Why do you write fantasy?

[FatCat]

As the thread title suggests, this is a discussion on the legitimacy of the fantasy genre. Why are you attracted to it? Why is it that this genre moves you into reading/writing it?

For me, fantasy is an outlet that allows free thinking to be displayed in a centralized idea, like most genre-fiction. Though there are tropes to that are established and must be dealt with, the term fantasy still applies. The idea that you can create an entire world that resembles our own compels me to love the genre. You have 'beef' with capitilism? Write a story against the value that mages rule, want to say that one life can change the direction of an entire species? High fantasy, here we go. How about a world that envelops you in it's display of power and incompetence, grimdark is there to hear your voice.

So, as a general philosophy, what is it about fantasy that ignites your desire to write, and why?

 

[CupofJoe]

I write [or at least try to write] fantasy to let my mind wander and wonder "what if..." and "how come...".
I don't think that I write big ideas... most of my stories start with a line or two of dialogue or an image I can't shake and then I see the story develop. I want to know what happens next...
My problem is that too often I get bogged down in world building because I let my mind off its leash and can't get it to heel.
Personally I think we worry far too much about tropes. Tell a good tale and no one will care that its really just "Medea with dragons" or "David Copperfield in space"...

 

[FatCat]

How do you counter-act this worry of of tropes? Especially in genre-fiction, which historically relies on established notions to set a world?

 

[CupofJoe]

I don't worry about using tropes. I try to make them irrelevant to my creative process.
If my story needs X then I'll add X. Just about anything you can think of or have seen/read can be [and probably has been] described as a trope, or an anti-trope or an inverted trope or a reversed trope...
Uniqueness of itself is not a virtue.
Currently I'm trying a noire-ish who/what-did-it story set in an alt-history earth where WW2 has boiled down to a stand still and all sides are getting desperate for a vengeance/Victory weapon and reaching a little too far in to the occult... As my MC I have a beautiful femme fatal in a world of hard-boiled men... trope, trope, trope and more trope.
But I think I can write that story.

 

[Aidan of the tavern]

I'm drawn to fantasy because its exotic, mysterious enthralling and magical, and yet at the heart there is often a strong element of humanity amid all this, which is not only identifiable and relatable, but serves as an anchor for the reader in this unfamiliar world.

 

[TheokinsJ]

I suppose the answer lies with excitement, with adventure and with a journey- I saw the first Lord of the Rings movie when I was nine years old, and I fell in love with fantasy there and then. I read the books- I read the Hobbit (My favourite book of all time), and then I read Narnia, then moved to David Eddings and cycled through as much fantasy as I could sink my teeth into.
I would say, however, that my travels have also inspired me to write fantasy. I'm from Western Australia- you won't find any snowy mountains or castles or ancient ruins here, but when I visited Europe and saw snow, saw Roman ruins and visited castles, I thought that those things were so cool- they were like out of a movie, you really felt like you were in another time, another world- and so that's how my writing began, creating other worlds, drawing maps of my fantasy continents and writing stories about the characters who lived on them- worlds with mountains, ruins, goblins and all that cliché fantasy stuff. I suppose that's what influenced me to write, but why do I write Fantasy now? It's art, a source of self-expression, of creation, and it's an escape, it takes you into an alternate world- a world that I myself can create from scratch, into a living, breathing universe.

 

[CupofJoe]

TheokinsJ - The grass is always greener.
So much of what I want to read in fantasy is the worlds I've not seen or lived with. I love stories set on the great plains of America and Africa or the savannah and deserts of Asian and Australia...
Lands where the passing of time itself seems to be irrelevant and humans are only bit players in the great games of the gods.

 

[KC Trae Becker]

My favorite thing about fantasy is that it allows a writer to demonstrate ideas and possibilities are difficult to explain otherwise. It's like a giant thought experiment fleshed out and alive.

There's no limit to the creativity - as long as others can understand it, and if you want to publish to a wide audience, as long as people can relate to it.

 

[fantastic]

Because I found new Worlds. And I want to learn what happens in them. I want to feel the freedom and experience these Worlds. And I want to share it with others. And let them enter these Worlds.

 

[Mythopoet]

As Anne Shirley would say, "There's so much more scope for the imagination."

 

[Gurkhal]

Because fantasy allows me to write in historical settings without getting bogged down in detailes which will because boofs to harass me unto death if I made a mistake in regards to what the footwear in 12th century Wales was called.

 

[Jabrosky]

Because fantasy allows me to write in historical settings without getting bogged down in detailes which will because boofs to harass me unto death if I made a mistake in regards to what the footwear in 12th century Wales was called.

I feel the same. Fantasy allows more creative license than strictly historical fiction. Nonetheless, if your setting has enough similarities to a real-world one, might you pass the point where any divergences from reality start looking like outright inaccuracies rather than creative liberties?

That said, while I often like to work with settings with historical inspirations, it's not necessarily hard for me to make up my own cultures if I feel like it. If anything, that can be even more liberating since you have less obligation to mirror a real-world setting in almost every way.

 

[Chessie]

I'm drawn to fantasy because its exotic, mysterious enthralling and magical, and yet at the heart there is often a strong element of humanity amid all this, which is not only identifiable and relatable, but serves as an anchor for the reader in this unfamiliar world.

Yes. Absolutely this for me, too. Another thing I'd like to add in is because I'm a nerd. That's probably the main answer.

But seriously, fantasy is awesome because you can write about anything and, if executed properly, make it believable. I do love a good mystery, but even that has more limits than fantasy. We get to write about dragons, faeries, magic, etc and there's people out there who love that stuff.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

My attraction to fantasy has little to do with escapism or freedom from realism. I write everything from genre standard high/low fantasy, sword & sorcery, urban fantasy, supernatural thrillers, and everything in between, and around.

My attraction to fantasy comes down to the myriad of possibilities for "What if?" questions. The "what ifs" to the fantasy writer are endless & boundless. That captures my imagination and drives me to write.

 

[Ryan_Crown]

For me, the thrill of fantasy (both as a reader and a writer) is all about having experiences that you could never actually have in the real world. No one in the real world is ever going to get to slay a dragon, or fly on a flying carpet, or do battle with a wicked witch. But within the realm of fantasy, whatever the imagination can create, the reader can experience.

The books that most stick with me from earliest childhood (that I still love even today) are Alice in Wonderland and the Oz series (I have to mention the series, and not just The Wizard of Oz, because I read all 14 books as a kid, and there's so much more to that world than what is in the first book -- which is why it's a shame so many people only seem to know that first book). The magic of those stories, and the amazing adventures those characters had, completely captured my imagination as a kid, and directly led into reading Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit and so many other great fantasy stories.

I believe that fantasy (and scifi) has a power to take us out of our daily lives and into other amazing worlds in a way that most other genres can't quite duplicate (but maybe that's just me). That's what I love most about it. And if I as a writer can create a world anywhere close to those worlds that I fell in love with as a child, and bring that sense of wonder, that sense of "wow, wouldn't it be cool to live in that world, to have adventures like those characters!" to other readers, that would be an incredible accomplishment. And that's why I write fantasy.

 

[thedarknessrising]

Fantasy has always been a crutch for me. I have mild depression, and the real world is very unsatisfying to me. In the real world, I am pretty much a nobody. But in fantasy, such as my writing, the books I read, and Dungeons and Dragons, I become someone else entirely. I become someone important. A Hero. I use fantasy as an escape. Always have. Always will.

 

[Feo Takahari]

To some degree, I see stories as propositions: if a person like this encountered a situation like this, how would they handle it? What would they do or fail to do? I use fantasy to create more unusual situations and explore how people might respond to things that would never realistically happen to them. Alternately, fantasy can simplify variables (this situation in real life involves economic and social issues, but I only want to discuss the social ones) or dull the edge of painful topics (I don't want to write about rape, so I'll write about forcible surgical modification and discuss the psychological effects of loss of bodily integrity.)

 

[Julian S Bartz]

I recall very early in our relationship my wife asking me this question. She is a huge classic literature buff. She said, you only read a few classics and very few modern books, but you read Sooooo much fantasy. Why?

I answered, Anything set in the real world, without anything out of the ordinary, reminds me of real life. I can live and breathe real life. I cant live and breathe dragons.

I think that sums it up for me.

 

[Guy]

I don't know why I love the things I love. I just do. No matter what kind of story I'm writing, it's almost impossible for me to keep a sword or magic from somehow finding its way in there.

 

[Incanus]

I ask myself this question from time to time. It's a difficult question. I've enjoyed reading peoples responses--I think I'm a mash-up of about half of everything I've seen in this thread. Fantasy concepts and imagery just fire my imagination in a way that nothing else does. Why? Not sure, but it does.

I have determined why I prefer it to Sci-Fi, however (I love Sci-Fi, but just can't write it). The way I see it, Sci-Fi has an 'expiration date'. As time goes on sci-fi looks increasingly silly--remember 50-60 years ago when all the aliens came from Mars or Venus? Most fantasy, by contrast, is timeless (or should be).