How did you get into fantasy?

[Digital_Fey]

What is it about this genre that interests and excites you? Why are you writing fantasy, instead of any other genre? Whether it started with hearing Grimm's fairytales as a kid or picking up that battered copy of LotR in highschool, I'm sure we all have some stories to share about how we became addicted to tales of strange and fantastic things

 

[The Realm Wanderer]

I don't really have a long explanation for it, though if I wanted, I'm sure I could write one. Honestly I just can't see me writing anything else. Fantasy is the only genre that interests me in writing. It is the genre that is only as small as your own imagination. Literally anything is possible in fantasy, so how could someone not love it so? Creating the detailed worlds, complex characters and innovative magic systems is just amazing

 

[Ophiucha]

I like to have a blank slate. I want to explore odd concepts, often moral or political, and nowhere but a fantasy setting - or else a distant sci-fi one - would give me that freedom. I couldn't write about a communist nation on modern Earth without addressing Stalin and the like. Fantasy gives me the freedom to create a history where anything is possible, anything could be or have been. Also, dragons.

 

[Kelise]

I've kinda always been into Fantasy... but my friend suggested Jennifer Fallon's books (Australian author, so I doubt she's known elsewhere hehe) and from then on it's been more of a serious obsession.

I really want to write fantasy, but my books always turn to be more sci fi. More sky pirates, people with chips in their wrists controlled by Governments, and people who can regenerate (but it sounds too Doctor Whoish at the moment.) (And I love DW, I just need to make it more MINE before I can claim it as my own. Eugh. Being inspired doesn't always work...)

 

[Sigillimus]

I think some of the first fantasy books that got me interested in the fantasy genre itself was the Lost Years of Merlin books by T.A. Barron. I read the entire series sometime around seventh or eighth grade. It's an amazing series of books that I think everyone should have the chance to read sometime in their lifetime.

Along with Barron's books, what got me started with fantasy—and, subsequently, science-fiction—was the idea that I could create literally anything that I wanted as long as I had the imagination to think it. That with my mind I could forge an endless universe of different cultures, people, cities and landscapes, and with those things I could create an infinite amount of outcomes and possibilities.

 

[Fnord]

I don't think there was a key moment in my life that "flipped a switch", so to speak. I was generally an unhappy and socially awkward child and I really enjoyed stories about history, so the mixture of escapism and history I'm sure definitely played a part. When I read the Hobbit I was definitely hooked--I had the illustrated children's book version (which had stills from the cartoon movie, if I remember correctly).

 

[Sparkie]

Playing JRPG's did it for me. Epic stories (even if they weren't all that good), Cool characters, imaginative settings and creatures, and the idea that anything was possible.

 

[OrionDarkwood]

The first book I ever read (well read too me it was one of those old listen to the cassette and flip the page) was The Hobbit, first movie I ever saw in a theater was Star Wars - A New Hope. Then a heavy journey into the bowels of El Diablo (aka D&D) help turned me to the fantasy side LOL

 

[Lepton]

It started a long time ago. You know that stage in life where you're just figuring out what you really like in reading material? Well I went through this for a long time, switching between history, mystery, and so on. My grandmother sent me a wonderful series, The Last Herold Mage, which is fantasy, and I was in love with it. Ever since, that is what I've been reading, writing, and overall, what I've been interested in.

I enjoy it because of how magical it is. I enjoy being able to expand my mind, to create creatures that would never be accepted in a book that is aimed towards what real life is about. I feel like I can use just about anything when writing fantasy.

 

[cliche]

What got me hooked onto the whole fantasy genre was a film called dragonheart. My love of dark fantasy is thanks to my dad who let me watch the evil dead two film when I was around seven years old (which may not be that young for some people).
The earliest fantasy book that I read and loved was a book called something like animorphs (which is more sci-fi than anything else).

 

[karriezai]

When I was in elementary school, I would read anything and everything. But in the fifth or sixth grade, my dad checked out one of Piers Anthony's Xanth books from the library (Demons Don't Dream), and after reading that fantasy became my mainstay. I started by reading everything in the Xanth series up til that point, and I branched out from there.

These days I read fantasy, YA fantasy and post-apocalyptic books, and a hint of sci fi, but that's mainly it.

 

[Jabrosky]

Fantasy is the only genre that allows me to write about sexy African warrior chicks fighting dinosaurs. Also, worldbuilding is fun.

 

[alexthedecay]

Harry Potter. That series is why I started writing in the first place, and virtually all of my first stories were based around the same premise of a child discovering they're apart of a fantastical world unknown to normal people. As the user above me said, the worldbuilding aspect is the biggest draw, for me.

 

[Ketsuki]

I've always loved mythology, legends and magic. Perhaps the genre just appeals to my inner child.

I can recall when I was very young reading a book about a golden gryphon and being enthralled by the illustrations. That point probably marked my life-long love for mythical creatures and left me craving more. I drew a lot and had a very vivid imagination so I would create things from what I was thinking about and what inspired me. I went through a phase of reading everything and trying to find something that grabbed my attention the way those stories had. I finally discovered that fantasy was where I wanted to be when I devoured Terry Brooke's Landover series during my teens and I haven't looked back since.

 

[fleamailman]

("...ah no, I didn't get into fantasy, fantasy got into me..." replied the goblin)

 

[Graham Irwin]

How did I get into fantasy?

A horrible childhood!

 

[zizban]

My father gave me a copy of C.S. Lewis' A Horse And His Boy when I was 13 and off I went.

 

[Reaver]

It all started in the 80's...

For me, my love of fantasy writing and fantasy in general began in the summer of 1983...the summer before I started the 7th grade. A friend of mine had the D&D Boxed Set (1st Revision, published in 1977). After the very first game, I was hooked. I started reading all the fantasy books I could get my hands on. Especially anything with D&D anywhere on the cover. And let us not forget that 1983 was the year that the Dungeon and Dragons cartoon first aired on TV. Well, that pushed me right over the proverbial cliff. I started writing fantasy not long after that.

 

[myrddin173]

It was multiple steps for me. When I was around seven-ish my mom and I were in some department store walking through the book section and a book caught my eye, it was the Hobbit. Then some time within the next year or so I checked out a book from the library called The Grey King by Susan Cooper, I loved it even though it was the fourth in its series (One that I still enjoy re-reading; except for the end of the last one...). Last was in fourth grade, my uncle returned to my mother her copy of the Sword of Shannara that he had kept while we lived in Florida. I read it and I was hooked, well maybe I was hooked by the sequel.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Super Mario and Zelda videogames where my first real contact with Fantasy worlds full of castles, princesses and monsters throwing fireballs =)