3. Make the magical ordinary.
The most engaging fantasy worlds are woven through with their own mythology, science, and economy. In Sharon Shinn’s Elemental Blessings series, a unique system of religion influences everything about the world’s society, including how its inhabitants perceive what happens to them. By infusing your world with such commonplace elements of civilisation, you provide a depth that supports its exciting appearance. Again, it’s about creating a connection with the reader. A world they can imagine themselves living in is the kind of world they return to read and dream about over and again.
Several Young Adult fantasy authors are particularly adept at this. For example, in her beautiful debut novel The Nature of Witches, Rachel Griffiths creates a community of witches who are sorted according to season-based attributes. It’s easy to imagine readers matching themselves to the season they think would best suit them – and just like that, you have an engaged audience.
4. Keep it simple, sweetheart.
The caveat to all the advice I’ve given so far is that you don’t want to show this work in the actual narrative. Pretty much every SFF writer has a stack of notebooks filled with technical details, family trees, and complex histories. But info-dumping is the fantasy equivalent of a corporation’s Annual General Meeting: tedious to everyone except the person who created the data presentation.
A writer must know the operational components of their fantastical elements, but the reader seldom needs that information in depth. Tease out the key aspects and slide them into dialogue or give them an interesting spin in the narrative, then set aside the bulk of minutiae for bonus content in the book’s endnotes or to offer your newsletter subscribers further down the track.