How do you build a story where there is no villain? No one to laugh when your heroine fails? How do you build a story where there isn’t another person to act as an adversary?

This week’s exploration targets exactly that and helps give you a chance to flex your world building muscles.

Types of Conflict

Conflict is one of the forces, usually one of the main drivers of your plot. There are six main types to be aware of as you figure out what your characters are struggling with or struggling to do.

• Character vs. Character. Probably the most common type of conflict: two people have separate goals that directly conflict with one another.
• Character vs Machine. Popular among the variety of sci-fi genres and even sometimes in literary fiction. Machines or technological advancements create a credible threat to a person.
• Character vs Society. In these cases, characters are usually trying to fight an unjust law, system or other discrimination.
• Character vs Self. A much larger take on internal conflicts, where your character is fighting their own fears, doubts or beliefs to accomplish their goals.
• Character vs Supernatural. This can also show up as ‘Characters vs Fate’ where a character is struggling against a force far greater than themselves. This may be literal fate, destiny, or it could be a creature that is simply faster, stronger and deadlier than your characters can ever hope to be.
• Character vs Nature. In these stories, the character is struggling to survive against natural forces such as storms, wildfires or other natural disasters.

If you guessed that this exploration would focus on Character vs Nature conflicts, give yourself a round of applause! Of course, we’re here to learn how to create a fantasy world. To do that, we’re going to need to understand the sort of things our world can throw at our characters.

Creating Natural Struggles

To get started, pick an environment you know well. This might be woodlands, coastal areas or even deserts. Once you’ve picked out your environment, try to create a list of 5-10 resources that can be found there naturally.

Seasons change and so do resources. Make note of what season each of your listed resources can be found in, and if there are any seasons they wouldn’t be available in.

Tip This is a great chance for some field research! Check out nature preserves and parks near you and bring a notebook with you to take down notes. Remember to practice safety: pack appropriately and tell people where you’re going and when you’ll be back. Also remember to be respectful of others you might encounter and leave the area the way you found it and free of trash.

Once you have your list of resources that can be found and where to find them in your chosen environment, you need to determine what challenges there are to facing these resources: remember that animals will fight back, and some plants mimic other, poisonous plants. For each of your resources, list at least two obstacles to collecting that resource your character would have to navigate.

Finally, you’re going to make a list of weather phenomenon that would occur during each season in your chosen environment. Do this for all four seasons.

Adding Magic

Now that you know a small part of what your natural world can throw at your characters, you’ve got one final step: adding magic.

To start, decide on one magical resource that would be available in your environment: this might be a particular plant or animal, or even a spring with magical waters. As with the real-world resources above, make sure you add any notes on seasonal availability or changes. Then added at least two obstacles a character would need to solve in order to collect these resources.

For an added exercise: repeat this with at least one mineral, one animal, one plant and one other magical resource of your choice.

Now that that’s done, add at least one magical effect for each season. This might be in the form of a change in how strong magic is, or you can add in a magical storm or weather occurrence.

Congratulations! You now have a fantasy environment with both resources and potential problems to solve.

Flash Fiction: Ranger’s Resource.

For this portion of the exploration, you’ll want to come up with a ranger character. Their quest: Collect a rare resource from the middle of your new fantasy environment.

For added exercises: have them collect a rare resource in each season.