How do I plan an urban fantasy novel?
- Urban fantasy sets magic in a modern, real-world setting.
- A key choice: is the supernatural hidden or known to the public?
- Magic and supernatural elements still need consistent rules.
- The contrast of magical and mundane is the genre's appeal.
- A grounded contemporary world anchors the fantastic.
Plan an urban fantasy by blending the supernatural with a modern, real-world setting and deciding the core premise: does magic hide secretly within contemporary society, or is the supernatural openly known? Establish consistent rules for your magic and creatures, and ground the world in a recognizable modern reality so the fantastic stands out against the mundane. The genre's appeal is that contrast — vampires in the city, magic behind the everyday — so plan how the two worlds intersect and how your protagonist navigates both.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Urban fantasy works through the collision of the magical and the modern, and planning one means making the foundational choices that define that collision: how hidden the supernatural is, what rules govern it, and how it coexists with the real world. Get these wrong and the world feels incoherent or generic. Understanding the genre's defining contrast and its worldbuilding demands lets a writer build the grounded-yet-magical setting urban fantasy readers love.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A modern, real-world setting.
- A choice: hidden or openly known supernatural.
- Consistent rules for magic and creatures.
- A grounded contemporary world.
- The intersection of magical and mundane.
- A protagonist navigating both worlds.
Chapter iii·Example
A writer plans an urban fantasy where magic hides within a real modern city, governed by consistent rules, policed by a secret society. Her protagonist straddles the mundane and magical worlds. The grounded city makes the supernatural vivid by contrast — the genre's core appeal, built on deliberate worldbuilding choices.
WriteLoom's Plan studio keeps your magic rules and modern setting consistent, so urban fantasy's two worlds hold together.
Plan your novel