You would think that writing Fantasy comes with its own full set of freedom. And it’s easy-peasy – just make up that rakshasa who is formed of the union of the dark Maaya and the rivulets of sacrificial blood from humans, who goes onto become a rakht-rakhasas. See?

But the question is, did you believe it?

You scoff at the idea of a rakht-rakshas of course. Unless I bind you down with its own full set of cultural underpinnings in this wonderful weird world where the Creator’s muse lies bleeding under the force of gravity and her bleeding dark blood leads to a new corrupt form of Maaya that’s got the world on its toes. And hence, the birth of rakshasas.

And of course, the prophecy that the world will end at the turn of the Third Yuga when an avatar of the forgotten gods is supposed to come clean the world of evil.

There, now it has more gravitas right? That needle perhaps moves a bit to the right – from Neutral to Believer. I knew it. The power of storytelling thus is proved. It’s a harder sell with Fantasy – as here I am trying to hawk an entire new world to you – albeit still a believable and utterly familiar one formed based on your grandmother’s witch-stories and the mythological hocus-pocus we all suck up like that sugary lemon syrup on a hot sticky summer day in India. And that is both the bane and blessing of trying to write fantasy.

And then again, heed the spider-man’s (or was it his Uncle Ben’s?) maxim, with great power comes great responsibility: While yes, Fantasy lets you flesh out those incredibly awesome new world with a religious order at the helm of things conversing with an invisible and mysterious God at loggerheads with an older religious power that has been wiped out of the mankind’s memory – you need to keep a lot of things in tight check. Like, if you are setting it in a world akin to Earth, make sure gravity exists. If you can make people fly, then invest in detailing out the technology or the magical system that lets you fly. Like for example, on Janani – people who can invoke an older forgotten Maaya – borne of faith, can actually bind their minds to nature. To gods like that of Wind, known as Vaayu in the traditional terminology, who once bound, can let you fly. Make the people take those incredible leaps of faith but ground them in logic and things believable and ordinary.

It’s tough but it is also incredibly rewarding once you believe in its power. It perhaps asks you to suspend disbelief and take a leap of faith – but that leap will lead into the jungles hitherto unexplored and adventures galore. This is definitely one aspect of world-building in Fantasy writing that the authors ought to really put their minds to and invest time and energy about.

Take that plunge. Write that story of the zombie apocalypse in Kochi city. But make sure you build that backstory to how and why zombies over-ran Kochi. And of course borrowing scientific mumbo-jumbo about a drug research gone awry in the bowels of the Nedumbaseri airport is lazy writing and the readers are going to blow you off. So beware! Think hard and smart.

Good luck with that writing!