I agree. My favorite author sometimes gets alittle heavy in describing something, so I skim ahead, to see if the description really matters. Most of the time it doesn't. There does seem to be alot of Fantasy writers. Probably because of Harry, Narnia, Twilight, some Goosebumps draw the younger crowd in, and for some reason it inspires them to write also. I have read and watched dramas, and have never been inspired to write one. I have read Westerns and never been inspired. The same for the other genres. Something about Fantasy inspires people to want to create their own stories. But, When I went to the book store, Fantasy is a small section(one side of one aisle.). My work tends to be anti-epic. Fantasy genre has enough people conquering the world, or saving the world. How about all the great stories that the planet doesn't hang in the balance, depending on some overburdened underdog doing everything just right. Fantasy is only limited by your imagination, but I think to many shoot straight for the epic earth shattering tale.
I am taking a speech course in college right now and I had to give an informative speech about something so I decided to do it on how to write novels since I know more than the average person who has never attempted to do so. My teacher is absolutely not an English major and I mentioned that descriptions should be kept short and the whole five sentences thing where people lose interest by that time. My teacher argued with me afterwards, saying that writing is supposed to be about vivid descriptions and I told him,"No, that's more of a poetry thing and descriptions are less vivid the more and more you say because people tune you out." But he still marked me down because he felt that I gave false information to the class. It was annoying. Anyway, back on topic . . . . It might just be your area (or maybe mine) because there's so many fantasy novels in my bookstore. There's a section for them in the children's section (the Harry Potter books can be found there) and also four whole shelves (back and front) that make up the sci-fi/fantasy section of the adult part of the store. I get overwhelmed looking at that section and don't know who most of the authors are.
Yeah, there's a lot of fantasy writers on here. I've noticed it. Fantasy just seems to be a popular genre. Personally, I'm not that enthusiastic towards fantasy. I've read some, but not a lot, and enjoyed them though. And I've only really written one or two fantasy stories but that's because I had to. Although I was pretty pleased with one of them so I may turn it into a young people's novel.
i think it's the result of there being so many young members and youngsters generally being more hooked on fantasy than any other genre...
I noticed this myself. When I was in Middle School, I used to be incredibly interested in fantasy. That interest declined, and now I find myself a partisan of any book that seems interesting enough to read. In terms of writing, I prefer a modern context with a strong physiological or philosophical focus.
I'm wondering if it's maybe more to do with they type of people that write fantasy being more inclined to join forums on the internet than people who prefer other genres?
There is a particular type of fantasy that is popular at the moment which leaves me cold, although when I was a child I enjoyed some fantasy novels. I know the Narnia stories are set in an imaginary place, but they were much more down-to-earth than most of the fantasy stories around at the moment. I mean, the four children came from a perfectly normal and recognisable world--middle-class England--and the food etc was things like hot buttered toast and Turkish delight even when beavers or witches were offering it. In so much fantasy writing nowadays it seems like the writer thinks everything must be invented. There aren't enough 'human' moments, like ordinary arguments between the characters, to identify with, and it is often much too lacking in humour and pace, so it bores me to tears. I can't stand the long descriptions of improbable weapons and lists of silly names, either. I'm not saying all fantasy is like this, but a lot of it is.
^^ Good points. What put me off many fantasy books is the sheer pretentiousness and overload of 'weird names'. I like strange, but there needs to be something I can relate to. I'm not sure if they would be called fantasy these days, but my favourites are 'Alice in Wonderland', 'Through the Looking-Glass' and an excellent book called 'Amy's Eyes'. In all of them there's a mix of real and fantasy, and that's what makes them so good imo.
Yes. There are places where romance/erotica writers congregate, sci-fi, bizarro, etc. In general, internet forums and workshops are heavily genre or commercial fiction based. There are places like zoetrope's online workshop and forums that are more 'literary,' but honestly it's mostly just wannabe's and the reviews are terrible. In college creative writing classes, 'literary' dominates, though of people writing more genre/commercial stuff, it's still fantasy that's more popular.
wow. I didn't know that. I don't think there are many serious forums in my own language (correct me anyone if I'm wrong) and certainly no one with as many frequent visitors as this. In the one I have seen people seem to post very occasionally, like once a week... plus there were too many besserwissers on there.
I don't mean to say that realistic stories didn't exist before the 1700's. However, it wasn't until the 1700's or 1800's that writers (like Emile Zola, Fyodor Dostoyevski, Guy de Maupassant, and so on) started to make a point about writing realistically, to the exclusion of fantastic and epic tales. Before that, both types of tales were accepted by the intellectual elite. If we go even further back, to ancient Greek, Egypt and Mesopotamia, fantastic tales of gods and heroes seem to have been the normal state.
Which is weird for me because I didn't start liking fantasy until I was 20 years old. Before then, I only read realistic fiction and now I am sick of it.
I have a problem with the general term "fantasy". Its too all-encompassing for one. I don't think any other genre immediately brings a certain image to the mind like fantasy does. I feel like anytime I tell people I'm writing a fantasy story, I can almost see these words running through their mind: Kiddy goblins, dwarves, elves dragons, princess kingdoms magic. The story I'm writing right now started off with magic and the occasional monsters, but I decided to drop all of it. It still has all fictional lands, knights, kingdoms, empires; but no magic. Is that still fantasy? Fantasy is the one genre to me that needs to be split up. It simply covers to many different types of writing styles, plots, and backgrounds. So if anyone actually tries something different with their fantasy writing, no one will notice; the fact that its on the fantasy bookshelf at the store will make any potential reader feel like they have the whole story figured out already. I'm thinking about just calling my writing medieval-fiction. Acceptable classification?
^ Medieval fiction seems to fit better from what you said I would usually term Fantasy as dealing with some sort of magic. Uhm... I'm a weird sort of person because I read a lot of different stuff, like lots of Classics and Shakespeare- but I also quite like Sci-Fi although I'm very picky about what I read from there. I don't really tend to read much Fantasy, though it's not intentional, the story I'm planning now I suppose is Fantasy- though I'd hope it's not typical... there are certainly no elves or dwarves in it. It's very much an Eastern Fantasy, I haven't really seen any of those about so far, maybe I'm not looking in the right places...