If you're reading this because you want to know about a good writer's tips on how to write a fantasy then you're looking in the wrong place.
I'm an amateur writer who reads a lot of books on novel updates so my opinion is pretty biased and unoriginal when it comes to the what I define as the definition of a 'good fantasy'.
I can't tell you what to write because your own writing might be something that's completely mind blowing in its own way, but I CAN say what I truly feel about what fantasy writers should focus on when planning a story.
Now that I've got all that out of the way, let me explain my own overview of fantasy in general... which is something I wanted to talk about for some time.
Fantasy is sometimes a light-hearted representation of a dream like world and sometimes a grimdark and edgy nightmare that conveys emotions.
When a person is writing a Fantasy Novel in general, the first thing they do is either plan out the characters or the world itself depending on what the story will focus on in its future.
There are writers that do all they can to create a world with a logical representation of magic and some who go all over the place with 'because magic' in order to spice up the plot.
I don't have any problems with both these kinds of writers because both directions have their own strengths and weaknesses depending on the plot.
If you don't make a logical representation of 'Magical Energy' like most Xianxia do through levels and rankings then there will be times the reader will just not understand why certain things that should happen didn't happen the way they imagined it.
And if you do make a logical representation of it, the overall story will get easier to predict because the readers always figure out what should happen in such a story with levelling.
Just like with any LitRPG or Xianxia genre novel, the readers never believe that the MC will fight a person who he can't defeat. Even if you do try to make the situation seem as dire they can.
Why is that? It's because the MC can't die under any circumstances. This rule in novels can be broken by light novels like Re:Zero that constantly bring the MC back to life, and novels that have multiple main MCs... but the whole reason a person reads such a novel is because they want to see something that's just 'Magical' in its own way.
The Fantasy genre is so broad and wide that any writer with a fleshed out dream-like concept can write a fantasy story if they tried hard enough.
However, writing a good fantasy story is something entirely different than just writing a fantasy for the fun of it.
Having a lot of interesting things happening as well would get a lot of readers easily but creating a plot that would use your 'world' to its fullest potential is what makes readers stay longer than ten chapters.
Some can claim that I'm talking out of my own ass because I'm just a mere amateur writer that can be found anywhere, which is a normal since all I've written was theory... If you don't agree with the examples of how to improve a fantasy story than write whatever you want in the comments.
Getting back to the main topic, what defines a fantasy is the overall 'message' the 'world' wants to communicate to the reader. It doesn't have to be a deep message regarding human life, since that kind of stuff is just too complex for a regular writer to understand... but it at least needs a subtle message as its driving point.
Since I like Anime, I'm going to give you an example that relates to what I'm trying to say when I start trying to explain the author's message.
In the past, there was this anime called Myriad Colors Phantom World that was really interesting regarding the world it built and society as a whole.
If you're wondering why I mentioned an Anime in the first place because light novels and anime is different then you're missing the entire point of why I mentioned that particular Anime of the past. Myriad Worlds built itself as an episodic Anime with good visuals but the story telling and characters really made ruined it the entire point it was trying to make since the beginning.
YouTubers like DigiBro have already went over what made the story as bland as it was to the audience, so I'm just going to skip everything and say that it was bland because there was no meaning to everything within the story.
If you write a good Fantasy novel, then the characters of the novel need to have a reason for their existence... A reason we as the readers should care about them to the point of feeling for them.
Most writers do this by giving the main character a sad backstory which summarises what they want to do in the future, and while it usually does get things done... it's really depressing that people think a sad backstory will give the reader a reason to care about them.
If you just write a sad backstory and have no future purpose for the MC to fight for then you probably should just write something light-hearted because darker fantasies are supposed to have MC's that go out of their way to fight.
If you want an example of a good fantasy character done the right way then you should read that Manga named Goblin Slayer. Just like the name suggests, the MC is a guy with a sad backstory that relates to goblins and his objective in life is to hunt them down in order to relieve his hatred.
The reader is never shown the MC's backstory clearly but the brief glimpses we get are enough for us to understand his motivations towards hunting goblins instead of evils like Ogres.
He is not depicted as a OP guy with magic but is only shown as hunter who does all he can to obsessively hunt goblins in ways others wouldn't.
There are many writers these days who think 'Fantasy = Reincarnation' but that is just a misunderstanding born from the most popular genres usually are when portraying a fantasy.
A reincarnated MC will always be able to connect with the reader more than a inhabitant from a fantasy world because they are always able to look in the world in our own perspective.
However, that doesn't mean a character who's an inhabitant of the world can't be interesting, take Meng Hao from ISSTH as an example of that.
Now I don't expect you guys who are more into reading novels to top that because Meng Hao was created through hundreds of chapters of character development, but in at the end of the day, you should be able to make a character who's not reincarnated easily by remembering one simple thing an MC must have:
That one element your MC needs to have in a fantasy story is actually one of two things. One is a reason for him to make trouble with others (whether in a bad way or good way depending on the circumstances) or two is a reason why a villain would want to harass him.
The definition of a fantasy is to make things that usually don't happen in normal circumstances happen anyway.
It could be about an orphan that suddenly embroiled into the world of assassination or it could be about a adventurous youth who dreams to become a king and slay dragons. A believable motivation pushing the main character in a world that is full of mysteries is really exciting to read.
If you stop trying to copy Anime tropes and try to write a character with believable motivations then any kind of character can become 'better' just because we can empathise with them.
When I say empathise, I don't mean gathering sympathy from the reader by literally writing: "His life was so pitiful so he had no choice but to be a total ass to everyone he met." No, what I meant was give the character believable emotions that comes from his personality. If you want to write an Anti-Hero in a fantasy, don't try to make him uselessly mysterious and make him dig his own grave by messing with strong people because he's 'sad'.
Most people who suffer tragedies in real life don't go around showing everyone that they are 'pitiful'. If you want to write an Anti-Hero so badly then make sure you convey his believable reactions of things that happened instead of copying tropes.
Even Senjougahara from the Monogatari Series was a really great fleshed out character that was only acting like a Tsundere because of believable traumas she experienced.
The first thing she did when the MC caught her while she was falling from the highest floor of the school building was attack and injure him, but in the end of the Arc we readers couldn't help but admire her stubbornness even if her decision caused her to 'lose weight'.
The MC's way of helping her was never depicted as something that was completely in the right because he himself is shown as a flawed character in the future who hurt those he is close to by hurting himself.
If you want to write a good fantasy then make sure you don't focus on the whole morale standing of characters but more about the reason they are against something that we'd see as 'wrong' and how they themselves want to fix it.
Think of your MC as a person, one with genuine feelings that stem from his backstory and personality. An assassin wouldn't have a heart of gold because he kills people for a living and a normal vengeful girl wouldn't fall for someone she hates because she HATES them.
Some people will argue that Anime tropes have their own uses in a fantasy novel or just a novel in general, but the main point is that you can't just expect people to empathise with characters that don't make any logical sense.
In my opinion, what defines a fantasy novel is how believable characters are able to move towards their goal in an unbelievable way, luck is always distorted for a fantasy MC so expecting the usual events that you would find in real life situations would be wrong.
Well, that's all I got...
Thank you for reading~!