Oh right, just realized we derailed the the thread. Oops. Edited out my cursing btw, but really how young can a role player be?
Yeah it was the interpretation of the director, and it was a huge deal when the movie first came out.
You know, guys, that if you want to start a thread about superheroes, you can just go ahead and do it, right?
It's tempting! I just hate to see where many of them inevitably end up; DV vs. Marvel. But it wouldn't be a bad idea considering my next major story is about a superhero. hmmm...
You might be interested in a poll I created a few months ago entitled "What genre are you working on?" For the first few week or so that the thread was active, fantasy was in the lead with about 45% of the total vote, but after some more time it lowered to about 30%, with general fiction taking the lead with about 37%. My hunch is that WF has a strong number of members who are very busy writing general fiction, so they don't frequent the forum as much. A lot of the fantasy writers, on the other hand, in many cases being younger, are spending more time talking about what they're going to write, should they write it, is their first chapter good, etc, and thus frequent the forum more, which would explain my observation with the poll and your question as to why it seems everyone here writes fantasy.
That's one aspect. I guess what I'm getting at is any kind of historical fiction my sister didn't read when she and I were kids - she read British and French history, Henry the Eighth and all that. I'm a fan of Joseph Conrad, who wrote about sea voyages to Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and so on. I'm also fascinated by some ancient cultures, like Greece, Egypt, Babylon, and some South American cultures. I guess I just meant anything other than boring old British history.
I would say no, it isn't. I'm assuming that by alternative history, you mean if certain plausible changes in key historical events and what might have followed. An example is Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, which suggests that if the isolationists in the Republican Party had combined forces in 1940 and nominated Charles Lindbergh, he might have beaten Franklin Roosevelt, thereby (the theory goes) keeping the US out of WWII. OTOH, if Roth had written that some witch cast a spell on FDR just after he beat Willkie, thereby turning him into a rabid isolationist, I'd consider that fantasy. As far as the OP's question, I would say that, yes, it seems that an inordinate number of our younger members are writers of fantasy. The genre has never appealed to me. And, based on what I have seen posted here about both published fantasy works and samples of writings, I have to say that most fantasy story lines sound mind-numbingly similar to me. But, then, that's just me.
That's just by the very nature of the fantasy genre, as currently defined. Let me speak quickly before the fans come with their pitchforks. The further you delve from our world, the less unified details you have to work with, and the more similar your work becomes to others. If I justify my details, that is, create countries with cultures, laws, technologies, etc., that make sense and are credible, the work will begin to merge either with historical fiction or science fiction- eg, the world is no longer rooted in escapism but speculation (sci fi) or historical locations (historical fiction). Furthermore, if I, for instance, wanted to write a story about a man struggling to continue his medical profession while he has Alzheimer's, there's no need for a fantasy setting. This also limits my the variation of plot you're going to find in fantasy, because an escapist setting is really only meant to serve a very limited number of functions.
I don't agree. People who think all fantasy is the same, or nearly so, just aren't very well-read in the genre (that's just an observation, not a value judgement; no one says you have to be well-read). Genres are like that, particularly at a surface level analysis. Think of how many police/detective novels there are. At a broad view, they all might look very similar. It's the same with music. I know people who never listen to classical who think it all sounds the same. The same goes for people who don't listen to heavy metal, or who don't listen to country, etc. Their lack of familiarity with the genre means they're only hearing the broad characteristics that unite the different works. Similarly, with fantasy or any other genre of books, people who aren't familiar with the genre are likely to form opinions that they're all more or less the same, whereas those who have experience in the genre see how much diversity there is within it.
Oh, I also disagree that fantasy is limited to escapism and doesn't deal with real issues that could be dealt with outside of the context of fantasy. Fantasy works certainly run the range of thematic elements, just like any other genre.
OK I anticipated this response, and my answer is "yes, it's possible. " It's possible that someone like ED sees fantasy as alien, and therefore is unable to distinguish the subtle differences between most works. My question, however, (and it's a question not a statement) are there true subtle differences between most fantasy works, are the differences in detail too superficial to amount to anything more than noise. You have a point about the police/detective novels, but I wonder if the subtle differences between detective novels (say one takes place in Philadelphia and another in London), being implicitly rooted in thousands of years of history (if we believe in determinism) is significantly different than the subtle different between most (not all) two fantasy novels, where most writers are simply not capable of backing up their imagined details with the kind of rich support that reality provides us with. As I've said before, Gormenghast is a rare example of a fantasy setting rich with credible history and detail, more distinctive than most non fantasy setting I've read. Keep also in mind that it took him over 1,000 pages to achieve this, where his setting was mainly limited to one castle, and it was at the cost of his sanity, and that he died before even getting to finish it. No, I foresee most fantasy writers, especially amateurs, going the route of relying on common knowledge of popular fantasy setting like LoTR or now George RR Martin's, and then applying their unresearched nuances. In that case, those settings would be less distinct than two poorly researched detective novels, because at least in those cases, I have tangible context.
It can but for every fantasy story you give me that fits this bill, I'll give you ten that follow the basic "defeat the dark lord" trope. Also, I'd really like to see a list of more than thirty fantasy novels where the main goal is not about a war, defeating a bad guy, or some other such quest.
Why should fantasy be any different from other genres? In the days when Westerns were all the rage there were many "me too" publications both amateur and professional. When Terry Pratchett first came along there were many stories and books that followed along in the same vein. Some will always try to do more with the genre than others. Perhaps you are trying to prod and coerce folk into moving the genre on, however most genres have their limitations. While there were some notable Western novels (it seems as if some steam punk gives a nod to these), there were/are limits to what can be written in that genre and still have it remaining credibly of that ilk. Perhaps fantasy by its nature should be limitless, but do readers of that genre want to be "exploring issues"? Or do they want a world that is in many ways simpler? There is also the matter of giving people what they want. What comes out of the Mills and Boon sausage machine may not be to everybody's taste (especially mine), but there is no denying that they make some people very happy.
That's exactly what I'm saying, and we can use this line of reason to explain Ed's observation. I want to make it clear that there are absolutely very distinct and heavy fantasies out there and many other genres have a multitude of bland settings/stories, but ED made an observation that quite a number of people do make, so I'm trying to offer theories explaining it.
Perhaps, but I wonder if dealing with those elements behind an elaborate fantastical curtain is just a way of desensitizing ourselves to the real human costs of those elements. Does the fact that the individual responsible for the enslavement and misery of millions is a mythical beast, part mule, part man and part evil spirit, make his atrocities easier to cope with than if he were simply the CEO of a corporation? Does the fact that his victims are mouse-like creatures on the planet Gorkon likewise make their suffering more emotionally manageable than if they were, say, residents of Riverdale, New York? And does all that render their struggles and their problems as somehow irrelevant to our lives? If so, the implication would seem to be that something that I might have to be concerned about in the grand scheme of things is really something I don't have to be concerned about. That's the aspect of escapism that concerns me. When I read the ideas that people have for stories in the fantasy realm that are posted here, they always seem to be about the witch, evil lord, etc. and the poor sod who gets tormented by same. I don't ever see the "range of thematic elements" to which @Steerpike refers. Granted, these are not published works, only ideas for stories that some aspiring writers hope to write. But to me, it suggests what the fans of this genre take away from it. I would also point out that the notion of "genre", in writing as in music, is simply a device invented by sellers for the ease of marketing to buyers.
I'm going to try the gormenghast novels when I get a chance, I keep hearing about them? I never read fantasy but the novels seem intriguing
@EdFromNY : Have you ever read any fantasy? As someone who does, I found your last post a bit odd. I don't know how far back I'd have to go to find the last one I read that had a "dark lord" of some kind, enslaving and bringing misery to millions, much less one who was some bizarre beast of the sort you describe. In fact, many of the fantasy novels I've read in recent years don't even have non-human characters in them. The idea that the whole thing is played out between some weird non-human chimeric overload and his non-human victims is so strange that I don't think a fantasy writer could even get away with something like that today unless he was writing a farce or satire. So I go back to my earlier comment, which is that you just aren't familiar with the genre. In fact, I now think you're even less familiar with it than I suspected before. There's nothing wrong with that, of course. As I said above, there's no reason any given person should have to like or read in any genre that they don't care for. But I'm not sure what is driving the desire to characterize a genre and readership that you are clearly unfamiliar with.
But the genre does extend well out into realms that have nothing to do with Tolkienesque or Potterific tropes and props. Mieville's The City and the City easily falls into the realm of fantasy and takes on the theme of cultural blindness, the things we learn to haze over and unsee though they are right in front of us. This work attacks the idea of escapism head-on and indicts the reader as living in a constant escapism of which he or she is unaware because of functioning within the paradigm itself.
@Steerpike - the OP focused on the posts on this site regarding fantasy. And the story ideas I've seen posted here or that I've reviewed privately when asked have reflected "otherworldly" beings as either protagonists or antagonists, and sometimes both. And while my example was clearly an exaggeration, I stand by my contention that by presenting these conflicts as, in some way, "otherworldly", there is a distance placed between the true nature of the conflict and the reader (and perhaps the writer as well). You are correct when you suggest that I have not read widely in the genre, because my interests and tastes lie elsewhere. But I find Tolkien boring and his stories not at all compelling, and I am frankly baffled by the number of intelligent people who regard his work so highly. And I suspect that many of today's young aspiring writers have been at least as influenced by the films as they have by the writing, but that is suspicion, only. Other works I've read that I would consider fantasy include The Little Prince, which I found touching, and Terrible Angel: A Novel of Michael Collins in New York City, which was an interesting speculation. @Wreybies - the Mieville work sounds interesting and I will check it out when time allows.
