Once you’ve written a little bit of what you feel will be a great story, all kinds of story elements start swimming around in your head.
And with all of those little story elements swimming around in your thoughts all the time, your brain somehow starts to automatically arrange some of them into a cohesive theme.

I found questions were echoing in my head all the time, such as:

“How did Cirellio and Aeriallas even meet?”
“What business did they have in Joun?”
“What does Aydomar look like?”
“Is there a spoken accent?”
“Does this city have a monarchy?”
“A Democracy?”
“A new form of government?”
“What kind of foods do they typically eat?”
“What would be an interesting culture for this city?”

I’m happy to say none of the other characters or locations so far have been derived. They came directly from my imagination.

As an aside:Although my goal was to create totally unique names, I try to avoid using any strange marks, such as dashes or accent marks. Names that are difficult to pronounce can be a little irritating when trying to read any kind of novel. Also, I try to avoid naming characters solely based on their personalities (unless it has become necessary to the narrative). Parents name their babies long before they find out what personality traits will arise. The baby is then forced to live up to their given name – not the other way around. It’s kind of interesting watching your own characters try to live up to their names.

I had to start carrying around a notebook to keep track of all of the ideas and Q & A sessions that were pouring into my head. Sometimes, I would be listening to music in my car, and something I was struggling with in my story would suddenly make sense. I would then immediately turn off the music and think the whole scene or scenes through, maybe jotting down the information on whatever I had handy (notebooks, receipts, gum wrappers).
It was easy to tell if I had my head deep in my story if I drove past the highway exit I needed …

If you want to include an important story element but are having trouble making it fit, the answer always seems to lay hidden somewhere in what you have already written. Your brain just … has to sniff it out. The more you think, the more your brain has this uncanny way of linking it all together.

Some authors say, “Anything you can’t remember later probably wasn’t worth writing down, anyway”. Well, I beg to differ. With high fantasy, there are too many elements to potentially lose track of, so it’s generally better to record your thoughts as best as you can.

I started compiling lists of names, locations, entire dialogues, scenarios, and histories into separated files and folders on my computer, and I even started putting things into the semblance of chronological order (Whatever didn’t seem to fit could be used for later novels).
Soon, I had a rough outline of chapters and the likely events that would fill them.
Oh, and always run incremental backups of your work! ;) I don’t want to be one of those authors that learned the hard way.

Then I wrote out four lengthy chapters and a prologue … and they were turning out great! But that’s where I got stuck. I struggled with the prologue and realised I didn’t have a proper villain, or a proper starting point. Worse, certain story elements were simply not going to make sense later on. I think I was trying to write a story where I take no sides – where there are no certain shades of good or evil – where I take no political stances. But what was resulting was characters in a fantasy world dealing with their own personal problems. That might work in some genres, and it was sort of interesting, but it just … didn’t get my blood pumping.

What I had … simply wasn’t good enough for me. I needed to know more about the world itself before I got too carried away.

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