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The Scope of Epic Fantasy

Aurora

Sage
Hello. *waves*

So yeah, I wrote this book during Camp NaNoWriMo that was supposed to have been a standalone story. Then I started editing, adding more and more scenes, refining things and I realized the story has serious potential to write another 2 books. More? I don't know but at least two more. There are a lot of questions left unanswered that would be fun to put in other stories.

Anyway, I've always read epic fantasy with a long list of characters and endless adventures. I can get behind the endless adventures but my list of characters is small. I'm sure that I could think of something but I prefer my casts smaller. I haven't seen this too much in epic fantasy (more so on the romantic side of things). Anyway, what do you guys think? Would it be fine to run with a small cast? I'm not targeting all epic fantasy readers, just a refined audience/section of those who like love stories infused. Just curious what others here think.

As a final thought, a fellow author who writes epic fantasy mentioned that it's the theme of the story that needs to be epic, not so much else. The theme must carry across a span of books, so there must be one burning question requiring an answer. Human questions, morals, that sort of thing.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
Do what's right for your story. Don't worry about what box you want to put it in, because like a lot of products, the box gets tossed out once we get a glimpse of what's inside, and it's to your liking.

I mean are you going to add a bunch of extraneous characters to fill out some sort of perceived quota? To me, that would be counter productive. It just adds fat to the story.

Write your story and let the editor/publisher figure out what box to put it in in order for it to sell.
 
A blogger weighs in on this topic at What Makes ?Epic Fantasy? Epic? | Fantasy-Faction, and I very much agree.

The last paragraph on that post sums it up:

Ultimately, when we try to settle the question of what counts as epic fantasy, we shouldn’t ask how long the book is, or whether or not it describes heroes joined in massive battles, but rather, in the spirit of the epic tradition, how significant is the change it marks on its world? How big is the scope of its conflict, and how significant the power of its eventual resolution?
 

Aurora

Sage
A blogger weighs in on this topic at What Makes ?Epic Fantasy? Epic? | Fantasy-Faction, and I very much agree.

The last paragraph on that post sums it up:

Ultimately, when we try to settle the question of what counts as epic fantasy, we shouldn’t ask how long the book is, or whether or not it describes heroes joined in massive battles, but rather, in the spirit of the epic tradition, how significant is the change it marks on its world? How big is the scope of its conflict, and how significant the power of its eventual resolution?

This is perfect! Thank you so much!

Yes, the conflict in this story is huge. Government take over is the world's biggest problem. So you've given me lots to consider. Sweet.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
A blogger weighs in on this topic at What Makes ?Epic Fantasy? Epic? | Fantasy-Faction, and I very much agree.

The last paragraph on that post sums it up:

Ultimately, when we try to settle the question of what counts as epic fantasy, we shouldn’t ask how long the book is, or whether or not it describes heroes joined in massive battles, but rather, in the spirit of the epic tradition, how significant is the change it marks on its world? How big is the scope of its conflict, and how significant the power of its eventual resolution?

Wow. Surprisingly good article. Completely agree.
 

Butterfly

Auror
I like the Fantasy Faction site, but I can't read the articles for long. It's the white on black - burns into my retina, then leaves me seeing luminescent stripes over everything until my eyeballs recover.
 

Aurora

Sage
That article was very helpful. I also read the Sword and Sorcery one he links. After reading both, I've realized the error in my ways. This series is sword and sorcery type. It's not large in size although the theme/story can go on for several books but I don't believe it's entirely epic.

I will be doing more research on this subject.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I like the Fantasy Faction site, but I can't read the articles for long. It's the white on black - burns into my retina, then leaves me seeing luminescent stripes over everything until my eyeballs recover.

If you have Firefox, you can change colors from Preferences. Change the fonts and colors websites use | Firefox Help

For Chrome, you'll have to get an extension like Stylebot. Look in the Chrome Store.

I'm sure Safari has something similar.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
That article was very helpful. I also read the Sword and Sorcery one he links. After reading both, I've realized the error in my ways. This series is sword and sorcery type. It's not large in size although the theme/story can go on for several books but I don't believe it's entirely epic.

I will be doing more research on this subject.

The term "Sword and Sorcery" isn't used much these days except to refer to classic books like the Conan stories. And it has certain connotations that aren't entirely positive so it's not a good marketing term. You could probably use "high fantasy" if your story is set in an imaginary world or "heroic fantasy" if you have a main hero character.
 

Aurora

Sage
The term "Sword and Sorcery" isn't used much these days except to refer to classic books like the Conan stories. And it has certain connotations that aren't entirely positive so it's not a good marketing term. You could probably use "high fantasy" if your story is set in an imaginary world or "heroic fantasy" if you have a main hero character.
Well, there is an Amazon category in fantasy called Sword and Sorcery, so it is a marketing tool. My work is very similar to the books in that category so that's the one I go for. High fantasy and heroic fantasy are keywords helping the book be found by those terms but as for marketing, certainly Sword and Sorcery is the way to go.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
just one of the reasons fantasy writers have been complaining about Amazon's fantasy categories for a long time. They're a mess.
 

Aurora

Sage
I do agree Amazon's categories are a disaster but if the same types of books are that category then that's where wisdom dictates it should go. :)
 
I've always thought of sword and sorcery fantasy as having a pulp feel. It can be a fun ride, if you like that sort of thing. I read a lot of S&S in my younger days. I might still go for some of it these days, if I had time to read it and everything else I want to read now.

When I went through the 25 questions in that sword and sorcery article, I answered 8 of them "yes" for my WIP, so it definitely contains elements of the subgenre. But it's not S&S. Some of those questions could apply to other subgenres of fantasy (such as "Is there magic in the setting?").

One of the questions in the article was whether the fate of the world was at stake. That theme wasn't all that common in the S&S I read in my youth. In many (all?) Conan stories, the fate of the world is hardly at stake. That's more an aspect of epic fantasy to me. And, yes, epic fantasy can be done just as badly as the worst sword and sorcery.

Works in any subgenre can be done poorly, or executed with polish. I think S&S might have a bad reputation with some readers, because there was a time when a number of writers were turning out S&S stories like factory workers, to feed a certain public hunger for S&S back then. So it fell out of fashion, because the quality diminished in favor of quantity.

Is the subgenre still out of fashion? Maybe not. If you look on Amazon, you'll see that A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1 of A Game of Thrones, is categorized as Sword and Sorcery. As I type this, it's number 4 on the Sword and Sorcery Books list. It's also number 3 on the list for Epic Fantasy eBooks. So there's definitely perceived overlap between some subgenres. Whether the categorization can be said to be correct or not, being categorized on Amazon as sword and sorcery has not hurt the Game of Thrones series.
 
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