How To Make A New Species Of Animal

new fantasy species

On earth, race is a social construct that tries to categorize different versions of the same species: homo sapiens. Different species, on the other manus, are animals that don't share DNA, like dogs and cats.

You need to determine if your new globe has various races and species, then yous need to create them—quite a tall order, only one with which y'all tin can ultimately have fun.

If yous decide to have different races in your story, they'll share DNA. They'll have superficial differences similar different shaped eyes, noses, mouths, and more. But they'll notwithstanding exist genetically the same, and then consider this when creating races in your world.

Species in fantasy and sci-fi novels are entirely unlike from each other. You wouldn't expect a dragon in your novel to give birth to a chicken whatsoever more than than you lot would expect an elf with pointy ears to bear a human child.

Information technology's up to you to brand sure readers understand if your world's inhabitants are dissimilar races sharing similar Dna, or if they're an entirely different species similar a humanoid grapheme with gills who tin can live underwater. If it'southward new species you're after, read on!

Creating Species

You tin can't populate your sci-fi world with Vulcans and Klingons. Those species are proprietary. Y'all must create your own.

Focus on creating a few species in depth instead of a host of species that but show upwards in a paragraph or ii. For example, Vulcans, Klingons, and humans are standard in Star Trek, while other species crop upwardly for a single episode or two. Those that crop up shouldn't get too much of your effort; merely you need those who are part of your spacecraft'due south coiffure to be well-developed.

In fantasy tales, you lot have a ripe selection of species in the public domain like dragons, elves, dwarves, etc. Just stay away from Hobbits, which Tolkien owns. If you really want a Hobbit-like species in your fantasy story, change at least iii of its aspects to create something entirely new.

Weighing the Risk

Whether yous're writing a sci-fi or fantasy novel, you run the risk when creating a new species that readers won't warm to it. Weigh the pros and cons of using what's already in the public domain. For example, writers have written nigh elves then frequently, there's non much new y'all can say well-nigh them. If you're craving the freedom of creating your own species, though, you tin have fun with it.

Consider inventing a species to tell a specific story. Permit's say yous create a bizarre species, only its characteristics are elemental to the story. Without its baroque aspects, your story would be expressionless.

On the other hand, you could invent a new species in-depth and then think of ways to use it in a story. It really depends on the type of story you're creating. For example, if you're thinking "series," you'll desire to build a comprehensive species and an heady new world in which they live. At the very minimum, you must decide in advance what they physically look like and their overall disposition.

Think of Chewbacca in Star Wars; yous never see another Wookie, and then yous presume other Wookies are just like Chewy. Considering he never actually speaks a give-and-take, Lucas didn't have to become deep to create Chewbacca. He'south more of a straight human for Harrison Ford's jokes.

Don't waste your time writing a bandage full of unlike characters who accept little to no impact on your story.

Backstory

To make your new species believable, you lot need to know where they're from, its climate, what their physical appearance is like, and social elements like language, history, clothing, etc. If y'all're writing sci-fi, you must pay particular attending to their engineering.

Information technology'due south easy to become overboard, but sometimes it'south necessary to create depth. Write in the backstory and get your beta readers to tell you if any of information technology tin can be stripped out when editing.

For a series, practise weigh characteristics, history, relationships, language, community, even combat methods. Once you lot've written the first few books in your series, you can't go back and retroactively assign new characteristics to a species you need in future stories. For instance, a species can't of a sudden sprout wings in Book No. 4 because your chief character needs to fly out of a pickle.

Habitat

If your story includes humanoid species, you lot demand not spend as much time on habitat because readers volition expect something like to earth. But if your species' habitat is a frozen tundra on a furthermost planet, they must take evolved to live in sub-zero temperatures.

Consider how a water habitat requires certain characteristics similar gills and webbed fingers and toes. You wouldn't put heavy armor on a water species considering they would sink. Simply they might utilize their water globe to develop specific weapons like using poisonous fish to develop poisoned darts.

Now consider how an underground species would deport differently from those in a water world. Would information technology be blind and use echolocation, or take hyper-adult sight to see in underground darkness?

What if you created a species that was amphibious—it lived both in water and on land? How would that bear upon its characteristics, physical appearance, clothing, applied science, gainsay mode, etc.? What if this new species was nomadic and congenital settlements around your story's world? What kind of habitat would such a species need to survive and thrive?

Function of habitat means y'all know what materials your new species builds with. Do they use stones to shape spears and other weapons, or practice they have sophisticated engineering skills that let them build huge skyscrapers? Perhaps they're squatters living in some other species' abandoned settlements. Consider how their engineering science affects warfare, travel, culture, buildings, etc.

fictional species

How does the terrain in their habitat impede or help them? For example, a species that is hunted, stalked, and killed needs places to hide. They wouldn't settle in an open plain-type terrain; they'd be sitting ducks. Rather, they might look for dumbo forests or mountainous terrain in which to live.

Climate also plays a role in creating a believable habitat for your species. Maybe one species is cold-blooded and needs a suitable habitat. What if y'all put a warm-blooded species in an inhospitable habitat? How would it adapt to its new climate?

Concluding thoughts

When creating new species, you need to know their physical appearance, wear, and accessories like tools and weapons. You should know characteristics, world view, societal norms, language, history, relationships, any supernatural or magical elements, applied science, their combat style, so much more than. Merely only do this for the main characters in your sci-fi or fantasy novel. If you lot try to get this in-depth with every species in your new world, you'll spend years working out the details and never write the book.

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