Why Can’t I Talk About Fantasy?
Why Can’t I Talk About Fantasy? is an exegetical essay I wrote as part of my major assessment for the final year of my Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing). Over the last couple of years, I’ve made a few edits here and there, and I have also had to remove some content that went a bit too far into spoiler territory for A Fate Entwined. 95% of the essay is the same as when I first wrote it, and I sincerely hope you enjoy and learn a thing or two from it.
fantasy
noun
You never forget your first love. The endless summer you spent together, the long nights that you wished would never end, the laughs shared and tears shed. I still remember mine. Her name was Star Wars. Truth be told, our relationship did not have the most dignified beginning.
I was four years old when Dad took me to see Attack of the Clones after I begged him continuously. Halfway through the movie, I wanted to go home because I was bored. It is no surprise that he was not pleased, given he had waited years for this next instalment. After receiving a few words through gritted teeth in the foyer, I stopped complaining. I fell asleep until the action sequences at the climax of the movie. Once it was over, I proclaimed it as the ‘best movie ever’, and went home to begin my obsession. Seeing this film is, in fact, very likely my first memory.
Dad and I have always been defensive of Star Wars and its genre. Every YouTube video, every news article, every Facebook post that refers to it as sci-fi makes me grimace. Star Wars is not sci-fi – it is fantasy in space. The heroes wield glowing swords and control a type of magic known as the Force.
My second love was The Lord of the Rings. Throughout my childhood, my younger brothers and I would spend hours outside with toy swords and bows, slaying orcs and trolls together. We built castles out of LEGO and reenacted the stories we knew so well or made up our own.
Fantasy has always been central in my life. It will always be my favourite genre and the one I enjoy writing the most. Why, then, am I ashamed to talk about it?
1 The faculty or activity of imagining impossible or improbable things.
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/fantasy
Fantasy is the power of imagining impossible things. To me, this is the genre’s greatest strength and is why I love to write it. As long as I am able to tell a coherent and entertaining story, there are no rules. Any idea is something to consider. It is exhilarating – creating and refining a world with each new thought. I give myself the questions and have to answer them within my own mind. My job, once I have imagined impossible things, is to get the reader to join me.
But the genre is not all about magic and dragons. It is about the stories of people we grow to care about, the challenges in their lives that, although improbable, we can connect with. Few people will have an abusive adoptive mother like the protagonist of my novel, A Fate Entwined, but that is something we as readers can understand and sympathise with. Many of us have difficult family lives or know people who do. It is an issue of the real world, even if the adoptive mother is also the queen of a fantasy country.
My favourite fictional character is FitzChivalry Farseer, from Assassin’s Apprentice, in the Realm of the Elderlings series. The novel is told from the character’s first-person perspective, drawing the reader closer to him with each page. Fitz has to fight pirates and mindless zombie-like people, which provides the reader with great entertainment, but it is his struggles with an uncle who hates him, and by extension, the fact that he is ostracised by his family, that we can relate to as readers.
In my book, Andra has to deal with the abusive adoptive mother. Alongside this are the more ‘typical’ fantasy problems: being cast out of a prophecy, having to teach herself how to use a powerful and dangerous magic and trying to save her brother. Beneath these challenges are issues that we as readers can also face in our regular, banal lives. Andra faces rejection, she struggles with addictive urges and must adjust to life without her twin brother after she loses him.
I chose to write my novel in the first person so that these deeper, more relatable struggles feel closer to the reader. It gives that intimacy between reader and story as if the character is personally confiding in you. I have put time and thought into whether it is, commercially, the best decision to write from this point of view. Ultimately, I decided that the first-person narrative was too important to the identity of the story. It is Andra’s story, and I want the reader to connect with her as much as possible.
The fact that a reader can connect so deeply with a character that is entirely fictional, whose experience is utterly impossible, is one of the miracles of the genre. It is those improbable things that show us the deeper meanings and themes of a story and connect the reader. The impossible gives a layer of excitement and fun that hides the former, like mashed potatoes with vegetables hidden inside. A lot of people have no problems eating their vegetables, but the stubborn few who do take issue – including myself – need them hidden away, beneath the dragons, the pirates and the magic.
1.1 A fanciful mental image, typically one on which a person often dwells and which reflects their conscious or unconscious wishes.
Ibid.
I would be lying if I said that I write to give people their literary vegetables. I write because I enjoy telling interesting and compelling stories and because I have inherited a desire to entertain others from Dad.
In saying that, I once received a comment in a university workshop from a peer who said that she would have loved to read my novel when she was younger. This changed how I approached my writing, particularly with A Fate Entwined, as I started to consider how my storytelling can have an impact on others. How my audience might respond to the novel became more of a conscious thought throughout the process rather than something to consider later.
Writing had never been about ludicrous dreams of wealth and fame, but I had also never deeply considered how my work could impact my audience. I had never thought about the vegetables. Now I have a desire to, as Stephen King puts it in On Writing, be “enriching the lives of those who read [my] work, and enriching [my] own life as well”.
A Fate Entwined is about a girl who overcomes how society and life continually put her down. She is cast aside, no longer wanted to fulfil the destiny she was born for. She is chased and hated for powers that she did not ask for. In this, I drew heavily from Daughter of the Empire (Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts) and The Final Empire (Brandon Sanderson), which both involve rags to riches tales of women with nothing who, through their own determination and abilities, become the most powerful figures in the world.
Writing this story turned me toward feminist theories within fantasy. Jane Tolme writes in Medievalism and the Fantasy Heroine that fantasy with female protagonists often involves an “individual woman rising above a system that keeps her down – triumphing over it, reversing expectations.” Indeed, Andra does live in a somewhat patriarchal system; the two judges that decide she no longer fits the prophecy are men, afraid of her stepping out of the ‘Nurturer’ role that she has been assigned to. Her only sympathiser of the three judges is another woman.
It is worth noting that at the time of writing A Fate Entwined (and the original draft of this essay, as a matter of fact), I had not yet come out to myself as a transgender woman. While the original version of this essay claimed that although my novel featured feminist themes, I did not believe it to be a feminist text, I have now changed my thoughts on this point.
1.2 An idea with no basis in reality.
Ibid.
I believe that writing and reading fantasy is worthwhile in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The genre may not be to everyone’s taste, but neither is literary fiction. Why, then, do I find myself embarrassed to talk about it?
In a classroom, I am the last to say what I am writing about. My fear has no basis in reality, but I feel that I will be judged for writing in such a ‘childish’ genre. Can you imagine my dismay when I had to say, ‘I am writing an essay about fantasy and why I love it’? Why do I feel like that is a less legitimate topic than what everybody else is writing?
In a discussion with a peer about my essay, I found that she agreed with my sentiment that people believe fantasy is invaluable. She has been writing in a similar genre of paranormal fiction, so it was relieving to find that I was not the only one with this unsubstantiated belief.
And it is unsubstantiated. I have never received a comment about how I should be writing in a more valuable genre, how my talents are wasted writing fantasy or how I should stop imagining. Perhaps the fear comes from the old stigma of fantasy which has quickly dissolved in the wake of 21st-century popular culture. While Dungeons and Dragons used to be played by losers in their basements and fantasy was once associated with socially awkward teenagers, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film adaptations, Stranger Things, Game of Thrones and others have caused a massive cultural shift.
Today it seems that most people enjoy the fantasy genre to some extent. That is not because of the deeper themes hidden beneath the texts. It is because fantasy is fun. It lets us escape from our regular lives and just pretend. For a little while, at least.
1.3 A genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, especially in a setting other than the real world.
Ibid.
Writing fantasy is transportation to a world that does not exist, but as long as the reader suspends their disbelief and the writer does their job well, it seems real. Often it begins with a map.
My novel began that way, with several hours spent in Photoshop rather than my Scrivener file. By creating the map of my world, I was arguing to myself that “there is an imaginary place such as it describes, regardless of the fact that it has no basis in ‘geographical reality’ and does not represent anything in the actual world” (Stefan Ekman, Entering a Fantasy World Through its Map). It was an act of transportation, of bringing myself to the new world in the same way that I would invite a reader in to observe.
Fantasy is transportation and teleportation. When my audience opens the first pages of my novel, I am inviting them into “a strange world, a setting for adventures as yet untold, or at least unread”.
One of the more common concepts that fantasy is associated with is escapism: the act of transportation of the mind to another place, another time, so that the reader becomes willingly lost in another world. Escapism carries the stigma that it is often used as a coping mechanism for difficulties in life, particularly for teenagers, so that they can avoid confronting their issues (in hindsight, there is a great irony here, as writing from a teenage girl’s perspective was absolutely a form of escapism on my part, given I hadn’t yet realised I was a woman myself). While this may be the case, escapism can also be purely for entertainment or a tool for introverted people who need to retreat from the complexities of life for a time.
Not only does fantasy allow its reader to “[exercise] the imagination”, but it also provides an opportunity to “escape from everyday reality at the same time that it generates hope” (Ben and Beth Nelms, The Farfaring Imagination: Recent Fantasy and Science Fiction). I use my writing as an escape, and I hope that my readers will be able to as well. There is nothing like sitting in my study, creating an entire world filled with characters and stories, using only my computer and my mind. The only thing that comes close, perhaps, is reading.
When we escape to a fantasy world, we take on the lives of the characters. For a while, our own troubles are replaced with quests to prove one’s role in a prophecy or learn a powerful magic. When we return, day-to-day worries may not seem so significant. Reading fantasy often “helps readers clarify genuine problems” through both metaphor and comparison to our own lives. What is a high school bully compared to Andra needing to save the world? What is the grind of a full-time job in contrast to the coming apocalypse?
1.4 Denoting a competition or league in which participants select imaginary teams from among the players in a real sports league and score points according to the actual performance of their players.
Ibid.
Sport is inherently meaningless. I say that, even though I spend hundreds of dollars a year to attend Australian Football League matches. When the Tigers lose, I am often inconsolable. When a player, who I have no connection to outside of watching him run around for two and a half hours every week, is injured, my heart shatters. But, ultimately, the sport is just twenty-two people trying to kick a ball through some big sticks. I only care about it because I choose to do so.
Fantasy is meaningless. I can argue its value as long as I want, but the truth is, fantasy books are just the glorified delusions of their authors, written down on paper. And yet, like sports, many people choose to give it meaning – to invest – despite the fact that none of it is important. To the outsider, the practice of reading and writing fantasy, and fiction in general, might seem absurd. Similarly, many people do not understand the appeal of sports.
I have often said that being invested in football is a form of emotional gambling. The more I choose to care about it, the bigger the payoff is in victory. Reading can also be emotional gambling. We invest in characters and their fates and feel joy at every obstacle they overcome. We also mourn over their failures. Ultimately, it is all meaningless unless we choose to give it meaning.
There is also a community aspect to both sport and reading. First, we give a strange ritual meaning, and then we talk about it with others. Discussing characters and stories with others is one of the greatest joys of reading. Speaking about connection through the practice, Mary Kooy says that “we journey alone in the classroom, but in a book club we can journey together” (Riding on the Coattails of Harry Potter). When readers embark on a journey through a fantasy novel, they uncover the secrets and twists not only of the characters but also of the world. Sharing those experiences with others, even if they are entirely fabricated, only makes those moments stronger.
The joy of discovery in fantasy is one of the things I keep at the forefront of my mind when writing. With each scene and chapter, something new about the world, the magic or the characters should reveal itself. The world is constantly growing as I write, as it will when the reader begins the journey that I have created for them.
2 MUSIC
Ibid.
A fantasia.
Studies have found that “people listen to music for a wide variety of different reasons” (Adam J Lonsdale, Why do we listen to music? A uses and gratifications analysis). One of the most prominent, however, is to “pass the time”. In other words, many of us listen to music for the simple fact that we enjoy it.
There is nothing wrong with entertainment for the sake of entertainment. Melissa Thomas writes about teaching fantasy and how the genre “continues to be dismissed as escapist fluff” (Teaching Fantasy: Overcoming the Stigma of Fluff), despite the simple fact that “students like it”. I have two issues with this quote. Firstly, escapist fluff is not inherently an issue, as discussed earlier. Secondly, fantasy is worthwhile because people like it, not just high school students.
Most popular fantasy is written for adults, despite the common stereotype that fantasy readers are introverted teenagers. Novels such as Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings or George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones are lengthy and have mature themes often unsuitable for children. And yet, these are two of the best-selling fantasy novels worldwide. Adult fantasy sells well in Australia, as well, including “Kate Forsyth’s Dragonclaw [which] has not been out of print since its first publication in 1997. The series that followed has sold in excess of 200 000 copies within Australia” (Kim Wilkins, Cutting off the head of the king: sovereignty, feudalism and fantasy). Many people, both adults and children, enjoy the fantasy genre.
Stephen King, in On Writing, describes the Harry Potter novels as “just fun, pure story from beginning to end.” Thousands of adults, even one of the modern masters of fiction, enjoy this fantasy series despite the fact that it is written for a middle-grade and young adult audience.
Fun and entertainment is what I hold as the most important aspect of writing. My first priority is to make a scene, chapter or book enjoyable. Will it give my readers the escapism, and the thrill, that they crave? That is exactly how I want the writing process to be. I did not decide that I wanted to be a fantasy author so that I could share deep truths about life and the universe. I did it because I wanted to tell stories that made people laugh, smile and cry. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing somebody connect and engage with, and most importantly, enjoy something that I have created.
verb LITERARY
Ibid.
imagine the occurrence of; fantasise about.
To once again quote Stephen King’s On Writing:
I have spent a good many years since―too many, I think―being ashamed about what I write. I think I was forty before I realized that almost every writer of fiction or poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent. If you write (or paint or dance or sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it.
The three months in which I wrote the first draft of A Fate Entwined were some of the best of my life as a writer. I was driven and filled with ideas and passion for the story. Even during the middle, where the work was slow, I took great enjoyment out of it. One night I stared up at my bedroom ceiling, stunned by the fact that I had achieved so much in such a short amount of time. What began as an idea for a story where a pair of twins were destined to save the world, only for one of them to be prematurely killed, developed into a 110,000 word novel with the potential for a series. The original premise was gone, but I had something so much better. Everybody I told about it was excited.
I do not know if I have been able to reconcile my conflicting feelings toward the genre. The next time somebody asks me what I write, will I hesitate? Instead, perhaps I will proudly proclaim, ‘I write epic fantasy, and I love it.’
Either way, I take solace in the fact that I am not alone in this struggle. Even Stephen King was ashamed of what he wrote. Being ashamed does not mean I should stop writing it, because I enjoy it. And that, after all, is the purpose of fantasy.
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