What does Fantasy need?

[SDNess]

I had been planning to discuss this topic anyway, but the "Fantasy or SF" thread really sparked my interest.

Many people say that modern fantasy contains to much of the same old stuff. However, in some cases this is definetly not true.

What are some ideas that you would like to see appear?

[dwndrgn]

I haven't really thought about the question as you've asked it but I've noticed a lot of new ideas lately. For example I'm reading "The Chosen" by Roberto Pinto which has a great deal of new and interesting facets - mostly based around a rigid and brutal caste system that delineates the races. I'm only about a third of the way through as it is a difficult read. Not for the prose itself, it is actually very well written, but so far only depressing, sad and cruel things have happened and I'm finding it hard to slog through. I mean to finish it though because it is unique and well written.

I like different views, such as the one in "The Golden Key", a collaboration between a couple of authors whose names escape me right now. In this story the magic element comes through art, specifically painting.

Many of the 'themes' will always stay the same, I believe, because readers look for certain things from recreational reading. We look for something we can't get from our everyday lives; adventure, morality, nobility, personal triumphs, companionship, fun...at least these are what I enjoy. We also like to learn new things, identify with the characters, feel emotions along with them, etc. Again, these are my own personal feelings and others might look for other things.

As far as a lot of fantasy being 'similar' to each other, I don't really follow that view. I've found very few that are so similar that reading both is a waste of time. Of course many elements will be similar but each story and each character has their own uniqueness. Even down to similar elements as dragons and elves - each author brings their own vision. I've read about evil elves, dragons can be sentient or more beastlike, wizards can be humble and wise, miserable and cranky, villainous and greedy - so even cliches can be given new life if seen through a different author's vision. So I don't really think that fantasy 'needs' anything. Except maybe more authors .

[SDNess]

More authors...heh.

As far as a lot of fantasy being 'similar' to each other, I don't really follow that view. I've found very few that are so similar that reading both is a waste of time. Of course many elements will be similar but each story and each character has their own uniqueness. Even down to similar elements as dragons and elves - each author brings their own vision. I've read about evil elves, dragons can be sentient or more beastlike, wizards can be humble and wise, miserable and cranky, villainous and greedy - so even cliches can be given new life if seen through a different author's vision.

So it doesn't bother you that many fantasy novels are other writer's versions of LotR or volumes of unending sagas that become ridiculous in their length and too complex?

It is not boring to read rehashes of magical races drawing the line between good/evil and battling it out? Or perilous quests for magical items?

Maybe I am overlooking something...but a lot of fantasy seems this way to me.

I am asking these questions as a writer. I want to find something that will make a difference in the fantasy genre. As a reader, however, I agree with what you said above.

[dwndrgn]

Originally Posted by SDNess

So it doesn't bother you that many fantasy novels are other writer's versions of LotR or volumes of unending sagas that become ridiculous in their length and too complex?

It is not boring to read rehashes of magical races drawing the line between good/evil and battling it out? Or perilous quests for magical items?

Not really no. It doesn't bother me that most mystery novels have a bad guy and a good guy and a mystery to be solved either. It is the nature of the genre. The closest I've ever seen of a 'LOTR' knockoff was Terry Brooks' Shannara series and they were good in their own right as they had characters that were different, situations and moral questions of their own to ask and have answered...etc.

As an avid reader, I'm going to come accross an unoriginal idea or two. However, if those ideas are presented in a manner that is new and unique - why shouldn't I enjoy them as well as the one with the original idea?

To look at it another way - why are series' so popular? Because readers become familiar with a place, people and worlds and want to revisit, like an old friend.

I read an author's note to her readers once that really said it well. She gets complaints from people that read each new book in the series because new characters are introduced and new situations visited, and they don't like them as much as the original or the last book. Yet, after the next book comes out, that last one that everyone was complaining about is now their favorite. She called it the 'familiarity quotient'. Each new book was challenged because of new characters or places, but once they became familiar with those new characters and places, they became friends.

So there is a sort of yearning for the familiar, which keeps us going back to favorite authors or series' but we also can assimilate the new as well. So whether you write a fantasy set in the usual European-like setting with dragons and elves or something unique that takes us to a new reality that nobody has ever visited before - as long as the story is engaging and well written, it will be accepted.

That's the only advice I would have for an aspiring author - make sure the characters are well founded, the story is engaging and that the writing is well done enough to not cause the reader to stop reading and think about the actual writing. The best thing for a reader is to not have to think about the story structure - they should be thinking of the story only. When it is well written, the reader gets caught up in the story and won't be thinking about technical issues at all.

Was that helpful?

[littlemissattitude]

Interesting question, SDNess. I came late to fantasy, after having been raised on science fiction, so I may have a little bit of a different view of fantasy than people who have been reading it for nearly their whole lives and who have read all of the classics. I guess I should also say that I came to fantasy through the two Thomas Covenant trilogies by Stephen R. Donaldson, and so fantasies that are somewhat dark do not bother me in the least.

I very much like what I have seen called "urban fantasy", that is fantasy that is very much rooted in the real, contemporary world. Tim Powers does this very well. His semi-trilogy, "Last Call", "Expiration Date", and "Earthquake Weather" (I call them a semi-trilogy because they don't really become a trilogy until the last volume ties the first two together) is just great. He also has written an interesting book, "Declare", that takes place during the Cold War. Some of his characters are actually historical personages, and he apparently did a great deal of research and then inserted the fantasy elements of the story so that they do not contradict actual recorded history. I'd love to see more of this.

I also like fantasy that uses mythological systems besides that of medieval Europe. I've read a couple of books (which I can't recall the titles or authors of right now) that base themselves on Mesoamerican mythology, for example, that worked very well. There are all kinds of mythological systems that could easily lend themselves to the fantasy genre. And have, but not to the extent that they could be used. This is not to say that I do not like traditional fantasy in the Medieval mold, but simply that I would like to see more variety than I have.

As far as the idea of good v. evil conflicts being the base of most fantasy, I think that will probably continue to be the case because when you really think about it, it is the base of most literature of all kinds. However, I tend to like stories in which the lines are not so clearly drawn, where the hero is not entirely good and the villain is not completely evil. In my view, this makes things much more interesting.

I don't think fantasy will ever get too far from the "quest" theme, either. However, I think it can be handled in unique ways and that quests need not always be for "magical items". Quests for knowledge of one sort or another are very interesting to me, for example, and can be worked into the fantasy template as easily as quests for things.

Anyway, that's my two cents worth.

[SDNess]

Was that helpful?

Quite.

Thanks, littlemissattitude, yours also helped.

I'm getting ideas alread.y

[littlemissattitude]

Glad I could help out.

[knivesout]

I must confess that I really haven't read enough fantasy to pass a definitive judgement.Still, here's my two cents.

A big problem in creating interesting fantasy seems to be combining the epic scale of events with a narrative that is centered on realistic characters. And sometimes I feel that many authors end up making their characters a little too 'realistic' - a little too much like you and me. I'd like to see more genuinely different (I nearly said 'alien') cultures, societies and people.

Imagine a race of bird-people. They are not just a convenient race of 'exotics' who can function as plot devices. A sentient mind that is used to thinking of the open sky as its medium and gravity as its prime enemy would think very differently than ours. The difference would go beyond vocabulary or religion - their entire frame of reference would beutterly different from ours, and so, therefore,would their perceptions. If you've read about the huge conceptual gaps that have been exposed when people form radically different human cultures meet, you can imagine how much more complex and intriguing the interaction between the bird people and a ground-dwelling race might be. Even basic spacial concepts would be different - the winged folk would have sovery many more directions to speak of than just up, down right and left. They would think in terms of arcs and tangents, trajectories rather than straight lines on a flat surface. Their whole notion of stability and precariousness would be different from our own. Perhaps they might associate the stability of being on the surface with the final stillness of death. And so on. I can imagine (vaguely) a variety of intersting stories building from a situation like this, conflicts and tensions, perhaps, as well as reconciliations and truces far more complex and fresh than taking sides for or against the dark one plotting in his lair...

I don't know if any of what I've said makes too much snese. My main point is that I'd like to see a real effort to imagine and flesh out the truly fantastic rather than impose familiar ways of thinking and acting upon it.

[Elysium]

Originally Posted by littlemissattitude

I also like fantasy that uses mythological systems besides that of medieval Europe. I've read a couple of books (which I can't recall the titles or authors of right now) that base themselves on Mesoamerican mythology, for example, that worked very well. There are all kinds of mythological systems that could easily lend themselves to the fantasy genre. And have, but not to the extent that they could be used. This is not to say that I do not like traditional fantasy in the Medieval mold, but simply that I would like to see more variety than I have.

I agree. That would be fascinating.
Fantasy should also explore some unconventional gender roles. Who needs a pure maiden warior and strong knight? There has recently been some great work that characterizes people in unusual and unexpected ways. I'd like to see some more. Character driven narrative is very interesting.

[SDNess]

Imagine a race of bird-people. They are not just a convenient race of 'exotics' who can function as plot devices...

I'm writing a story now where I have used a race of bird-people...containing a lot of the elements that you stated. They are called the 'Osiris'.

[I, Brian]

I like the comments, kinvesout - you make an important point. I think you are emphasising "realism" (ie, that the story elements should have a real grounding in reality) - which is one of my favourite literary topics.

However, the market says that for a lot of the readership, the elements of the bird culture are only meaningful if the culture itself would be meaningful to the plot. In other words, a lot of the time it won't matter to readers if the bird people communicate as like humans. However, if you can add such elements, without distracting from the plot, then you may create something quite memorable.

As an addendum to that - even different human cultures have very different ways of perceiving the simplest things. For example, here in the West we are very used to the idea that time "flows" forwards (and backwards in SF!). However, in Chinese thought, time moves up and down. A simple but important example of how thought can diverge across cultures on even the commonest principles of the human experience.

[knivesout]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

As an addendum to that - even different human cultures have very different ways of perceiving the simplest things. For example, here in the West we are very used to the idea that time "flows" forwards (and backwards in SF!). However, in Chinese thought, time moves up and down. A simple but important example of how thought can diverge across cultures on even the commonest principles of the human experience.

My point actually derived from that. If I remember right, when the Conquistadors passed through certain islands the natives, unused to such large sea craft simply could not see their ships - instead, they saw the foreigners mysteriously appear from nowhere in a boat and vanish from the boats in the same way. It would be more realistic to see some of this sort of cultural gap in a fantasy story, rather than these huge continents with their 'common tongue' and so forth.

In my culture time is essentially seen as cyclical, btw.

[dwndrgn]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

However, in Chinese thought, time moves up and down. A simple but important example of how thought can diverge across cultures on even the commonest principles of the human experience.

How does time move up and down? I mean, is up the future and down the past? If you are researching history, you are essentially digging through the basement? This might sound like a silly question but I've never heard this and being from the west and used to the forwards/backwards flow of time, I'm finding it hard for my mind to curl around the idea. It is so annoying when my mind freezes up and produces nothing useful (unfortunately this is a normal state...). Is this related to the fact that their script is written vertically as opposed to our horizontally?

[Amidala]

A simple one not just in SF but anyway I fond in sci fi that alot of charecters can sometimes be without emotion...storys are no good unless readers love their charecters

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by dwndrgn

How does time move up and down? I mean, is up the future and down the past? If you are researching history, you are essentially digging through the basement? This might sound like a silly question but I've never heard this and being from the west and used to the forwards/backwards flow of time, I'm finding it hard for my mind to curl around the idea. It is so annoying when my mind freezes up and produces nothing useful (unfortunately this is a normal state...). Is this related to the fact that their script is written vertically as opposed to our horizontally?

I have no idea why - it is merely something that I've read about. Apparently, they find our forwards and backwards fairly non-sensical as well.

The script orientation - ah, now that is a very astute observation. Is it related? Not sure, but it's a good suggestion.