The Experience
It may surprise you to know that I haven’t read many books…
I didn’t really know how to tailor my book to a fantasy audience. Yet, I knew what I wanted to do and how to present it, to make it an entertaining experience and to showcase my creativity was of utmost importance to me (unsurprisingly enough I took this style from Lord of the Rings).
In my research I looked at the possible addendums that go hand in hand with a fantasy novel – one of the main additions is a map (of course). The idea of incorporating a map really excited me, it sparked the ire of my inner child when I used to draw random maps in my sketchbook. I knew my world would be big so my maps would be very detailed and large, it only got bigger the more time I spent on it (especially from first draft to my rewrite). As of writing this there are 15+ pages of maps. You can see below just one example of how my maps have changed through the years (this is just one small continent of a much larger world).
As a creative person I also wanted to add some other illustrations to help the reader with visuals, at first I wanted to create character sheets (in fact I did this for my draft, as shown below in 2020). I suddenly realised that this didn’t really fit the immersion of my book, it felt too forced and unnatural. Then I came up with another idea – to have chapter illustrations much like the ones below in 2023, and i think that these were a much better way of immersing the reader into my world. It suddenly feels very personal and in depth.
In summary: by doing all of these small illustrations, the reader can have an insight into the way i want my world to be perceived. They can also see the time and passion that has gone into this huge project of mine, it gives a sense of love. I think this is what fantasy readers expect from their books, to feel like they belong in that world and to connect with the characters. Also I feel like it’s a lot of fun, to read a story and keep interacting with the map to follow the journey, because sometimes it may get a bit confusing because of the grand scale of it.
What are your thoughts? What makes a fantasy book stick out for you?
Until next time…
S.M.H
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