Lesson 3-Creating Life

Lesson 3
Creating Life

Something that appears in most Fantasy is a magical creature of some sort, unfortunately there is little that is original. Dragons, firedrakes, vampires, werewolves, trolls, unicorns, Pegasus horses, griffons, even some of the Animals from Harry potter have been used before. Like the Basilisk or the Acromantula (while the Acromantuala was created by J.K.Rowling. Giant spiders themselves are not new). They are just two examples. What we need is something fresh new and frightening, or something so nice cute and cuddly it couldn’t have been used before. The easiest ways to do this if you are really having trouble are simple things.

 

1. you have probably done this before but mixing Animals with other animals and giving them magical properties is one of the easiest ways to create a new creature.

 

2. take a Fantasy creature and then make it a complete opposite to what they are really like for an extra twist you can keep the same name. In the example below I have done this. A fairy, that is normally a creature of children’s tales, has become a creature of nightmares (trust me I regretted reading my story to my younger sister) you cannot use the example as it appears in my books. Example: Fairy - long sharp claws, ears pointed like an elf, skin grey, no wings, eats raw meat and will only drink blood. lightning fast and deadly if fighting. Kills for pleasure or money.

 

3. Possibly the best choice and my favourite is to find at least 2 cool fantasy creatures and merge them together. exactly like number 1 only with magical creatures. It was using this method I created a creature I later came to call a Gliff and a Glim (younger Gliff) which was a massive lizard like creature. this is the description I used the

-The eyes of the beast were the image of hell, claws that were 3 meters long protruded from its hand, its teeth were 5 meters long. The scales were dark red and the tail had spikes that burned all with an individual flame. It stood on its hind legs but its back was bent over-

the creatures I used to create this came from 2 different books there is a creature called a Vraal in a Deltora quest 2 book 3 that is the main inspiration, and there is also a Quentaris chronicles book (that I can’t remember the name of) that gave me most of the rest. The flames I remembered from somewhere else and the color... I simply chose a random color that wasn’t green. Then I exaggerated things.

 

so far, I haven’t covered names whether that be for new worlds or now for creatures but don’t worry I will cover that later.