What is it with new writers and fantasy?

Discussion in 'Fantasy' started by EdFromNY, Jun 25, 2013.

  1. Hwaigon

    Hwaigon Senior Member

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    May very well be, my knowledge ends here. Sadly, I can not boast of reading his personal letters.

    True, also in preceeding points, and I have to admit I never skip because I deem it a downright blasphemy to the book. In this I may differ from a general readership.

    Yes, I am myself surprised I enjoy the book given all the hype.

    Good point.
     
  2. Hwaigon

    Hwaigon Senior Member

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    Probably the most probable evolution of themes/psyche/experiences. So, it's one of those answers that are not
    one-way-cut and unequivocal at all. It would be worth some probing, to be sure.
     
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  3. Kater

    Kater Member

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    For me, fantasy was the highest form of escapism from a boring young life. I can actually remember reading my first fantasy book and going "Oh, wow! This is an option!" I quickly started writing my own terrible fantasy stories that have luckily been deleted from this earth. I think also, young people can have much wilder imaginations, and fantasy is the only place where certain imaginings can be plausible. "Fantasy" may just spring up in stories where a young or new writer isn't consciously working on the story; whatever happens just happens because you're caught up in the excitement of writing and you don't bother to make sure the story makes sense. At least that was the case of me and my friends in primary school.
     
  4. Teladan

    Teladan Contributor Contributor

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    I write primarily fantasy, however I've only ever read Tolkien as most fantasy doesn't interest me. My work doesn't have magic systems, alien races or anything like that. I simply use fantasy as a vehicle to give a sense of a 'heightened' reality. The days of yore, of valour long-forgotten and the mysteries of things arcane, etc. Fantasy does have a perception problem and it's this that often turns me away from the genre in times of reflection. My work may not even be called fantasy by purists. I suppose I take more from ancient tragedies than I do from stories of ghouls and goblins. Whilst I've no issue with it, I myself would never write about fantastical creatures or spells. I think a lot of writers, especially if you go to places like Reddit's World Building section, spend too much time on creating magic systems and the intricacies of their worlds than focusing on a good human story.
     
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2017
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  5. Kerbouchard

    Kerbouchard Member

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    I couldn't agree more. How many ways can you write about dragons or wizards that hasn't been done already? I'm glad to hear there are still writers who adhere to focusing on a solid human story versus shallow shock and awe.
     
  6. ShaunGreen

    ShaunGreen New Member

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    Surely the target group may also dictate the amount of fantasy elements in the plot? I have only written down stories I made up for the kids to try and get them to sleep, but they all contain wizards, dragons, a swamp monster... or something mystical. It catches the imagination of the target audience. I would suggest different readers prefer different genres, which is why they exist?
     
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  7. Safety Turtle

    Safety Turtle Senior Member

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    I don't really think you can accurately judge what people do or do not spend a lot of time on by reading on reddit.

    And far from all fantasy contains "dragons and wizards" but that doesn't mean that worldbuilding isn't an important part.
     
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  8. Oopstrap

    Oopstrap New Member

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    The search for an escape from daily life. Complete creativity. The world is constantly telling people what to do and how to do it and when to do it. There is a lot to be said for the pressure that creates. It's also mind-numbing. The daily life of a person who is considered successful is.. well, boring. work, school, sleep, eat...
    I write a fantasy world because I am fascinated by it. The possibilities are endless and anything that I can think of can happen. However, I also find that reading science fiction and mysteries and such are boring. The ending is easily guessed and the ride along the way is mundane and resembles too much of a normal society and life. Very few books offer the kind of experience I want. Why would I write something that I think is boring? If I think that then the reader definitely will.
    The goal with my books is to create something for me. I know how selfish that sounds but these books are a sum of what I have learned about life. They represent the core of my beliefs and most of what interests me. For me, my writing is primarily an escape and something interesting for me, myself and I. If I can publish that and make an impact on society then, woo!
     
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  9. Safety Turtle

    Safety Turtle Senior Member

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    The good thing about fantasy is also that you avoid the nitpicky history nerds (like myself) complaining about every little historical thing you got wrong...well, at least until the day your fantasy series gets made into a movie or TV series and another type of nitpicky nerds will come along and complain how "it's totally not like the book at all!"
     
  10. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    This exercise in literary snobbishness is still going?

    Fantasy, as is true of any genre, can be done as casually, carelessly, or carefully and profoundly as any other genre of literature. The great early works of human literature are fantasies.
     
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  11. TheRealStegblob

    TheRealStegblob Kill All Mages Contributor

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    From my understanding, this is accurate. He didn't mean for LotR to be a metaphor for either World War or the industrial revolution (he says as much right in a foreword to Fellowship of the Ring) but he accepted how people took things like the One Ring being a metaphor for a nuclear weapon or how Mordor represented some kind of bad vision of industrial revolution.

    I think a far closer theory is that the One Ring is an alteration (even though Tolkien says he hated alteration and didn't use it often) for faith in Christ/eternal life through faith. One of the reasons everyone wants the Ring so much is because it (more or less) makes you live forever, but living forever on earth isn't something a religious-type wants: They want to die and ascend to heaven and party with Jesus forever. So seeking eternal life on earth is a bad thing that violates faith in God, hence why the Ring is such a bad and corrupting thing and why everyone who gets close to it is burned in some way (Gollum received greatly increased longevity from the ring, but at the cost of his humanity and his sanity, leading one to ask what the point of having eternal life from the Ring is if it turns you into a broken creature like Gollum). That's the theory I subscribe to, at least.
     
  12. animagus_kitty

    animagus_kitty Senior Member

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    Speaking as a nitpicky nerd, this is EXACTLY why I'm writing my novel, whose concept would be similar in either setting, in thousands-of-years-from-now space rather than in WWII Germany.
    I like to think that my background as a nitpicky nerd will help me create a non-awful backstory for my universe. :-D
     
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  13. O.M. Hillside

    O.M. Hillside Senior Member

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    I don't know, but it's not my thing, personally. I write to make sense of reality not to escape from it.
     
  14. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    That’s exactly what the best SciFi/Fantasy does ;)
     
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  15. O.M. Hillside

    O.M. Hillside Senior Member

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    Yeah, after I posted that it occurred to me that that was probably the case. I guess what I was thinking, and this really applies to all genres anyway, is that some writing really is just for the purpose of fantasizing and not necessarily about truth or telling a good story or any of that. So yeah, I take some of that statement back.
     
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  16. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I think you've hit on something here. Many people on this forum seem to spend ages 'worldbuilding' but can't seem to get very far beyond that. They seem upset by this, and often start threads in this vein. Possibly what they're doing is fantasizing their setting, but not moving to creating a story about it.

    It would be like writing about ice fishing in real life, and imagining reams of stuff about finding a perfect kind of ice, the different kinds of devices you can use to cut holes in the ice, the kind of shanty you can build, what you pack for your lunch, the different kinds of fish you can catch, etc. That's all fascinating information for a person who loves ice fishing, but it is not a story.

    Whatever sort of setting you enjoy, you do have to make a story out of it. A story with strong—as in memorable, not invincible—characters, a problem that must be addressed, high stakes, plausible opposition, and an ultimate goal.

    A 'fantasy' setting is only that. A setting. A fantasy writer needs more, just like a spy novelist needs to create more than hundreds of high tech gadgets. At some point, your invention and imagination has to turn into a story. It doesn't matter if you're doing that in a fantasy setting or a real one.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
  17. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    I think there's a large distinction between writing in excessive detail about what you know (Hemingway) and writing out of your ass (Robert Jordan).

    @Simpson17866 People can say "the best fantasy" does X, Y, or Z, but certainly, the most popular fantasy focuses on escapism.
     
  18. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    I think you may have addressed a major reason I find Fantasy to be so dull.
    I had never considered it in quite such a way, but you put it so eloquently.
    Thank you for stating this observation. Though I rather enjoyed your
    equating it to the logistics of Ice Fishing as well.

    Makes sense to place more focus on the characters, over the extravagant landscapes
    the encounter (at least that is how I prefer to write my stories even if they are in the
    opposite direction as they are Sci-fi). :)
     
  19. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I like a lot of what you're saying here ...about the search for escape from daily life, etc. In fact, that's what lots of us like to read and write about. Escape, however, is not confined to the fantasy genre by any means. Escape is provided by any story that takes you away from your own life at the moment.

    A book isn't boring because it's not fantasy. A book can be boring because, as you say, it can be predictible. That's not a fault of any particular setting. That's the fault of writers who aren't using their imaginations as well as they might do.

    Imagination is more than just making up another world. Imagination is also about 'imagining' unusual people and/or circumstances in whatever setting you choose. If you don't challenge your characters enough, or surprise your readers with a new take on the situation in your story, you will probably turn out a 'boring' book. I have read fantasies that were eye-crossingly dull, because they WERE predictible—and often very derivative of other fantasy writers. (The Quest theme has been done to death, as has the Chosen One theme.)

    I have also read other kinds of books which I love, and were anything BUT predictible. In fact, the endings were a surprise, although they felt 'right' as well.

    Examples:

    Sweetland - Michael Crummey (Canadian literary fiction, set in recent Newfoundland)

    Non Stop - Brian Aldiss (Sci-fi)

    In The Garden of Iden - Kage Baker (fantasy)

    Voyageurs - Margaret Elphinstone (historical fiction)

    One of the highest forms of praise that I can give a book is if, halfway through, I can truthfully say, "I have absolutely no idea how this is going to turn out." That applies to many many different kinds of books.

    If you're talking certain kinds of genres, that's another thing. Mysteries must be solved, in a Mystery genre. The two main characters must 'get together' at the end of a Romance. And etc. I suppose knowing what the end will be ahead of time, doesn't appeal to every reader. These kinds of stories focus more on the 'how' rather than the 'what,' and it's the 'how' that their readers enjoy. How will the detective solve the mystery? How will the man and woman overcome their difficulties so they can be together? The ending is a given, and isn't the reason these stories appeal to their readers. They seek 'escape,' but also the comfort of knowing that everything will turn out 'all right' in the end.

    But ...it's a wide wide 'real' world out there, and many unpredictible stories are laid in it. Don't shut yourself off from writers who don't write fantasy. You'll be cheating yourself out of some memorable 'escapes.'
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
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  20. O.M. Hillside

    O.M. Hillside Senior Member

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    Well, I want to draw a line between wanting to "escape" and wanting to be "entertained". Because a story about office politics (Mad Men, for example) can be just as entertaining as a medieval fantasy like Game of Thrones. And someone can escape while watching Mad Men while someone else could just be entertained by the story and characters of Game of Thrones. It's not just the writing, the audience plays a role too.

    As for what goes into writing them, I don't think a writer should ever be primarily motivated by escapism. In both those examples, I think the goal is to find out a little bit about people and what's going in life through story-telling. Anything that does that well will be interesting.
     
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  21. Safety Turtle

    Safety Turtle Senior Member

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    Sadly yes, and as long as there are writers, it will continue on...it's impossible to get rid of I'm afraid.
     
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  22. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    So does the most popular of *any* genre ;) This is not unique to fantasy.
     
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  23. Privateer

    Privateer Senior Member

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    That's the entire point of literature for most people, isn't it? Whether it's fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction or whatever most people read to vicariously experience something that is not their own life.

    I, for one, do not want to read a work of fiction mired in the mundanity and tedium of familiar day-to-day reality, and I say that as somebody with a pretty exciting job.
     
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  24. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    That's not true at all.
     
  25. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    So name some popular works of particular genres that you don't consider to focus on escapism.

    Also, why do you treat the word as if it were something dirty and profane? After all, significant chunks of classics had escape and entertainment as their main draw.
     
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