No dragons, no Tolkien-esque races, but a typical Europe-ish setting, say 18th-ish century without gunpowder, and a fairly hard magic system which is both powerful and self-limiting, with a story of pursuing justice while being pursued by those who would deny it. The theme has ended up being very heavy on friendship and loyalty. It’s not a cozy, but it’s very much not grimdark, either.
This sounds really cool, actually! I think the “medieval” fantasy has been such a staple for so long that an 18th century vibe is quite refreshing. And nothing wrong with heading for the middle ground between cosy and grimdark.
I’m not sure how much you’d need to worry about threatening your characters with death. I kind of think the whole Game of Thrones “anybody can die at any time” thing is a bit overdone now, and it risks alienating readers too. I’ve dropped a few series because once all my favourite characters had been brutally killed off, I just didn’t care enough about the handful still left alive that I was willing to keep paying for books, you know?
As kind of weird as it is for me to feel this way, I’ve been having random ideas lately that might be a good fit for where you are, depending on if you feel you are done with the entire world or not.
I’m definitely done with the world. Like, I love it, and I might go back to it one day, but after writing so much about it, I’m really ready to try something new and different. I’m feeling drawn to some xenofiction, maybe, I just haven’t hit on the idea that really makes me go “yes, that one!” yet. I actually find short stories really challenging, because I tend to write by going really deep into a single character’s POV, so if I care enough about them to write about them, then I want to write a lot. So… I just need to find that character+world combination that I feel attached to enough to spend time on, if you know what I mean?
My worry there is that I’m not sure I can learn what I need to in order to write credible sci-fi while also learning to write. But I’ve been a majority-fantasy reader for my entire life, from a very early age. I feel like I’ve got a built in comfort zone on the fantasy side that is allowing me to focus more on learning to write than learning to write fantasy.
That makes sense, yeah! Working with a new genre is challenging, especially if it’s not one you’ve read a lot. But a sci-fi/fantasy blend is more forgiving in that respect than hard sci-fi, since the magical elements allows you to get away with fuzzier science.