Writing Fantasy – How and Why
Posted by Meg
Being a speculative fiction writer can be tricky any time of the year. Here is a collection of intriguing and inspiring articles to get you thinking about genre, publishing and what it takes to navigate the world of professional writers. All while writing the thing you love most: fantasy.
Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians and The Magician King, wrote a thought provoking article in Time Entertainment: Literary Revolution in the Supermarket: Genre Fiction is Disruptive Technology. A response to The New York Time’s recent article “Easy Writers”, Grossman rationally unravels the arguments and discusses the gap between literary fiction and genre fiction and what that means today.
There are a lot of dos and don’ts when you become a professional writer. How do you know what to do and how to stay clear of mistakes that will break your career? Myke Cole, author of Shadow Ops: Control Point, wrote a new blog post: The 18 Rules I Learned in my First Year as a Full Time Writer. A hilarious take on everything you should be doing to ensure the first year of your writing career is a success.
Ever wonder why your favorite authors chose to write fantasy in the first place? Mythic Scribes gives us an insider look into the lives of real authors explaining why they write fantasy as oppose to other genres. Check out the answers: The Power of Genre – Why Fantasy?
Have your own opinions on genre, writing or the publishing world? Feel free to start the conversation and leave them in the comments.
I have plenty of opinions. :Grin:
A saying I’ve said for years:
“Reality is for people who can’t handle science fiction”. Modern domestic fiction bores me. At the end, I want to be entertained. Do I want good prose, characters, plot and setting along the way? Absolutely. Do literary values give me cooties? Absolutely not.
I love this from The Power of the Genre – “We are the King’s Fool, the only one at society’s court permitted to speak the truth, though it may be cloaked by a fantastic glamour and a touch of madness.”
How cool is that? I don’t just read fantasy – no, wait – speculative fiction – I love classics too. But it is the only genre that can consume me heart and soul into the story. It’s transcendent, beautiful, epic, challenging, heart-wrenching. It’s above and beyond, it scorns liimits, redefines boundaries, it’s a glorious wandering through the colours of imagination.
What Ethics in Technology and the Human situation is to Scifi, Metaphysics in phenomenology and the human condition is to fantasy.
Fantasy is one of the best ways to explore what makes humans the way they are by answering this question: “What would people do if the world were completely different? Would they still be screwed up?”
The answer is always a resounding, “yes”.