 Epic fantasy is a genre near and dear to many hearts. Ever since some Mesopotamian guys realized that a story about a manly man fighting gods was really cool, humans have been telling tales of larger-than-life characters in magical worlds. Fictional characters like Gilgamesh, Thor, Jesus Christ, and Barack Obama had adventures so cool that we still remember them today. Modern epic fantasy is largely inspired by The Hobbit and the other works of Jolkin, Rolkin, Rolkin Tolkien. It typically takes place in a fictional world filled with humans, elves, dwarves, and other races as they fight against some sort of dark lord who wants to destroy the world and or conquer it. There will be magic, gigantic armies crashing into each other with no thoughts to tactics, and heroic-chosen ones doing heroic stuff. Sometimes people come up to me and say, James, how do I write an epic fantasy story? And I'll usually respond with, Who are you and why are you in my bathroom? After I've determined whether or not to call the police, I'll tell them that as the unrivaled expert in writing fantasy that I am, there are eight major things that you have to include if you want to create the greatest epic fantasy ever written. Number one, put in a prophecy, ideally at the beginning. The first few paragraphs of your book should be in italics, signifying that it's not actually part of the real story. This is the part where you'll explain the plot to the reader. The dark lord rose long ago, was defeated, and now he'll come back and a chosen one will beat him for good. You can't just say that though. You have to put the prophecy in some more... fancy language. Say something like, when the moon shines brightest, the darkness shall rise, the falcon sun shall be your salvation, that sort of thing. Don't forget to mention the chosen one's sword or his girlfriend. It's impossible to be epic without including a romance in there somewhere. Everyone in the world should be aware of the dark lord and the prophecy of the chosen one, except for the chosen one himself. That way they can all explain it to him and to the audience at the same time. And there has to be a dark lord too. You should never put in a new threat for the heroes to face. Fantasy isn't a genre for creativity and new ideas, it's a genre for following strict conventions set out before us. You might be thinking that the dark lord being beaten once already would make him seem less threatening and detract from the narrative tension, since, you know, he's been beaten before, we can do it again. You would be wrong. And since prophecies in this world are always 100% accurate, all the heroes have to do is find the chosen one and they're good. After all, waiting for a magical teenage boy to come and solve all your problems is a great way to figure out everything from economic woes to ethnic conflict. If you don't want to put in the prophecy at the beginning, then just don't tell the audience what it says at all. Have the wise old mentor character tell the chosen one that he's the chosen one and that he'll defeat the dark lord and then you're done. Saves you the trouble of having to write some purple prose. Number two, make sure there's incest. If recent epic fantasy hits like George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones or Scasa Fushimi's Oreno Imoto Gakona Nikawa Iwake Genai have taught us anything, it's that epic fantasy is incomplete without some incest. If you want to show one of your bad guys being deviant and grotesque, just have him... his sister. If you want to show one of the good guys angst over a forbidden love, just have him want to... his sister. This is what's known as character development. Remember in the fifth sorceress when it was revealed that the villain's plan was to make Tristan and his sister create an army of magical inbreds to repopulate the world? That was everyone's favorite part of that very successful and well-received novel. But some people might feel a bit uncomfortable about you covering such a taboo subject. They're clearly just afraid of your artistic genius and are attempting to censor you. The solution is just to power on through and ignore all criticisms. However, if you're some sort of coward that caves into pressure, you could always make them step siblings or something. People seem to think that it's not incest if they aren't blood related. Number three, use the prologue in the opening chapter to dump exposition. I've already mentioned that you need to put the prophecy up front, but right after the prophecy you need to have a prologue showing some of the characters doing mysterious stuff. Ideally, this will take place right after the Dark Lord was defeated the first time, featuring some of the previous heroes. They need to exchange some cryptic dialogue about how they can't believe they defeated him and how they're glad it will never happen again. Then have them show off some sort of artifact that will be important later, like the chosen one's sword or the piece of jewelry that contains the Dark Lord's soul. If the first conflict with the Dark Lord came hundreds or thousands of years before the main story begins, some readers might think it's odd for the technology level to be exactly the same. If these guys were swinging around steel swords 3,000 years ago, isn't it conceivable that they could have gunpowder weapons or even spaceflight by now? The correct response to this is to tell them to go read something un-epic and something written for casual readers, because obviously they don't like epic fantasy, okay, read something casual like Dune. However, if you don't want to make a prologue that gives away too much of the backstory, it could take place right before the main story starts, with some more modern characters realizing that the Dark Lord is about to rise again. Have some random soldiers come across a camp of orcs only to be killed immediately while thinking about the threat that they pose. Make sure that all the characters we follow die. They might be able to help the chosen one in his quest if they live, and we want to keep the stakes high. After the prologue, jump into the first chapter where you'll show the chosen one living his life as a farmer in a forest peasant village. Here's where you need to throw in all your exposition about the village, the kingdom it's situated in, the political situation, the rumors of orcs attacking some other far-off area, and how the chosen one is definitely not anything other than a simple farm boy. Make sure that all the information is given to the reader in the form of long, unbroken paragraphs. Or better yet, have the characters in the village give each other this information that they should already know in the form of monologues. I heard a rumor that there have been orc raids out east. It's true. The orcs are a savage people that were banished from our lands after they sided with the Dark Lord 999 years and seven months ago. They still occasionally attack now and again, but they're split into hundreds of different kin groups known as Molak Otis, which expend much of their energy fighting each other. In addition, the noble order of the Eastern Knights guards the border zealously, but ever since King Roderick ascended to the throne, he's refused to send them the aid that they require, and thus the border has become more porous. But what if you want to put the chosen one somewhere other than an isolated forest village? Well, you could put him in a city, and if he lives there, he should be an orphan who lives in the slums and only survives by stealing. This is a setting you go for if you want to make the chosen one dark and edgy for the first 50 pages before he decides to become the perfect hero. If you want to put him in another setting, don't. Number four, the world has to be like medieval Europe. Just like in The Hobbit, the world needs to be based on Europe from a thousand years ago, with similar cultures, climates, architecture, warfare, and social structure. No need to pick up a real history book and learn about the minutiae of medieval life, though. Just go based off of what you've seen in movies and video games. The main difference is that your world will have elves, dwarves, and another race. Dwarves are easy. They're just short humans who like to mine. For more detail, you can give them beards and axes, and maybe a Scottish accent. Elves are a little different. They're just humans who have pointy ears and live in trees. They're probably immortal too, because fuck it. And despite being immortal, they keep to themselves and refuse to help the heroes do much, since if they did, their magic powers of evil smiting would solve the plot instantly. If anyone asks why the elves haven't conquered all the other races by now, uh, orcs are a savage people who just like to attack and destroy stuff without ever building anything of their own. These guys will have to be the Dark Lord's minions, because they're evil, and he's evil, and as we all know, people devoted solely to death and destruction get along great with one another. If you don't want to have orcs, then just put in a new race that acts exactly the same as them, but has a different name. Some people will pick up on it, but if any of them bring it up, all you have to do is release a YouTube video where you explain that they're actually totally different because the orcs are tall and your urcanips are short. Remember that all races are only allowed one culture and language apiece, except for humans because we're special. Don't deter from what Tolkien did in the slightest. He was perfect and his work should never be used as a foundation to build something different. Basically, just do what the guy who wrote Aragon did. Everyone loved that book. Number five, the lead and the love interest have to fall in love at first sight. The best part of epic fantasy is the stellar realism that exists on every page, and that extends to the character relationships as well. When the chosen one sets out on his quest, he has to come across a beautiful woman about his age. Be sure to describe her as impossibly beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the world, or else the audiences won't get it. Make her a princess too, but not a boring realistic princess who's engaged to her cousin in order to solidify her father's alliance with another kingdom. Make her a badass princess who likes sword fighting and hates girly stuff like wearing dresses and bathing regularly. The princess refuses to be a damsel in distress, but you can't let her upstage the hero, so make sure she never defeats any important villains. Just mooks that the heroes run into now and then. When she comes across a more powerful villain, make sure she gets captured so that the hero can angst about it. The chosen one and the princess should fall in love the instant they see each other, just like in real life. They need to profess their love and become devoted to one another as soon as possible, and the princess has to leave her home to go on this quest with him. This is the one part of the story where incest isn't allowed. I know, sorry folks, you're disappointed, I know. As the story goes on, don't forget to mention that their love is deep and profound at every opportunity, if not one of the most deep and profound loves to ever exist. Audiences forget things if you don't bring them up every seven pages. Not to mention that teenage love is known for being very mature and long-lasting. Some of you might be thinking, wait, what if the chosen one is a girl? Well, if you're thinking that, then send me your address so I can come burn your house down. Number six, make everything super dark. Murder, kidnapping people and forcing them into slavery, burning down orphanages with the orphans inside, and other delightful family activities should be front and center in your epic fantasy. Want to show the how evil the Dark Lord is? Just make him a r- Better yet, have him attempt one of the female heroes before the protagonist saves her at the last second. If anyone calls this problematic, just call them a filthy communist who hates freedom of speech. If anyone claims that you're just writing this as some sort of fetish fuel, just remember that their accusation is completely true, and if you're writing a light novel, that goes double. Of course, nothing bad can actually happen to the main characters, so it might be better to just have all this occur off-screen to nameless characters. Have the chosen one ride into a peasant village after it's been destroyed by the Dark Lord's forces. Be sure to describe all the horrors inflicted in vivid detail, like an episode of Criminal Minds if it was directed by Jeffrey Dahmer. Remember, it's not exploitative if it's historically accurate, just like that HBO documentary series, A Game of Thrones. Wait. Wait, maybe we should cut that part out. Number seven, have a bunch of POV characters. The thing that makes a story epic is having a gigantic cast of characters. It doesn't matter if they're deep or likable, it doesn't matter if they affect the plot in any meaningful way either. Since, as we've established, the plot should be explained up front by the prophecy. We need a bunch of different points of view to showcase how cool the chosen ones' powers are. The minimum number of POV characters for a successful epic fantasy is 18. You can go higher if you want, but you have to have at least 18. If you have less, then by the time the reader gets 20 pages in, they'll pick up on how un-epic the story is and they'll rush off to give it a one-star review on Goodreads. This is science backed up by studies performed at the University of Oxford. If you can't think of 18 characters then you should reconsider attempting this whole writing thing and maybe go on to some failure career like accounting or computer programming. But, since this is a writing advice video, I'll give you some ideas for characters. There's the chosen one, his love interest, the best friend who tags along for comedic relief, the wise mentor who tells him about the prophecy and is most likely a wizard, the Dark Lord, the Dark Lord's servant who wants to help him destroy the world even though he would kill him, the love interest best friend, the king of the good kingdom who is secretly the chosen one's father, his servant who turns out to be a traitor, the grizzled old soldier, and that's all that I'll give you since you have to do at least some of the work here on your own. Number eight, make the Dark Lord the only important villain. I've already mentioned that the Dark Lord is the main villain of the story and that the chosen one is prophesized to defeat him even though he was defeated once already. The Dark Lord will have some servants in the world that perform his bidding. If he's dead they'll be the ones to perform the complex ritual to resurrect him. If he's imprisoned they'll be the ones to search for the keys to free him. The Dark Lord can never actually come back and fight the characters though. He has to stay in the background as more of an event that the characters must stop than a character himself. With the Dark Lord away you must, and I repeat, you must resist the urge to make his minions into more developed characters. You might have the urge to give them complex motivations for wanting to free the Dark Lord, even knowing that they'll die afterwards. You might think that this would make them more interesting or more sympathetic, giving them a different flavor and making the story stand out a bit more when in reality it'll just hurt the reader's heads. People can't handle any sort of moral ambiguity in their media. Okay, that part, I'm not even being sarcastic there. People generally do have a very difficult time with that. For that matter, you may be tempted to release the Dark Lord and have the heroes fight him for real. Obviously, this is impossible. Since the Dark Lord is so unbelievably powerful that he'll destroy everything the instant he's released. Not that he's a metaphor for anything, of course. If he represented some large societal problem like climate change or war, then people might think that your epic fantasy story is sending the message that we should just ignore our problems and hope that they go away, or hope that someone else solves them. We wouldn't want that. And that's it. If you can follow all those steps, then you'll be well on your way to making the greatest epic fantasy story of all time. Some people might say that the quality is based off things like pros and execution, or by being original. No. I'd like to thank Christopher Hawkins, Joseph Pendergraft, Melanie Austin, and all my other patrons for making this possible. And Oppo Savalainen. I hope I said that right. 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