The society. Typically a pre-modern society must be primarily agricultural, non-educated, relatively poor (cashless economy) with a social and a religious aristocracy who control all power (economic, political, social and cultural) within the society. There must be a significant population o 'have-nots', for it is from the have-nots that the hero (or the hero's motivation) will emerge. The nitty-gritty of life: how do people live in a pre-scientific world? How do they eat, work and construct their homes? How long does it take them to travel by foot, horse or barge? How far can a laden horse go in one day, anyway? Health, diet, utensils and so forth must always reflect the non-technological and scientific world in which that characters live. Culture, particularly myths. Every culture and society is deeply affected by their myths, so the fantasy author must develop a rich mythological background for their world (and each race will have a different background) without overburdening their readers with boring and unnecessary details. Religion, Magic and Language: The religion is as important as the social structures, perhaps more so. Pre-modern and pre-scientific worlds are supernatural worlds, that is, the supernatural is used to explain the world and to get things done in the same way that science explains and achieves for us. Religion is affected by many things: the landscape, the variety of races populating the worlds, as their needs and lifestyles (the kind of religion a desert-based and trading people would vary significantly from that of a forest-dwelling, hunter and gatherer race), and the negatives of the particular world (those things which are perceived as evil or as uncontrollable). You must also think about the accoutrements of religion- the festivals, mysteries, and services rendered etc. - as well as what type of priesthood you have for your religion, the hierarchy of the priesthood, and how much power within the society the preisthood has. Does this priestly power generate conflict? Or does it impart such comfort that the society could not function effectively without it? The system of magic. Fantasy worlds are magical worlds, and generally have systems of magic that, as with the supernatural, are used as a means of getting things done. 'Magic' is as structured as religion, and it must reflect the landscape, society and religion within which it exists. What are you going to call your magicians? How is the magic accomplished? What is its power source? Are your magicians part of the priesthood, or separate from it (and perhaps even in conflict with the priesthood)?

Language. What words do people use? How do people count? Or swear? For example, most profanities are based around religious concepts, so the language (or the words the characters use) must reflect the world that has been created for them. As as example, you can't have characters in a different world going around swearing "by Christ" or "By the Devil!" , and you must even think about such common (and, we think, free of religious connotation) words such as bloody - which is merely a corruption of "By the Lady Mary!" (The Virgin Mary). The religion and gods you create will dictate your profanities.

The fantasy formula: how to use it to your best advantage. Depicting the conflict between good and evil: this is one of the fantasy favourites that is hard to get away from, and, to be perfectly honest, I don't see why there's any need to. But, again as I've said above, be careful not to make this too black and white, be 'grey' in your depiction of who is good and who bad ... and play about a bit with your depiction of 'evil'. It's one of the things that I love to play with, and it is something that I like to make my reader think about - what is good, and what evil? One of the things I do in books is to turn the concept of 'evil' on its head; after all, perception of evil is only what your culture teaches you is evil ... what if evil is the best way out? The best way forward? Using the 'self-discovery' concept (the lead characters are not who they first believe themselves to be) . This is also one of things that occurs a great deal in fantasy - and again I don't think there's any need to try and escape it. After all, the character who knows exactly who he or she is, is the most boring character in the book. One of the reasons why this 'fantasy trope' is so popular is because we all long to believe there's something 'other' within ourselves, and as readers we go on our own journey of self-discovery and growth as we read about the character's self discovery (the physical quest, the journey, should only be the physical means by which the characters confront the 'other' within themselves, and discover their true selves). Undoubtedly the typical fantasy novel (especially if it is part of a series) has masses of characters. How many should you have? Enough to keep the major plot, as well several subplots (if you need them) going for however many books it takes to get the story told. How many main characters? It's up to you, but for a trilogy I generally have between 6 to 8, and anywhere between 25-40 minor characters (not counting one-liner bit parts!). Naming your characters, and developing a coherent naming system, can often be difficult (it's not something I achieved with all that much success in the early Tencendor books!). Whenever I start a new world now, I go to one reference book for the culture that I'm basing my world on (for instance, one of my favourites is The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible) and take the names from that, or at least develop them from that.

If you have a number of characters in order, especially if they're involved in a number of plots, can be really difficult. Every writer develops their own methods ... but I often have massive wall charts showing me where various characters are in time and space and plots. Messy, but it works.

How to use (and curb!) your imagination. Imagination is better used with restraint than with abandon. Fantasy relies very much in being able to maintain your reader's suspension of disbelief. If you get too carried away then you risk your reader suddenly deciding the entire story is utterly unbelievable and putting the book down in disgust. Again, I believe the 'new' fantasy world must be as much like ours as possible - that keeps the reader's suspension of disbelief healthy - but that's only a personal view.

How to use your reader's imagination. Read the page I have on this.

How to show and not tell. This is part of learning how to make the reader work, and is also a somewhat difficult task. It is too easy for an author to patronise the reader by telling them what is going on, or what a character is like, rather than showing them. Actions are more important than words. If one of your characters is a bigoted, hot-tempered idiot, then don't patronise the reader by writing "John walked in. He was a bigoted, hot-tempered idiot." Instead, show the reader why kind of guy John is by using his behaviour to make the reader realise the guy's not very likeable.

How to present background information. Most novels begin 'part-way' through a story ... what I mean by that is that there is almost always some background information that the reader must be informed of (some past incident or history that affects the current story, some events in a character's past that does the same). But how to do this? Again, I don't think there's any need to spell it all out in one or two scenes (young and naive character meets up with older and more worldly character who spend 76 pages telling him exactly why King Fred is at war with Wizard Emily). That is also patronising the reader. We can learn gradually as the story unfolds of the long and torrid history of the relationship between King Fred and Wizard Emily.

I hope this has given you some ideas, as well food for thought, in your own quest to construct the fantasy world!