Creating Flora and Fauna
One of the reasons I love writing in the Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF) genre is the creativity associated with fictional animals. I thought I would share a bit of insight into how I do this.
Making up creatures is fun…and a lot of work. Anytime I identify a need to create a new fictional animal, I groan first…and then end up going down the Google rabbit hole. While it might seem that I can make up what I like, every world has a natural order. To make a world believable, details need to be clear and consistent.
Creating a new organism has several considerations:
Need or purpose served in the story.
Geology and climate of the fictional world.
Physiology and how the organism fits into its environment.
Unique characteristics of the organism.
The first one is the most important. Some creatures exist strictly to make the fantasy world convincing through detail, but others require more thought.
Most of my research falls under #3, learning about animal anatomy and physiology. I may not incorporate every detail I devise in my writing but I spend literally hours learning about different animal characteristics before settling on what works for my story.
Let's use the veelox as an example, a major organism referenced throughout in the Reign of the North Forest series. The veelox is a thin, quadrupedal reptile with a slender beak. I decided the veelox should be a reptile because the planet Eiyesa is generally warmer than Earth thus allowing more reptiles versus mammals to thrive. Humans use the veelox for travelling long distances so I incorporated characteristics to accommodate this and researched animal training. The structure of the veelox is unique but there are story reasons for the creature being as socially astute as it is. And so I explored animal behaviour.
I'm being intentionally vague as to which specific real-world animals inspired the creation of the veelox. I think there's fun in guessing, so I will leave this a mystery!
I have more flexibility with flora, since plants are not as complicated. But I still look at what the story needs.
As for naming conventions, that will need to be a whole other blog post.