So far, everything I’ve talked about on this blog can be applied to genres in writing aside from fantasy. I’ve consistently used fantasy as the backdrop to my examples, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use my advice for other types of stories. Archetypes exist in non-fiction. Contrast and secretive details provide the backbone to detective fiction. Cliches are all too familiar in horror stories.

That same notion of applicability can be said for this post, though I feel, more than for the rest of the content on this blog, that today’s topic is especially relevant to fantasy.

Fantasy, more than any other genre of writing, relies on the vivid depiction of the imaginary in order to tell a story. Science fiction can get wild, but still often relies on the laws of reality for it to work. Horror can employ a fierce manifestation of the supernatural, but it relies on normal, realistic settings to build tension toward the uncanny. Fantasy, at its most semantic meaning, is the exact opposite of reality.

Knowing how far attached from “the real” we can get with fantasy, we have to ask ourselves:

“How can I relate what I write to my core audience?”

The key to answering this lies in one rule of thumb for any character you can and will ever write:

Keep the stakes in mind.

Before you ask: yes, you can also keep the steaks in mind. That ain’t a bad rule to follow — food is good for your mind, after all. But perhaps more important than food, even, is the ability to write characters that have something to gain and something to lose.

These “somethings” can’t be anything, either. In order to relate your characters to your readers, you should tie each character’s stakes to something real.

You can have your main character strive to secure the magical McMuffin that is capable of miracles beyond our wildest dreams, but what does this goal mean to the character? What do their trials and tribulations toward achieving this goal say about people in real life? What does this magical item represent, and what do its capabilities imply about reality? Questions like these will be what enable your readers to connect to your characters and your worlds.

The goals you make your characters strive for can reflect hope and terror, depending on the morality of each character, and their success or failure can set the tone for your story henceforth. Readers can relate these stakes to their dreams and desires, their yearning for triumph and fear of failure.

Goals can be powerful — powerful enough to be worth keeping in mind. However, what one hopes to gain is rarely ever as powerful as what they can’t afford to lose.

Loss of a loved one, of innocence and purity, of a hopeful dream, of one’s own humanity—these all have the potential to tie in with deeper, darker fears and sorrows that the reader may be struggling with. Perhaps the strongest tool an author can wield is a firm understanding of this potential.

It’s important to know this, but not overuse it, otherwise your writing might come off as exploitative. But if you know when to use it: loss, or the threat of loss, will be what leaves the biggest impact on your reader, and on your story.

Of course, loss doesn’t always have to mean “death.” For comedic stories such as the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” parody I referred to in my third blog post, the threat of loss can lie within material things, like a place to live and money to spend freely.

However, for most fantasy stories, it is always wise to keep mortality in mind.

This is especially true the longer you plan to write your story. If it’s your dream to write an epic saga that’s set within the same world with the same cast of characters, then you should always keep death in mind. You should be neither hasty nor afraid to kill off your characters. Doing so at the right moments is your ace in the hole — the strongest move you can make to influence your characters, your world, and your readership. So use it sparingly—but when you need to.

Of course, in the case of games, this often isn’t an option. Thus we come full circle to Lucia Hunter: my deceased Dungeons & Dragons character.

Since I wrote my first blog post about Lucia, I’ve settled quite well into playing as her replacement, Welvtel. Welvtel is a snarky bastard who reads erotic fanfiction in the heat of battle and owns a walking, talking purple frog-man who attacks people with skunks, centipedes, and wasps. It’s been a great time.

But what happened with Lucia? Did it even matter that she died? Well, yes. Quite a lot, actually.

Lucia’s death was propelled into significance the moment Welvtel entered the story in her place. Through his knowledge of the future, the party learned that Lucia was fated to become the inventor of time travel. This meant that, without bringing her back from the dead, Welvtel would no longer be able to exist in the past.

Thus, a threat of loss was immediately imposed upon my new character: a loss of his own life, depending on whether he could save Lucia or not.

Thus began a perilous quest surrounding the art of resurrection. Lucia had aged hundreds of years in the tower where she died, due to its mystical capabilities. So, the party had to call upon a demigod that could use the strongest resurrection spell known to the Material Plane in order to bring her back. Still, this spell failed, and it was here when the party discovered a lich’s (an undead king) plot to claim all the souls of the resurrected, therefore shutting down the effectiveness of all revival methods. Thus began an even bigger quest (one that takes place halfway across the world) to kill the lich and break the curse so that time travel could come to exist. This entire plot line was derived from a single death.

Stakes are what open up gateways to new possibilities within fantasy. They’re what get the reader most excited, and honestly, they’re what get writers like me excited, too.

Above all, your characters should feel like real people. Remember — from their first breath to their last — what they desire to gain, what they can’t afford to lose, and what the loss of their life will mean to the world. That’s what will truly vivify your characters.