Tuesday 23 June 2009

Watt-Evan's Laws of Fantasy

Whilst trawling the Internet the other day (when I probably should have been writing) I came across Lawrence Watt-Evan's Laws of Fantasy. Any budding fantasy authors out there would do well to have a read.

Watt-Evan's Laws of Fantasy
  1. Watt-Evans' First Law of Fantasy: Stories are about people.

  2. Watt-Evans' Second Law of Fantasy: People are never wholly good or wholly evil, and therefore characters should never be wholly good or wholly evil.

  3. Watt-Evans' Third Law of Fantasy: The basic human motivations are universal.

  4. Watt-Evans' Fourth Law of Fantasy: Everything other than the basic human motivations will vary, depending on the cultural setting.

  5. Watt-Evans' Fifth Law of Fantasy: Magic, like everything else, has rules.

  6. Watt-Evans' Sixth Law of Fantasy: If a story can be written without a fantasy element, then don't bother with the fantasy element.
If you would like to read more about the above laws and see what other snippets of advice Lawrence has to offer, click here.

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