Location, Location...

One of the things I enjoy while writing fantasy is the dramatic changes of location that can be achieved at the drop of a hat. While a fantasy writer may anchor his or her story in the safe harbor of normalcy (cities, castles, mundane nature scenes, etc) this is generally the backdrop to bring the reader up to speed on what is "normal" in his or her world.
When the norm has been securely anchored the fantastic can then be explored. A world replete with magic and monsters can all too quickly become the norm, and so high octane fantasy novels tend to build ever more outrageous models to woo the reader, as the norm holds little or no sense of familiarity or normalcy. This method appeals to many, as it certainly gives the reader a dosage of purebred fantasy.

My personal approach, and one I favor in other authors of this genre, is that of what I referred to as anchoring and drifting. One anchors the characters (and the reader) in a sense of congruous continuity where the norm is established and maintained at least to some degree. Then the writer plunges into various aspects of the story that draw the character out of that established safety zone and into the bizarre locales that lend themselves to the tale and stand out as fantastic encounters.

I have two such locales that lend themselves in this way in my fifth novel, which I am very close to finishing. One I named the Valley of Fog, and the other the Dead Ring, a place of superstition and fear that has been alluded to since book one of the series. Both provide an excellent backdrop for the "fantasy" element of the story to come to the forefront. Here the norm gives way to the bizarre, the terrifying and the amazing. Here the mundane is left behind as the dangerous or unknown regions are approached and the reader is invited to follow the characters through such places. Here the characters are tried and transformed, matured and tested; here is where the personality of the character, glimpsed in his round of duties, shines through to reveal either what the reader expected, or to surprise both the reader and the characters.

I very much enjoy the deviation from the norm, but I very much appreciate the anchored spot when the story drifts back into safe waters. The norm lends durability, reliability to the tale, an infrastructure for the rest of the story to spring from. When the norm is changed the world changes with it, such as things like war in our world utterly alter what you and I might consider the norm. But war is pressed through by many for the hopes that in due time, when the battle is won, that boring norm might be reestablished for the sake of the next generation. So my advice is make your "norm" or anchor good; build a tangible and realistic world with dependable rules and laws and consistent happenings. It will become a locale unto itself, and will serve to greatly enhance the moments when the characters find themselves in stranger places, going well beyond the boundaries of safety.