10 Best Ways to Start Your Fantasy Novel

I asked 400 readers what is the best way to start a fantasy novel I'm about to share with you the 10 most common responses along with drawing from my own experience as a fantasy author to show you how you can use this data to write better openings in your own fantasy novel we had over 28,000 words worth of responses for this survey and as we go through them you'll learn which of these 10 starts is my personal favorite along with some advice for implementing these openings effectively in your own writing you will also notice that

pretty much none of these responses mention a common piece of opening writing advice which is often thrown around online which made me feel very validated because it's something that I have always pushed back against but we'll get to that later let's start with number 10 Begin by introducing the magic system so one respondent said give me a magic system with flaws limitations costs and some insane functionality I want to see an assassin who can change the direction gravity affects him like in The Stormlight Archive A Healer who can mind control anyone she sees like in

six of crows or a man who commits suicide by creating a mountain around himself like in The Wheel of Time all very good examples another respondent said I think the most important thing is you have to show something Fantastical this is fantasy show off something unique that will keep me hooked this could be a part of the magic system an amazing setting detail strange creatures anything that shows promise now in terms of my thoughts on this not every fantasy novel actually needs a magic system there are plenty of great fantasy novels with zero magic in

them whatsoever it's typically called the low fantasy genre I think that's a slightly derogatory term personally but if you do have a really cool and really unique Magic system in your story then it is a fantastic idea to show a slice of that to readers early on notice that I say a slice you don't want to just overwhelm readers with you know 20 pages of explanation around how all the magic Works rather you are much better off just giving readers a tantalizing glimmer or glimpse of what the magic is capable of and then leave a

lot of mystery around what uses the magic could be put to or what other abilities might be contained in that magic later on in your story now if you are going to show your magic system early in your fantasy novel there is one big tip I have for you and this is going to help you a lot with your writing in your opening try to suggest or hint at the tough choices your magic system might Force characters to make later on in your story a fantastic example of this is let's imagine you have a magic

where you can enchant magical robes for your characters to use okay that's all right that could be interesting but what if the only way to enchant those magical robes was you had to sacrifice The Souls of dozens or even hundreds of humans to some demonic entity that is basically the setup of one of the many Magic systems in Blackstone Heart by Michael R Fletcher and as soon as that idea is introduced you as a reader just have a tremendous amount of intrigue and curiosity around how that is going to play out because you can see

the difficult choices and the tough dilemas that that magic system could force the character to enter into later in the story so if you can establish early on that your magic is going to create hard choices for your character later it will create tremendous suspense and tension for your reader the next best way to start your fantasy novel according to this survey is with the antagonist this response actually surprised me a little I was pleasantly intrigued to see this here because while I wasn't immediately thinking of it myself as you'll see from the some of

these answers here is actually a very compelling opening for a couple of different reasons so we had one respondent saying oh I think it's fun to first introduce the bad guy doing something evil or their backstory before they become the villain then introduce the hero afterwards another respondent said I love it when we open with the introduction of the villain or antagonist rather than the protagonist in my opinion this works really well because you can build tension and Stakes right from the start I have a lot of thoughts on that we'll get to in a

moment another respondent said I love the villain doing an evil thing to set the stakes and to give me the promise of the villain's defeat then you can introduce the hero later and there was one particularly great example which a respondent sent in which I want to share in full with you here for example the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire one of my favorite opening chapters of all time it sets a darker tone for the book with the death of the caretaker if you don't know the context of this the

opening from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which is the fourth book in the series begins with uh a caretaker basically hearing a conversation between Voldemort and and his servant Peter pedigree and it's only at the very end of this chapter that you see that Voldemort is this kind of horribly shrunken and um disfigured little baby but he has somehow managed to come back into a Corporal form after sort of being a spirit for most of the first half of the Harry Potter series so it sets a darker tone for the book with the

death of that very caretaker Frank rest in peace Frank um sets up it vm's plan for his return by showing him getting more powerful and having allies and then this is probably the most important part it hints at this deeper connection between Harry and Voldemort by Harry being able to witness the event in his dreams so what's really crazy here is I had not had the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opening on my mind at all in terms of a great example of how to start your fantasy novel as soon as I read

this response in the survey I remembered how damn good that opening is and it is my favorite opening out of all seven of the Harry Potter novels interestingly it's pretty much one of the only ones that starts from the antagonist perspective you also have in uh Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince that sort of starts with Snape making this unbreakable oath with some other um dark wizards but I really love the Goblet of Fire opening for all of the reasons that this respondent has shared here the really nice thing about starting with the antagonist

is you create a information gap between what you know as the reader or what you're telling to the reader and what your protagonist actually knows so if you're starting from for example with the antagonist uh creating a plan to go off and assassinate the main character and then you cut to the main character and they are living their life completely oblivious of the fact that an assassin is heading for them there is tremendous suspense there because there is a huge information gap between what you know as the reader and what the character actually knows we're

going to have a huge amount of worry when is the Assassin going to arrive how is the Assassin going to attack them will the protagonist be able to survive and so when you start with the antagonist in your story you can maybe then go 100 Pages 200 Pages maybe even more without your antagonist showing up but all throughout those first 100 Pages first 200 Pages whatever it is there will be a tremendous amount of suspense you can almost think about starting with the antagonist as a way to pull back on a lucky band and then

keep that tension there as the reader gets into the protagonist and they're wondering this whole time when is this lucky band going to release and go flying forward by comparison if you just write a story where you maybe don't introduce the antagonist until page 200 then you don't really have suspense in those first 200 Pages you just probably have shock when the antagonist finally arrives and so that's why this kind of opening can be quite powerful if you are writing a story where maybe there's a lot of focus on the protagonist life but the main

antagonist does not enter the picture until later on and of course you can fall into the Trap of drawing out the suspense too long in my very first novel that I wrote the Aon Academy which I started writing when I was 14 I didn't even introduce my antagonist until the fifth last chapter of the book and it wasn't because I was doing anything clever where I set up all the suspense from them earlier I just genuinely like did not realize that I needed to introduce my antagonist earlier in the story so you can definitely take

this tip um to the negative extreme now if you are going to start with the antagonist in your fantasy novel there is a very critical mistake to avoid and this is something that I've seen with a lot of the writers I've worked with at this point I've worked with over 80 writers for some of those I edited their entire novels for writers I worked with them in my fantasy outlining boot camp and in still others I ran them through a live first chapter critique workshop and one of the common mistakes that I've actually seen quite

a few fantasy writers make is they have some kind of conflict or fight between the antagonist and the protagonist early on I'm talking maybe even chapter one and the antagonist is defeated by the main character the problem with that kind of opening is that if you are then butting the main character up against that same antagonist later in the story and the antagonist has not increased in their power or threat levels and the main character hasn't really changed either there won't be any real tension or uncertainty for the reader because we've already seen how this

equation resolves before so you do have to be careful about these openings where you have both your antagonist and your protagonist right away unless it's something where your protagonist manages to just Escape but it's very clear to us that the antagonist threat and power is far superior this is why in many cases great ant antagonist openings will just have the antagonist doing something badass by themselves perhaps to some disposable Side characters so that you immediately establish their threat without worrying about bringing the main character into things this leads to the next best way to start

your fantasy novel according to the survey which is with foreshadowing one respondent said I love subtle foreshadowing that you don't understand until much later in addition to being well introduced into a main aspect of the story another respondent said I'd love to see a hint or glimpse into what the final Conflict will be similar to how the way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson begins with these Heralds who you don't really understand at first but as the series progresses they become much more important and then another reader said I love it when the writer lets us

know that there's a greater and Vivid World Beyond a simple opening I think the best example here again is the start of the way of Kings which was mentioned a lot in the survey this was the most mentioned book I saw in the survey which is very interesting to see it's one of my favorite openings personally so I think it's a great example where we have a short pre Prelude that leaves the read with many questions it's really nice when you can write a fantasy opening that is multi-pronged that is one prong is setting up

the main conflict and the main plot of the story and you kind of understand that prong straight away but another prong is something where you don't fully appreciate its significance until later on in the story or perhaps there's some nuances that you only pick up the second time you read through a book again the way of Kings by Brandon serson which was mentioned quite a bit in the survey does this really well it has a complicated opening structure if you've read the book you know what I'm talking about it has a Prelude then it has

a prologue then it has a first chapter with a disposable side character and then it has a fourth chapter where we finally get to our main character but one of the things it does really nicely in the opening is there is a prologue where King gavalar is assassinated by zth and this prologue repeats in all five of the first Stormlight Archive books but every time you see this prologue where the is assassinated from a different perspective and it adds all these extra layers and nuances to that prologue every single time you experience it from one

of these new angles the next best way to start your fantasy novel is by clearly setting the tone or atmosphere of your story one respondent said I love an opening that sets the tone and atmosphere of the novel like a dark fantasy novel that opens with a bleak monologue or the scene of a battle I like when there is Variety in openings so there isn't one perfect way to do it which I think is totally valid and again with all these type of survey videos that I run you know they're never about giving you objective

rules they're just giving you different reader perspectives there's never one right way to start your novel but as the respondent says here all the best ones tend to set the right emotional tone which carries throughout the story another reader said if the story is about dragons there should be dragons in the beginning if the magic system is the essence of the story that should be in the beginning the best way to start is to show why this story is worthy of reading so when I ran a first chapter critique Workshop a couple of months ago

one of the biggest tips that I gave to the 46 writers on the call was to think of your first chapter as your attempt to tell your story in miniature in other words treat your first chapter almost like this short story version of your entire novel as a whole use it to give readers a clear Taste of the kind of emotional experience they can expect to get from the entirety of your narrative like this respondent said here if the story is about dragons there should be dragons in the beginning if the magic is the essence

of the story that should be in the beginning what you want to be asking yourself is what is my story about and then how can I compress that down to give readers a clear promise of what the story is going to entail early on in my opening I like to ask myself questions like what is my novel about what struggles do my characters face across the story and then what is particularly special interesting or unique about my story is it something with the World building is it something with the tone and voice and Pros I'm

going to use is it something with the ways the characters are going to interact or if it's a novel with a lot of banter and a lot dialogue between my characters then I probably want an opening that has a lot of dialogue to clearly establish that expectation for readers it's all about making sure that the taste you give readers in your first chapter corresponds to the taste of the overall dish and the overall meal they're going to experience throughout the rest of your novel now the next best way to start your fantasy novel according to

the survey was a bit of an interesting one and you'll see why in a moment it was actually to start with a prologue so we had one respondent saying I love when a novel starts off with a prologue of the past I enjoy having these big questions brought up and the world being seen from afar another reader said I love a prologue or Prelude about the past in particular some disaster or Major World building that would affect the main story another respondent said I adore prologue set in a different timeline followed throughout the rest of

the story bonus points if there are multiple timelines throughout the book I understand why they don't always work but when they do it can provide clues or foreshadow certain events that will come to pass later on in the story so the reason why I find this so interesting and strangely uplifting is that in my companion video to this the 10 worst ways to start your fantasy novel which was part of the same survey where I asked these questions there were quite a few readers who hated prologues and I think that starting with a prologue was

the eighth worst way to begin your fantasy novel according to that survey and the fact that some readers here in this survey say that they love prologues to start your novel just shows that you ultimately can't please everyone and that is a liberating and fantastic thing to know as a writer because what it really emphasizes is that writing is simply about execution with the right skill you can pull off any type of opening you want as long as you have that ability to hook readers and bring them into your story in a compelling way I

mean like I said before just think of all the survey respondents who mentioned how much they love the way of Kings with its two prologues and then one chapter with a throwaway character before we even get into one of our main point of view characters being kaladan that is by all means a hugely unconventional and risky opening and yet it works it works for me at least maybe it doesn't work for you but a lot of people in this survey said that it worked for them as well again there is no such thing as one

right way to start your novel it's just about having the skill to pull it off so if you would like to better develop the skill to write first chapters that hook readers then you should check out my first chapter Mastery course here's what one of my students said about the program a year ago I discovered Jed's YouTube channel and since then I've been learning so much about writing when I began writing my first novel I didn't like how my first chapter ended so when I saw you had this masterclass in writing first chapters I jumped

into it immediately and I am so glad I did every single lesson in this course has incredible value and I know that from now on I will always rewatch it whenever I start a new book because I now know how to write an excellent first chapter big thanks to Hector for that review I saw that Hector went through the entire course in 2 days so just goes to show you how uh dedicated he is to his writing which is fantastic now inside the course you will even see a recording of a coaching call where I

edited a prologue for a fantasy writer in real time and there's several other chapter critiques in the course as well so you can see me applying all the lessons I've learned from publishing my own four fantasy novels to help other writers edit their work and through that process you will gain so many insights into crafting a better opening in your own fantasy novel and on top of those critiques there's hours of extra fantasy writing lessons that go far more in depth into the craft of constructing the opening in your fantasy novel than I am able

to do in these YouTube videos these are really great notes yeah thank you scan the QR code here on on the screen or go to first chapter mastery.com to sign up to the course today the next best way to start your fantasy novel according to my survey is with dialogue so one respondent said I love when a book starts off with a conversation between two characters that immediately showcases their personalities and motives and the relationship they have with each other it creates just enough hook and action without the confusing aspects of a full-on fight scene

another respondent said I love it when books start with dialogue especially when it's relevant to the main character and another respondent said personally I love when we get a brief I do mean brief rundown of where we are and what's going on then after a few paragraphs to be thrown into the conversation between characters which helps to identify personality and traits starting with dialogue has such a powerful sense of immediacy and there's actually a very particular scientific reason for this broadly speaking in your story you have two types of Pros the first type is concrete

pros this is when you're describing something that actually is for example action beats setting descriptions sentence like the dog smelled of mud and wet fur is a concrete description it's describing something that is actually there the second type of Pros is abstract pros this is when you're describing something that is not literally there in front of the character's eyes so these tend to be things like character thoughts or emotions or interpretations or characters remembering some past event for example the sentence the muddy dog reminded John of the puppy his parents had once adopted that is

an abstract sentence because it is a character interpreting what's in front of him and remembering a scene or a moment from the past so as a rule of thumb concrete Pros takes place in the present and it pushes the story forward abstract Pros often times takes place in the past or it's about a character backfilling or backtracking to explain something that happened before and usually it doesn't always move the story forward there are some exceptions emotions can be something that is abstract but might actually progress where the story is going the reason I bring that

up is because you generally want to good balance of concrete and Abstract Pros in your novel but what's fantastic about dialogue is that it is always so concrete because it is something that is actually happening in the events of your story and therefore there is a sense of immediacy and momentum and progression whenever dialogue is unfolding on a page dialogue is something that is happening right now and it pushes us chronologically forward through the narrative it's also such a powerful tool to establish characters goals personality quirks and other key traits now having said that there

is a common dialogue mistake that new fantasy writers often make in the start of their story and it is to use as you know dialogue so this is where one character says to the other well as you know Bob the mountain over our town has not exploded for thousands of years so we should be safe as we go out here to plow these farmlands so as you know dialogue is when characters explain things that they already know to each other and it's done purely for the benefit of readers the problem with as you know dialogue

is that it feels fake it feels artificial and the reader will feel like you are talking down to them and it just makes your story feel dumbed down and stupid and of course there's a lot of other dialogue mistakes to avoid uh throughout your entire fantasy novel but that is probably the biggest one I see in the opening of most stories now I'm actually thinking about running a live fantasy dialogue workshop at some point in the near future so if that sounds like it would be interesting for you to get my personal feedback on your

dialogues on a dialogue scene from your story then make sure you comment down down below and subscribe to the channel the next best way to start your fantasy novel according to the survey is by creating mystery or Intrigue one respondent said I like when the novel starts with a contradiction something to draw the reader's eye the stronger the contradiction the greater the interest another reader said I think the best way to start a fantasy novel is to provide a question that the reader can ask themselves some of my favorite fantasy Beginnings are phrases that make

you think or compel you to ask a question another respondent said start a fantasy novel with a this way readers will keep reading the book until they can solve the mystery provided at the start so much of your fantasy novel's opening is about creating an unclosed Loop and curiosity within your reader one of the best examples of this comes from Empire of Silence by Christopher Rocko the first book in the son series which I am absolutely devouring at the moment I'm on to book five right now and I am loving it the first book in

the first paragraph basically opens by describing how the main character destroyed a son killed millions of humans and genocid wiped out a alien race and there is a massive unclosed Loop that is basically created from that opening where you wonder why did he do this how did he do this and why did he manage to reach this point where you know he destroyed this whole alien race when in the next scene we hear him expressing such curiosity and a strange sense of fondness for that same alien race um because he's studying them and he's learning

their languages how did that young and innocent and naive Bo go to this stage where he committed such a atrocious act and in that act was he a hero or was he a villain and the power of that unclosed Loop has been phenomenally effective at pulling me through the sun E Series there are so many other reasons why it is fantastic but the strength of that unclosed loop at the start of the series is just so compelling and so intriguing to you as a reader that you can't help but binge through the series to find

out how we arrived at this stage now one important thing to keep in mind here is that there is a fine line between creating a mysterious and intriguing opening versus just confusing readers there are some openings I read that are just plain confusing and far too overwhelming where the author is just throwing all these different things at you in an attempt to create this mystery and to create this unclosed Loop but what ends up happening instead is just this sort of messy jumble of all these ideas with nothing feeling really developed to the point where

it actually hooks me as a reader and that might be because of sloppy Cy orography or characters acting in erratic ways just for the sake of shock value or maybe your descriptions just not being very clear so the reader doesn't feel immersed in the scene you want your reader to be able to find their footing but to have questions about maybe what's going on or why things are happening and generally speaking again this is just a rule of thumb there are exceptions to this I do find that it is usually less effective to throw a

bunch of different Mysteries like six or seven different Mysteries at readers in the first chapter usually you are better off figuring out what is my one killer hook what is my one killer mystery and then really focus on building that up and setting that up in your first chapter that one powerful Hook is usually more compelling and more interesting than just throwing a bunch of half-developed ideas at readers early on the next best way to start your fantasy novel according to the survey is with interesting worldbuilding details one respondent said I love when novels start

with some unique element of the World building a few words that tell you something about what makes this fantasy novel distinct especially in high fantasy I like to know a little bit about what makes the setting before I get deep into the story another respondent said I love it when authors provide interesting details about their world my favorite example is from tolken The Hobbit the description of Bilbo's Hobbit Hall was so intriguing that before I knew it I was three pages into the book and wanting to know every little detail about The Hobbit who lived

there so if you have something interesting about the World building in your fantasy novel whether it's some unique aspect of the geography or the weather or the society or the the magic or something else like this it can be one of the easiest and most enticing entry points into your story because the thing is getting to know a character can take time telling your reader that this story takes place on a floating city ship that is on a monster infested sea that is an immediately interesting and intriguing hook into your story and it's also the

opening from my own fantasy novel The Thunder Heist and even if your world building is not that interesting or unique or kind of crazily out there with some weird concept there is still a way to take a a familiar world but make it feel really strange or arresting or intriguing purely through the power of your pros and your perspective take this opening from the gut of Prayer by Gareth hran you stand on a rocky outcrop riddled with tunnels like the other Hills and look over giren from here you see the heart of the old city

its palaces and churches and Towers reaching up like the hands of a man drowning trying to break free of the waren of Alleyways and HS that surrounds them gon has always been a place in tension with itself a city built a top its own previous incarnations yet denying them striving to hide its past mistakes and present a new face to the world so what's so brilliant about that opening is just it gives you that density that sense of the layers upon layers of history and identities and this big mashed up Melting Pot of all these

different influences and cultures in this one city and so it takes a kind of standard feeling medieval city but it presents it in a way that feels so original and resting and compelling to the reader the next best way to start your fantasy novel according to the survey is by introducing your main characters a respondent said I love it when we quickly understand the following who is the main character what are they doing and why are they doing it basically I want to feel what the characters care about then I can care about nearly anything

else as well I like seeing the main character as soon as possible I like getting a feel for the character's personality and place in the world and story in the first chapter another respondent said I like when the novel starts with a decent characterization of the protagonist and by decent I think what they really mean is you know strong distinctive and hopefully original this next one is quite interesting I like anything with the main character doing something they are supposed to be great at the thief in the middle of a heist the warrior during a

major fight the ruler making a wise decision establish the greatness of the main character right away and then another respondent said I love when we're immediately introduced to the character doing something could be related to the whole plot of the story especially if we're to see if they fail or succeed that leaves us with our first imp questions if this character is a failure or perfect whether it be in another character's eyes or in their own eyes I think these responses here absolutely nail it in 95% of the stories I edit and with the vast

majority of writers I work with most of the time you just need to show your character pursuing a clear goal facing difficult obstacles and being forced to make tough decisions as they grapple with the conflict presented by those obstacles and through doing that process of making that tough decision they show us something about about their true nature and this also sets up their flaws their key traits and suggests where their character Arc might go over the rest of the story in my first chapter Mastery course I talk about this idea of starting with a characteristic

moment in much more detail that's something where you just give readers a instant snapshot a very distinctive snapshot of who this character is through the way that you introduce them that leaves a memorable first impression on your reader and instantly sets up everything that you need to know about this person in your story now this brings me to the common advice that people often give to writers working on the opening of their novel which I actually think is misleading like I mentioned at the start of this video and it's this idea that you need to

write an opening that makes your reader like your main character I actually think that's bad advice I don't give a damn about how likable your character is I care about how interesting they are see the distinction and having look through these 400 survey responses from readers hardly anyone mentioned how important it is to establish the like ability of your character what was mentioned quite a bit is how interesting your character is how distinctive their characterization is from the start are they making unique decisions is there something fascinating about them is there something you can present

about your character that justifies the hundreds of pages we're going to spend with them over the course of your novel you know that's why series like the first law by Joe abomi are so memorable and entertaining not because any of the characters are likable there's hardly anyone in that series that is likable you wouldn't want to hang out with sandan glocker for example but the characters in that series are intensely memorable because they are interesting they are three-dimensional they are flawed they are messy they are complicated in other words they're realistic they're human and as

such they have that psychological captivating hold on us as a reader and of course that doesn't mean you can't write likable characters as well I think one of the reasons why the opening of Harry Potter and the philosopher stone works so well is because Harry is presented as a very likable kid and a lot of that is because he is this Underdog that is getting abused by his aunt and Uncle and Cousin Dudley and so when he starts winning later on in the story getting off to Hogwarts developing his magic powers getting friends you root

for him so much more because you like him as a result of that Underdog opening that is presented to you and if you're struggling to introduce your character in a distinctive and memorable and interesting way then again I highly recommend you check out my first chapter Mastery course because this is something I go into a lot more detail inside that program okay so this brings us to the number number one best way to start your fantasy novel according to this reader survey which again like all reader surveys is a subjective exercise and there's no one

right way to start your story but the most common response that I saw in this survey of 400 readers was this start in media res with action and conflict so in media res just means in the middle of things so one reader said start in media res let's get going tell me just enough that I can puzzle out what's going on and no more show me exciting action and real characters right off another respondent said to start with a C open which is one of my personal favorite ways to start a fantasy novel I've done

it many times in my stories put us right where the action is in the middle of an important dialogue during a heist a festival a fight a discovery a stage performance a first date something I don't feel like waiting for the engine to pick up put me in the passenger seat when it's already humming I think for me again that's probably my personal favorite way to start a story put us in the passenger seat when it's already humming well said another respondent said I need to be thrown into a tough situation in the middle of

action not necessarily literal sword fight and stuff just some sort of action that makes me think of one specific phrase what sequence of events could have possibly gotten them in this and then another respondent said I love it when there is immediate action with not a lot of character introduction at the start except of course looks after this part slow it down a bit to welcome you to the world and the characters plus their motivations to then get it going with more action and problems most modern fantasy readers want to jump on on to a

moving train they don't want to climb on board the train wait for coal to be shoveled into the engine and then watch the train slowly trundle out of the station before picking up speed now you might disagree with that personally and that's totally okay there are plenty of great fantasy novels that start with a quote unquote slower opening but just based on the data I've seen from this survey of 400 readers the vast majority of modern fantasy readers prefer these more immediate openings where we start in the middle of things and there is an instant

sense of momentum now that doesn't mean that you need to start with a bunch of explosions and rooftop chases right away there are plenty of ways to put the reader in Conflict from the get-go that don't necessarily involve these massive high stakes openings for example you could create meaningful conflict on a smaller level by showing two characters having a disagreement in dialogue maybe a character that is arriving at a location and therefore disrupting the the regular world of your main character who lives there or you could also show the protagonist getting something that he wants

like maybe a new job or maybe he doesn't get that new job it's just something where there is a sense of change you are starting the story on the day that everything changes in other words which is a really fantastic way to think about the opening of your fantasy novel now what is very important here is that if you do want to start your fantasy novel with action or conflict you should know the distinction between boring action and meaningful action boring action thinks that just the action itself the choreography of Swords clashing against each other

or the mechanics of the armies clashing on the battlefield is interesting enough to hook the whereas meaningful action recognizes the truth and that truth is that action is interesting to the extent that it defines develops and expresses character so to write meaningful action in your fantasy novel you will want to use something that I call the excitement equation this equation is incredibly powerful for gripping fantasy readers especially in the opening few chapters of your fantasy novel and I cover it in much more detail in this video over here which looks at how to write thrilling

battle scenes in your fantasy novel