Urban fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy that blends the idea of fantasy with contemporary urban settings, most notably densely populated cities. Unlike other forms of fantasy, urban fantasy does not take in entirely fictional worlds. Rather, it integrates the world of magic with the world we know. But what precisely is urban fantasy and how can you write your own urban fantasy book?
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What is Urban Fantasy?
Urban fantasy, true to its name, takes place in a modern city or at least some sort of densely populated, real city. The cities play a big role in the overall development of the story. Magical elements are integrated into the cities, such as magic, mythical creatures, and supernatural occurrences. These things are often associated with fantasy, but in urban fantasy, they are projected onto our modern cities.
Like most other fantasy stories, urban fantasy includes strong and complex protagonists that play a big role in the cross between the standard world and the magical world. They often have special abilities and a connection to the fantasy side of the story while navigating the real world they live in.
Urban fantasy stories also often contain high-stakes conflicts that affect the city, such as a battle against dark forces, quests for magical artifacts, supernatural threats, and similar ideas. Furthermore, urban fantasy stories also talk quite often about themes of identity and belonging which are further exacerbated by showcasing a person with magical affinities in a mundane world.
How to Write an Urban Fantasy Book
Create/Choose Your Urban Setting
The first thing you want to do is to decide on the urban environment that your story is going to take place in. This environment could be a real city or a fictional city, or could be your own fictional take on a real city. For instance, City of Bones is set in New York City. You want to think about how the choice of your city will play a role in the story.
Create a Magic System
The next thing you’ll want to do is to create your own magic system to fit into the urban fantasy world. I’ve talked about creating fantasy magic systems before, but I’ll give a few tips here as well.
You’ll want to define the rules for how the magic system in the world works as well as what the source of the magic is, what the limitations are, and what are the rules for its use. You want to ensure that it is consistent and works within the confines of your world.
You can also integrate mythology and folklore into your fantasy magic system and you should read this post about why integrating mythology into your fantasy world is a great idea.
Integrate the Magic in the Setting
Another thing you need to do is to ensure that you are integrating the magic into your setting. What makes a fantasy story is that you have to have some sort of magic system that is central to the story. Integrating the magic in an urban fantasy is very important just like with any other fantasy story. Furthermore, you want to show how the magic of the world impacts the urban setting.
Create Compelling Characters
The next thing to do is to create strong, compelling, memorable characters for your story. You want to establish who your protagonist or protagonists are and what their personality will be like. This can be made easier by creating character profiles where you establish their origins, their backstory, their character traits, strengths, weaknesses, and more.
Next, you want to think about what the antagonists will be in your story. Your antagonist just needs to be someone or something that opposes your protagonists and can be a hero, villain, or anything in between. Check out this post on the 7 different types of conflicts in literature so you can figure out which one you want to choose for your story.
Finally, you also want to think about the supporting cast of characters that will either be on the protagonist’s side or the antagonist’s side and how they will impact the story.
For the major characters, you’ll want to think about their individual character arcs as well and how these arcs intersect and change with the plot of the story.
Create an Interesting Plot
The next thing you want to do is to outline your plot for your story. I’ve talked before about how to outline a plot for a book using the three-act structure, and this is the most commonly used structure for stories. It’s also likely the one you’ve heard of the most. You want to think about the main conflict of your story, what the events of the story will be, what subplots there will be, what your character arc is going to be and how everything will integrate. If you want to learn more about why outlining your plot is important, check out this post.
Ensure Dialogue is Realistic For Your Setting
One issue I tend to notice some authors do in urban fantasy is pick a setting but not do enough research into that particular setting to understand things like slang, dialogue nuances, accents, and more. As someone born in the New England part of the United States, the accent there is very different thanin the Midwest, where I grew up. It’s also different from the south and from the west coast. Doing proper research is key to understanding the city that you are writing about. If you’re writing a fictional city set in a real country, you’ll still want to understand that actual country so that you can understand how to write your own dialogue better.
Think About Your Themes
Urban fantasy tends to focus on themes like any other fantasy subgenre. A lot of urban fantasy talks about themes like identity, fate and destiny, personal struggles and more. There’s a lot of room for exploration in urban fantasy for interesting themes because you can cover things that are more relevant to our times than just things that are present in medieval societies.
Create Authenticity in the Setting
Urban settings are very interesting and can have a lot of impact on the story. However, it can also detract from the story if it’s not done in a way that feels authentic. You should try and understand your setting as much as possible and give readers a glimpse into what it looks like. Try to describe it using sensory details so that the reader can get a real idea of what this place looks like and how it is in the story. You want to also make things feel realistic. In a city, there will be a lot of people, and the streets won’t likely be super empty even at 3 AM, so you’ll need to try and make it feel real to the readers.
Focus on World Building
Like with any other fantasy book, you want to think hard about the world building in your story. World building is an important concept that allows you to create the systems that compose your story. This includes the elements I’ve talked about before, but of course, you want to keep track of your world building and keep your information organized. I’ve curated a list of ten software for world building organization as well as a recommended list of notebooks for world building notes. I also have a starter’s guide to world building if you want to check that out.
Examples of Urban Fantasy Books
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson is one of the best examples of urban fantasy and tells the story of Percy, the son of Posideon who finds out that he is a demigod and goes through peril and adventure alongside his friends at Camp Halfblood. To this day, I still remember that scene in the movie with the Las Vegas Lotus Hotel. I’ll be honest, I was a bit disappointed when I went to Vegas and that place wasn’t there.
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
City of Bones is a perfect example of urban fantasy because it takes place in New York City and has Shadowhunters, an entire magic society, the underworlders like vampires and werewolves, the idea of regular people being mundanes, and more while still taking place in a city. It’s a great example of urban fantasy in a series.
Conclusion
Urban fantasy can be a lot of fun to write and I really recommend that you give it a try if you’re interested. It’s a bit similar to contemporary fantasy, which I have talked about before, but urban fantasy focuses on an urban setting rather than just a general contemporary setting. I think that urban fantasy can be great if it’s done right and there are lots of great urban fantasy books out there as well.
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