Maybe people are just trying too hard to relate with other characters and settings instead of just enjoying the story for the entertainment? I have personally never had trouble understanding and enjoying a story without all the extra relating, and some times I wonder how people can enjoy anything with all the expectations they have going into a story. Oh, these characters are people, and people should act like this and respond like this when this happens. The inherent problem with fantasy is that it can never truly be fantasy. At the very best, it can only be a spinoff of the real world as we know it. Whether you are a writer or a reader, your imagination is limited to the things that you know or have experienced. We are all born into this world, after all. We only know and experience things that are possible in this world, so it cannot be helped that when we are exploring a new world, we bring our own bias and expectations to said world. We expect people to act the same way as they do in the world that we see, and we do not know any other ways that people could act to certain stimuli to write any differently. We know that stew takes a long time to make and that it will probably hurt if you fell on your butt, so when someone decides differently, we simply cannot accept it. It is a lot like having these high expectations for a country that you have never been to only to have your mind blown by how it really is when you get there. People are always talking about making the story "believable," "realistic" and "relatable," when ultimately, it is these very things that kill fantasy. To what are you comparing when deciding if something believable and relatable? Different worlds, different people, different beliefs, and different rules. The more we try to tie our sense of believability to the real world, the further away we get from enjoying a fantasy as a fantasy. This applies to writers and readers. As a disclaimer, I am mainly referring to high fantasy. I also believe in the possibility of bad writing, but that is another story.
Maybe someone else has already said this but I think that a lot of new writers gravitate towards fantasy because they mistakenly believe that it is "easy to write". Or at the least that, among all the other genres, it is the easiest because, well, everything is made up. I think it may also come from something of a lack of respect for speculative fiction. There are so many out there who still look down on fantasy and science fiction as if it is only for children. But the fantasy genre has a very loyal and intelligent fan base and they're not too keen on being pandered to. So if someone manages to get their book published who only wrote in that genre because they thought it would be "easy money" then they might be surprised by their story's reception. And then there is the fact that fantasy and science fiction is just awesome. Of course new writers are gravitating towards it. Here is hoping that the next great fantasy novel will come from one of them. "Fiction is the truth inside the lie." -Stephen King
Because it easy. Most other genres require research to tell a story since they are usually based off of reality. That includes science fiction. Fantasy? You can make up whatever you want. The problem is for a genre that allows far more accessibility to express creative storytelling, a lot of new writers are aping Tolkein (Lord of the Rings). I think I've heard enough stories of knights slaying trolls or other monsters in a mythical piece of land that looks similar to Medieval England.
Or if it's not some pseudo-Lord of the Rings, it's about orphaned children who end up being the 'chosen ones' who slay the evil tyrant. Yeah, my fantasy story was basically the latter... *kicks it under the bed* But yeah, it's ironic that for a genre that professes 100%, absolute freedom, many choose to do Tolkien or chosen orphans smiting evil empires.
Welcome to the club of fantasy writers who write about evil empires and orphans smiting tyrants! *raises glass*
I think it's important to remember that, yes, Tolkien-esque, Nordic fantasy of the Tolkien/RR Martin type is not the only fantasy out there. However, it is the most famous kind of fantasy, and in my experience it is certainly the type most young people are interested in and have interest in actually writing. The cliche of some dorky 13 year old writing about elves and dragons and dwarfs exist because it's literally the reality a lot of the time. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this really, I suppose, aside from the fact that it is boring. Tolkien will stick around because he frankly did it first, and he did it well. And as part of that genre I can point to ASOIAF that is at least respectable. And I must admit a liking for the Elder Scrolls games (well, Skyrim - those Norse references) and it is tied in my mind with young writers thinking they need to be 'Epic' and dramatic to be interesting. And that's just not the case. They also think they need to either write such bombastic, pretentious prose because regular monosyllabic words are just not as 'impressive'. In short, for much of these reasons, young writers writing fantasy just feels cliche, and trying too hard to be interesting. Reading fantasy, though, is in no way a problem, and the two are only really tangentially connected for some people, at least n in my experience.
I wouldn't classify these as easy to write: A Song of Ice and Fire The Kingkiller Chronicle A Wheel of Time The Lord of the Rings Malazan Book of the Fallen The Stormlight Archive The Runelords Discworld The list goes on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high_fantasy_fiction And you couldn't be more wrong about fantasy not needing any research. Most fantasy takes place in the real world (not all fantasy is elves and dragons), and epic fantasy is grounded in realism--medieval realism. Not even Tolkien made up everything in his work--not even close, actually; he straight up got most of his ideas from nothing but research. I mean sure, you could make everything up--but no one does. Why? Because it would be stupid, and because it is actually much harder to make up every detail than it is to do some research. Even with things you would call "completely made up" are not completely made up. If you strip them down, you will almost always see that whatever it is was based in reality before the author put his/her coat of paint on it: religions, cultures, races etc. And even for things that are, in fact, 100% made up--without taking into account anything from the real world--you would still have to do research in your own head (and possibly, depending on what it is, researching examples of what you want to do as a starting point) if you want to not have a complete pile of doodoo butt butter that is filled with contradictions and nonsensical holes.
Mine had both - a "Chosen one" orphan within the confines of a Tolkienesque epic fantasy. It also had vampires and zombies. And the MC looked just like Luke Skywalker. The girl was a manic pixie dream girl - literally. The wizard was... oh never mind. Ugh.
That depends on how you interpret human experience. If a fantasy character is the one we want to be but not the one we are, doesn't it still have to do with the human experience?
I've always hated that generic Tolkienesque epic fantasy (except for actual Tolkien), for the following reasons: - The main character is often some over-powered Mary-Sue/ Marty-Stu warrior type who partakes in slightly cringeworthy, masturbatory fighting routines; and is quite devoid of the flaws that make a character interesting. I tell a lie, he might have flaws, but they are "job-interview flaws". The magic is very often entirely inconsistent and far too often used as a deus ex machina. Magical types will adjust their magical abilities or conveniently "forget" them to suit the plot. The world is often entirely unlikely. There are races that would not exist and are lazy in their conception; a human with a cat head or some such crap. Or there are floating lands that defy the laws of gravity. I mean I know it is fantasy, and it allows a greater suspension of disbelief than most genres, but your world still requires physical laws, even if they are of the author's invention. And no, "a wizard did it" is not an adequate explanation. Isn't part of the fun of writing fantasy the freedom to design the world in which it takes place; so why would anyone choose just to throw in generic dwarves, elves and orcs? Prophecies, chosen ones, evil incarnate without any motive beyond evil for evil's sake, an epic journey from A-B to find/destroy something/someone are all tedious clichés. That is my two cents anyway.
But there's Dungeons and Dragons, where a great deal of would-be fanfic disperses. Not every fantasy story is set in Middle Earth.. Fanfics remain true to the suitability of the world's rules and laws that are lined out by someone else. D&D (get my acronyms straight) is designed to be a creative interactive world. I've given it a thought to join a party just because I might think it might provided a bit of training for designing your own fantasy world.
If that annoyed you, my apologies in advance for this: 23 Writers Who Were Famous by Age 23 Amanda Hocking ...to name a few. I agree experience helps and some of us are late blooming authors with the advantage of a lot of life experiences. But blanket statements like, young people don't generally have the requisite repertoire to write fantasy makes no sense to me. All it takes is avid reading which, believe it or not, a lot of kids do.
