What No one Tells You about Writing Fantasy, #2!
I did this list about 7 annoyances about fantasy, but I write in this genre for a reason! Fantasy knows no bounds, it can encompass all other genres within it. You can write a fantastical murder mystery, fantasy horror, fantasy romance, political drama, slice-of-life, comedy, whatever youâd like!
Whether itâs urban or high fantasy, supernatural or scientific, hereâs seven great benefits of writing in this genre:
1. No modern means of communication
Unless youâre writing a world with phones or phone-adjacent devices. Phones and instant communication seriously inhibits the plausibility of dramatic irony and tension when you have to keep coming up with reasons to keep your characters from calling or texting each other everything they know. Itâs exhausting, I tell you, and such a relief when phones arenât a factor.
With that said, without phones, you have complete freedom to design your own magical channels of supernatural FaceTime, as weird and zany as you want. But without instant connections? Your character who knew too much canât pass on the intel before they die. Your hero team canât call for backup in their darkest hour. Otherwise easily preventable tragedies and deadly miscommunications are now very real.
Fantasy and sci-fi tend to overlap more than theyâre set apart, and in that overlap sits the monster allegory. Everything from werewolves to vampires to witches, reapers, demons, angels, goblins, trolls, wraiths, fairies, mermaids, ghosts, to Eldritch horrors and your classic Hollywood cast of mummies, creatures from the black lagoon, and Frankenstein.
Most of the time, the monsters arenât just monsters, they represent a monstrous aspect of society the author wants to challenge and caricaturize in a fun and entertaining way. Or, the monsters are the good guys and the humans are the real terrors. Or, youâve got two kinds of monsters to allegory two human sides. Sometimes they represent metaphorical demons, like vampires often representing addiction and werewolves repressed identities.
What all of this boils down to is the hyperbolic nature of science fantasy that allows you to go over-the-top with your metaphor and allegory in a way that a book grounded in reality just canât.
Do you love world building? Do you love filling pages upon pages with your cool and unique set of superpowers you want your characters to have? Do you dream about your fight scenes and dramatic slow-mo shots?
There are zero limits to how you want to define your magic system. You can go classic with the familiar archetypes of elemental magic, wizards, sorcerers, and witches. Or you can step off the beaten path and design a whole new funky system of power sets. Best part? Your readers will have an awesome time imagining themselves with those powers, and debating endlessly about how it works.
4. Real-World Politics, who?
Amazonâs Rings of Power was twice-doomed when they only got the rights to adapt the appendices of The Silmarillion and when they decided to inject current political problems into a timeless story written purposefully to be divorced from those politics. You *can* write about human politics, but in fantasy, you donât have to. You *can* interpret Lord of the Rings to be an allegory about the World Wars, but no matter how hard you argue, it wasnât written with that intent.
Which means: Even if your story is set in the reality-adjacent fantasy version of 1543, you are free from the following: Racism, homophobia, sexism, religious bigotry, mental health bigotry, gender norms, anti-feminism, toxic masculinity, and more. âBut thatâs how it was-â
Nope. This is fantasy. You built this world, you decided to keep in the discrimination. Or⌠You can fill your fantasy world with a rainbow of gays, POCs in power, women in power, men unafraid to be compassionate and caring, a religion that doesnât foster hate and division, the list goes on. You. Are. Free.
5. Nothing is too âunrealisticâ
Both that you will always have people whining about how X would never happen so write the book you want to read, but also because fantasy is fake. Fairies arenât real. Mermaids arenât real. There are no rules for how they must be written and thatâs how we have so much variety with so much room for interpretation by so many creators. Twilight made how much money writing about vampires that sparkle like diamonds in sunlight and crack like marble?
This is fantasy, itâs supposed to be unrealistic. Yes, your plot should make sense, but donât be afraid to get weird. Write at least some of your story dependant on those fantasy elements. Write a story that canât just be told in the real world minus the spectacle. Donât be afraid to be sincerely fantastical and weird. People love weird. People love loving weird.
6. You are in complete control
But you do still need to research, unfortunately. Unless this is urban fantasy that depends at least a little on the human world, yours is completely your own to govern like a god tweezing weeds from their garden. You get to design your own geography and weather patterns and seasons. Your own countries and kingdoms and politicians. Your epic pre-canon fantasy war and the stakes that it was fought over. Your species, races, and ethnicities.
Itâs a shame that a movie like Avatar (2009) set out to be this wholly unique take on aliens with music completely divorced from earthly bonds, new languages and a visually and culturally distinct alien species⌠and ended up a largely generic blue Pocahontas in space. It forgot that it was fantasy and didnât go weird enough. They have horses, monkeys, wolves, rhinos, and deer just re-skinned with some extra limbs and colors. Itâs pretty but itâs so, so shallow.
It could have become a cult classic like many a positively *weird* 80s off-beat fantasies, and now it just⌠exists. It makes a whole lot of money but its impact on the cultural zeitgeist is negligible. Iâm the only person I know that can name every major character in the movie, and Iâm no Avatar obsessor. They had complete creative control, and this is what they did with it. Donât be Avatar. Take your creative freedom and run.
7. Even if it has been done before, do it again
You can say this about any genre, particularly romance, but fantasy and sci-fi, by the gatekeep-y nature of their fans, can be a lot less forgiving when it comes to claims of âunoriginalityâ. No one hates Star Wars more than Star Wars fans. Fans of these genres can get⌠concerningly attached to their favorite stories (mostly because the people who like them had only their fictional heroes to protect them from very real bullies).
But Game of Thrones exists because the author likes Lord of the Rings and went âyes, but what if it was an R-rated parade of misery?â Dungeons and Dragons exists because people wanted to roleplay in an LotR-esque world. Legolas and Gimli single-handedly defined what a badass elf and dwarf looks like in high fantasy. And people still gobble up media ripping shamelessly, or even good-naturedly, from this one story.
So on my other list, I argued that the sum of your parts is still original, even if the components arenât. On this list, I implore you this: Itâs not stealing or appropriating to write another Legolas if you love Legolas. Everyone loves Legolas. How many generic buff action heroes do we have and love? How many Hallmark romances tread the same predictable path? Who gives a damn if itâs unoriginal? Just make it entertaining and have something fresh to say in the end (or donât, thatâs fine too), and people will read it.
And when people say âOh, you mean like Legolasâ, take it as a compliment, not an insult. Yes, exactly like Legolas. Hereâs my new elf because I adore this other book, now watch him go on a new adventure that I wrote for him.
