How do I incorporate firearms in a fantasy fiction story I’m writing?
I’m writing about a boy who finds out he’s a wizard .I’m working out the kinks,but how do I incorporate firearms REALISTICLLY in a fantasy culture where swords were originally going to be the weapon of choice?
- cory d
Tags: Fantasy Fiction, Fantasy Swords, Fantasy Writing, Fiction Writing, Wizard
May 28th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Introduce an inventor into the story,who’s working on developing muskets to replace longbows.
May 29th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Can I suggest making you story a STEAMPUNK style novel.
Steampunk is a fantasy genre that incorporates Victorian era style, with steam power to create fantastic airships, vehicles and weapons.
This way your boy can have his magic powers but can also enjoy the use of swords, guns, and many amazing airships, boats and tanks.
The weapons in the steampunk genre are usally rifled guns such as the Winchester .45 and the Colt peacemaker. There’s also always the blunderbuss, and the generic flintlock.
If you want to get an idea of what steampunk is like check out these:
May 31st, 2009 at 1:14 am
Easily, instead of lock stepping your fantasy story in with 90% of the high fantasy stories written since Mr. Tolkien published his, be a bit original.
There is no rule that every fantasy story must be based strictly in the middle ages. Firearms come into use in the mid-14th century, mostly as siege weapons and arquebuses. This leaves you with roughly 300 hundred years of the sword still being the dominant weapon for hand to hand fighting to monkey around with. Consider the problems of matchlock firearms, the sword is a quicker solution. Consider the fire rate of a long or composite bow, it was quite sometime before the archer became obsolete.
Have you ever read the Three Musketeers? More than one fantasy series has borrowed from that era, one where the duelist was at his acme. Consider late feudal Japan, where firearms were in an artificially limited supply. Even as late as the early conquests in the Americas, swords were still in regular usage.
Or take a look at how other fantasy and sci-fi authors have kept the sword dominant. From the well reasoned Frank Herbert, who introduces in his Dune Series the idea of personal force shields, which necessitate the use of slow blades to penetrate them to the raher retarded nature of George Lucas’ Star Wars, which seems to translate as “magic makes them no workee right”.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:41 am
When magic works, anything is possible. Counterspells are the obvious solution. They could generate shields or turn the bullets in flight or blind or otherwise incapacitate the shooters. Anti-fire spells could keep the gunpowder from burning. Other spells could harden the targets against gunfire. Et cetera.
If counter-counter spells are possible, you get an arms race of sorts where shooters hire wizards to enchant and protect their weapons against the spells of other wizards. Then it depends on how magic works in your world. In my world, when spell and counterspell conflict, the stronger spell, usually cast by the stronger wizard, wins, but loses the amount of power it took to overcome the weaker spell.