Writing an epic Fantasy series seems exciting and glamorous—in theory.

You picture sprawling maps, dramatic prophecies, morally complex villains, tortured protagonists, and a trilogy neatly stacked in your future like trophies on a shelf. Bookstagrammers will create lovely tableaus with your books. There will be AI generated clips of your main couple (and any other love stories you throw in there) set to sweeping violin music. Cosplayers will post clips on TikTok from the fantasy-themed balls where they inhabit your magical world. Movie deals! Merchandise! Hardcovers with sprayed edges!

Every epic fantasy writer starts out convinced that if they just outline hard enough, the story will behave and fall into place. It’s an adorable delusion. You make charts. You have mountains of notebooks and you’ve papered an entire wall with post-it notes. You have subfolders and documents in your WIP folder on your laptop with scattered bits of research, Canva storyboards, and snippets of great dialogue that came to you on your commute to work .

Then you start drafting and your protagonist makes a choice in chapter three that derails half your outline. A side character becomes beloved and inexplicably important. A magical rule you were very clear about suddenly feels restrictive and nonsensical. You envisioned a political structure with a manageable number of factions, but the world keeps asking questions. How does trade work? Who controls the ports? What do people eat on the road? Why are there so many gods, and why are they all petty? The outline becomes a rough guideline, then a suggestion, then a source of unrelenting mockery and torment.

And all of that is just the story revealing itself. An epic series is not a sprint. It’s a commitment. You will forget details. You will contradict yourself. You will reread earlier drafts and wonder what the hell you were smoking when you wrote that section. Despite all of this, there’s something deeply satisfying about building a world that unfolds over time and watching characters grow across books.

Best of all—as a writer I get to grow along with them.