
Tips for Writing the Best Urban Fantasy Novels
Dreaming up plots in your mind seems simple, but it doesn’t need to get complicated when putting the ideas into words on screen or on paper. Just try to engage your readers with the same spirit and plot you’d find interesting to read in an urban fantasy book.
Here are some tips you can use to build an urban fantasy setting as a writer.
1. Build the Story Settings
The entire urban fantasy story revolves around the settings you put together. Once you draw attention to the deadliest witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts, stick to the Gallows Hill setting, where the villainous, revengeful spirit lives. Or talk about how the witches wander in local schools and bail out either the good guys if they are white itches or empower the bullies with their dark magic spells.
You can create your plot around a derelict, mysterious building from the past, let magic follow any rule you want to establish, and create characters with powers yet unfathomed. Note however, that since urban fantasy is about real cities or towns, pay extra attention to the details and history of the area. For a perfect story setting, go ahead and visit interesting, towns, villages or cities in the parts of the globe accessible to you. Travel makes a woman (or man) richer, if it empties your pockets it fills your mind and soul, go for it, sensibly. Understand the residents’ narratives, streetscapes, and lifestyles of your soon-to-be characters.
2. Set Up your Elements
Elements can be utilized as unique, fantasized personality traits for each character, the city, or the magic for readers to find relatable. Before writing an urban fantasy book, set yourself down and think from the readers’ perspective. Consider the society, traditions, foods, norms, languages, regions, and cultures they belong to. Then, from a practical point of view, develop strong, multi-faceted, and complete characters with no loopholes in their habits, routines, and behavior.
The best urban fantasy series tends to be loaded with conspiracies and thrilling mysteries that can turn the tables around in an instant flick of the page. Spruce up your context, till each last nerve-pulling detail is at its climax and then create some cliff-hangers, some unanswered mystique for the audience to speculate on and guess what comes next. This keeps them engaged for the next installation of your upcoming series (if you are planning to have more).
3. Develop Plot and Conflict
Before you begin the plot, imagine yourself in the shoes of your main character and since we assume you have that wild imagination, go ahead and put yourself in every character’s shoes, gowns, accessories (however they vibe). How do your characters spend their day? Think of possible hangouts, friends, and every other nook and cranny of urban society where they could possibly spend time. If you successfully develop a plot, even supportive characters will remain three-dimensional to the urban fantasy context you want to put forward.
Once you begin with a traditional lifestyle, find conflicts that spice up the hero’s and the magical nemesis, be it a warlock, witch or wizard, or a mythical creature. These discords give the writer grounds to showcase characters strongly.
4. Balance Fantasy and Reality
A critical element that differentiates urban fantasy books from other fantasy novels is the balance between the real world and the magical aspects—notice how J.K Rowling has created the blend of fantasy and reality in all Harry Potter book series? The story revolves around magic, schooling, love, adventure, and other insightful elements that give equal importance to reality, conflict, fantasy, and human connectivity. There would be very few people across the globe who have never heard about Harry Potter and the escalating problems, he and his heroic friends successfully faced over the years! Children and adults of all ages, laughed, cried and emoted with the very real characters the writer developed in very believable surroundings. To write an engaging urban fantasy, make magic and supernatural elements look ‘normal’ and stick to a theme throughout the context.
5. Avoid Adding Clichés
To rank among the top sellers, you have to engage your audience enough that they eagerly want, nay demand more novels from you. Repeating the same concepts and adding clichés to stories end up with readers get bored and losing interest. Alternatively, adding a bit of a typical theme like romance, intrigues, sub-plots, or a dark comedy in your urban fantasy is fine. But if think re-hashing the same two guys and one girl, love triangulated, girl loves vampire and werewolf wants her too story as in Twilight, readers have been there and done that in epic proportions with the books and movies.
Conclusion
Urban fantasy books give you a bigger room to explore mysteries, conflicts, and exotic elements used to develop characters. To stay motivated throughout your writing, keep reading inspiring urban fantasies like Sophie is Scarlet or Harry Potter. Keep actively imagining a different world around you. Keep dreaming and keep believing. And most importantly, keep writing.