Looking for a break from ever-crushing finals, I’ve decided to kick off this blog. My intended focus is cartoons, but I’d like to begin with something a little different; namely, I’m going to discuss a project I’ve been working on. For several weeks I’ve been writing a fantasy story on the side. And if you are anything like me then that last sentence should have made you feel queasy. Thank you for not immediately closing your browser window. However, if you’re not like me, then I’ll explain what’s so wrong about writing a fantasy story.
In short, fantasy stories are dumb, formulaic, repetitive, self-indulgent, and a cancer on society. No one should be looking to write a fantasy story because it’s been done. To death. Fantasy stories are the things people write because they want to say something, but they don’t really know what it is they want to say and thus fall into the trap of writing purely escapist fiction. I promise not to be like that, and to earn your trust I’m going to explain what exactly is wrong with fantasy stories and what I plan to do differently.
First off, as I mentioned before, fantasy is far too recycled. One fantasy world looks and feels the same as the last, and just about all of them strike a fair resemblance to Lord of the Rings. Dwarves, elves, orcs, yada yada. Every once in a while a big movie or game comes out that redefines the look of fantasy art while at the same time reinforcing it into the same old formulae. World of Warcraft features purple elves, for instance, but they are still elves and they still live in a foresty kingdom up high in the trees (I hated the time it took to climb those tree-towers). I could think of maybe ten thousand variations of elves, but they all stem from the same basic concepts. Furthermore, the more often a fantasy creature or idea is reused the further it stems from its original concept in mythology. What the hell is an elf supposed to be, anyway? Tolkien more or less invented the modern elf as an aloof, tall, graceful, and immortal muckety-muck, but rewind the clock about 70 years and anyone would tell you that an elf is a tiny woodland sprite that causes mischief unless you give it small offerings of food and such. How much of that idea survives in present-day elves?
I think part of the problem is a misguided notion that fantasy needs to be realistic. Small creatures that torment you unless you feed them? That doesn’t make sense. Elves are clearly an immortal race of superhumans that have populated the earth since before the time of man. They wield swords and magic and never indulge in ridiculous fairytale habits of dancing in spirit rings or collecting bits of food from the back of peoples’ doorsteps.
Personally, I believe that if anyone wants to write a fantasy story they need to pull inspiration from things that aren’t modern-day fantasy. A better source would be folk or fairytale stories, the ones dripping with animism and superstition. These are stories generally forgotten and ignored by mass media, the only stories remembered being the big fairytales that have been immortalized in animated feature films, like Cinderella or Snow White. Look for stories no one knows about. Ever hear the one about Olly the Terrible? What about the story of the king and the three identical puppets? I have these stories in an old book and I cherish them greatly because I’ve met so few people who know about them. As far as I’m concerned, ideas that are too old for anyone to remember are only slightly less golden than truly original ideas.
And, of course, real life is always the most important well of inspiration: the world around you is the only source of truly original ideas you can find. Your characters could be based upon people you know, for instance, rather than built from the tired archetypes that litter the fantasy landscape. No more grumpy dwarves, wise mages, or mysterious elves. I don’t even want to see them depicted ironically. Basing your ideas off the world around you is one of the most fundamental concepts of any type of writing, and I don’t see why fantasy writing should provide any exception. The name “fantasy” even seems to imply that this sort of writing should be freed from the rules of good literature writing, simply because the genre is based in the fantastical rather than the real. However, I’d argue that fantasy writing needs that tether, simply because it strays so far from reality. Need an example? I’ll bring up dwarves instead of elves this time, because dwarves experience so little variation from one iteration to the next.
Why are dwarves always grumpy? They always have been, in every incarnation, starting with the advent of what I believe are the prototypical modern dwarfs in Tolkien’s writings. Dwarves are grumpy by rule, but that rule exists entirely in fantasy. There is no real-life basis for it. It’s almost as if there is a fantasy world existing parallel to our own, and any fantasy writer looking to do a story simply draws inspiration from this concretely-existing universe where all dwarves are grumpy. However, it seems to nullify the point of fantasy writing if all stories should all follow the same rules. If you are going to follow someone else’s rules with your own writing, then why not just write about reality? Reality is filled with rules.
But if you ignore the regular rules of fantasy writing, then what do you have left? What, exactly, is the point of fantasy? On the surface it appears to be about creating a fantasy universe into which anyone can escape, but I feel there are deeper themes than this. Understanding those themes could help freshen the genre, but I don’t want to get into that idea in this blog post. I’ve already written more in one essay than I feel comfortable with; if I ran into so many words in one place then I’d turn right around and run in the opposite direction for about an hour. So, in summary, there are many silly rules in fantasy that I think any writer would do well to avoid. Looking for inspiration from obscure places or from life are good ways to escape these rules, and with the next couple posts I hope to illuminate even more ways to help refresh the fantasy genre.