Fantasy, the traditional, not modern type, has a reputation for inaccuracies when it comes to characters traveling. There are the stories where the characters ride horses for hours on end, racing them as they are being chased and go on longer than has been shown to be possible. Then there are others where characters walk everywhere, long long distances and it doesn't take a very long time considering the travel method and the character's physique, to get to places.
I will admit I have this problem in a couple of my novels, in particular the novel I started writing in November. The characters in that novel are on the run, trying to find safety and are walking. Yeah, I went with the walking. Though I did make the pain from doing it, foot problems, needing to rest and such an issue, but I don't know what else to do based on the world.
I also have travel issues with my epic fantasy that I started writing in 2010. I don't know how to have them travel to get from places. I am guessing this is something where it would help to worldbuild before writing.
I don't have a lot of tips for this topic. Instead, I'm curious if anyone else does.
Any suggestions for travel in fantasy worlds?
Do you have this problem too?
3 comments:
Travel in a fantasy worlds has to have some hard and fast rules of their own physics.
Ditto on the hard and fast rules. Whatever you decide, stick to it. You can always add the fantasy-staples like portals, or travel spells, or dragons to ride on, or perhaps a helpful elf or something like that. There's also magical talismans that can transfer you, intricate spells that do so, horses that are bespelled, shoes that are bespelled (think Hermes' winged sandals), waystations where you change horses (that's actually realistic and not fantasy) or some such.
Think if you want to make fast travel available only to a certain class of people, or it it's available to anyone, or to those with money, or maybe only to those without (I'm thinking thieves' guilds and what they might come up with here).
Does that help?
; )
Oh, and there's carriages you can get at inns and the like, kind of like the postal ones in the wild west...
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