Tips and Tricks to Writing a Fantasy Story

1. The Characters

These are the tricks I use when creating my characters. 

        1) Keep it real: Just because your character is not necessarily human, or from Earth (and this applies to Sci-Fi as well) doesn't mean they should be inhuman. 

What I mean by this is, they shouldn't be perfect, or wooden, or two dimensional. They should have flaws, and by flaws I don't mean a facial scar, or blush too easily, or even such things as having a bad boyfriend/girlfriend/romantic partner (yes, I've seen it. It's a thing).

They should also be relatable, which means they can't be all good, or all bad. In the writing world, we call this "black" characters or "white" characters. Guess which is which. Look at the difference between Tolkien's characters, and George R. R. Martin's. Tolkien's tend to be either completely good, or completely evil, whereas Martin's are all a mix of both, so much so that you're never sure if you like them or not. 

So, like Martin, you want to create "gray" characters, characters your readers won't be able to make their minds up about, characters who are constantly shocking you. 

Take Jaime Lannister, from Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. At first you think he's a lust-filled, arrogant asshole, but then he goes and does something you don't expect, like saving someone he's persistently hated from near-certain death. 

That is the kind of character you want to create, one filled with flaws, but who also has valid reasons for doing what they do, who is capable of both good and evil. 

        2) The names: The problem with creating names for fantasy is that, often, we've created whole new worlds and cultures, therefore we don't really want to go naming our characters "Bob" or "Joe". It can work, like it does in Wattpad user @ChickNAlfredo's the Broken Crown series (I think that's what it's called), but you have to be careful that, if you name someone Anne, the civilization/culture you're placing her in fits the name you're giving her, and the other way around.

Also, you want to keep the names you're using reasonably recognisable as names. One problem with both Tolkien's and Martin's work is that some character have names that sound like really long phrases in another language (especially Tolkien). My example of this is (on my other account) My story Magic Promises (I will be using my stories as examples quite often). One of my protagonists is named Isabeau, which is an old Britanic name (from Brittany, in France, not Great Britain). What I do is I take traditional names from other cultures and use them in my fantasy worlds...

Also, very important, make sure your name fits with your character's personality. I can't give examples, really, but it does help if people can guess (relatively accurately) at your character's appearance and personality just from hearing their name. There are quite a few threads in the clubs that do just this, in the form of games. Don't be afraid to go check them out!

        3) Interactions: You want your characters' interactions (conversations and stuff, with other characters, specifically) to feel realistic. A good way to do this is to read a dialogue outloud to see if it runs the way a dialogue between two people should... 

        4) Character development: The thing with character development is, it's essential, but it's also very risky.You have to have it in your story, but it's so easy to screw up. 

To start with, don't go too quickly. From one chapter to the next, your character shouldn't become unrecognizable, even if years have passed, because they will still, inevitably, have many of the same traits.

Take some of the friends you've known all your life. Have they changed that drastically over the years that you wouldn't know them if you hadn't seen? For the most part, no. Make sure your characters are the same. 

They have to still be the same person, so even if they have changed a lot, make them have some of the same traits, or habits, or dreams. Actually, no. Make sure they have all the above. Maybe they were once a mafia leader, but now they've moved to Singapore and changed their names, yeah, but do they still bite their nails, get angry very easily, want to fall in love? It's things like those that make them your character. If you get tired of a character, go back and change them from the beginning, not just because you feel like it half-way through your story. 

Changing the name of your character is different, as long as you do eventually go back and change it throughout the story and let your readers know what you've done. 

So yeah, those were the steps I go through when creating my characters. Next chapter: plotting the plot.