Fantasy author Brian Rush’s article on writing for the fantasy fiction audience is filled with the history of the genre. He helps us see that even if we don’t think we like reading fantasy fiction or don’t ever write it, we actually have some experience with this, in truth, very old genre. Brian’s article is eye opening and you will find encouragement to explore the surprising number of sub-genres in fantasy. After you read Brian’s article, read his blog for more information and for links to his stories. His article might just get your started in a new direction. One of my favorite paragraphs in the article comes near the end when Brian shows us how to think like a fantasy writer taking classics and giving them a fantasy spin.

Let’s start with the most obvious thing: fantasy fiction is fiction. All good fiction has certain characteristics in common that can be summed up as “telling a good story well.” Whether you’re talking about fantasy, science fiction, murder mystery, thriller, war story, romance, or anything else in fiction, the things that matter most are the characters, plot, conflict, theme, language, and creativity.

Despite this, we do divide fiction into categories based on story elements and conventions and typical themes. A murder mystery is a story with a murder in it that presents a mystery to be solved in the course of telling the tale. A romance is a story in which at least two of the characters are involved in a romantic relationship and the complications of their relationship form a substantial part of the plot. A science fiction story is one in which future technology and/or societal development plays a role either in the story itself or in setting the background. In all of these the word “story” is crucial because no matter the genre one must tell a story. But the genre elements are what distinguish this type of story from other types.

A fantasy is a story in which fantastic elements appear. What are fantastic elements?  They are elements of myth, fable, and fairy-tale: gods and goddesses, demons and super-beings, magic, alternate worlds and realities, quasi-human beings (elves, dwarves, fairies, giants, ogres, goblins, or make-up-your-own), and fantastic creatures, places, and objects. Defining fantasy elements precisely is not really possible; like most art, this is more a matter of how something feels when it cruises, strolls, or rampages through the imagination than it is of anything objective.

Fantasy elements don’t have to dominate the story to classify it as fantasy, but they have to be present and they should preferably be significant to the plot or to at least some of the characters.

Fantasy is often lumped together with science fiction, but the two genres are quite distinct, and fantasy is much the older of the two. It’s as old as writing, actually. The Epic of Gilgamesh, among the earliest stories still in our possession, is a fantasy, as are the myths and legends of the earliest human civilizations and many of the stories in the scriptures of all current religions. Science fiction, in contrast, could not exist until modern science and the accompanying idea of progress came into existence. The earliest science fiction stories were written and published in the nineteenth century.

Still, it’s true that fantasy, although very old in its roots, has experienced a renaissance in relatively recent times, especially since the 1970s. When we speak of fantasy fiction as a modern genre, therefore, it’s reasonable to date the phenomenon from the mid- to late twentieth century, while acknowledging its much older roots. That was when the modern conventions of the genre, such as they are, were established, and when modern writers and readers began to think of it as a type of literature for adults rather than just for children.

Mythos and Logos: The Decline and Rebirth of Fantasy

What this means is that fantasy (in the form of myth and fairy tale) was common and popular from the invention of writing itself until early modern times, then for a while became relegated to children’s fiction until the second half of the twentieth century, when fantasy for adult readers experienced a rebirth. Why is that?

The answer, I think, has to do with two different types of thinking, two different approaches to reality called mythos and logos. Mythos has been described as a mode of knowledge rooted in intuitive insight. It concerns itself less with what is in simple description (that’s the realm of logos), and more with the meaning of what is. Consider the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the fall. Those who study the Bible as literature call it a fantasy story, involving a deity, a talking snake, and the fruit of a magical tree, all of which are fantasy elements (at least insofar as God walks about in a physical garden and talks to people with a literal voice). In the realm of logos, this story is scientifically untrue. However, although most believe the human race did not begin in this way, the story has multiple levels of meaning, which make it “true” in another sense–the story relates to loss of innocence as knowledge is gained and value judgments are made. On a larger level, it relates to the transition from foraging and hunting to farming and agrarian civilization, with its backbreaking labor (“in the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread”) and its subjugation of women to men.

In all good fantasy fiction, the fantasy elements do not in our everyday world exist in any simplistic, linear, straightforward sense. (Of course, the characters and events in any type of fiction don’t exist, either – but in most non-fantasy fiction they theoretically could. That’s not the case with the fantastic elements of a fantasy story.) But they are “real” in another, mythic sense: they have meaning. They have significance.

Modern times have featured the empowerment of logos – straightforward, logical, linear thinking and description of what is. We might think of the early modern centuries from the fifteenth through the first half of the twentieth as similar to adolescence, when a person struggles to put childhood behind and strains to be “adult” in a self-conscious way that real adults don’t bother about so much. When the scientific method and rationalism were relatively new, literate society experienced a similarly self-conscious focus on being “adult” in what included both an exaggerated confidence in rationalism and a degree of fear (some of it unrecognized, some acknowledged) that these new and beneficial ways of thinking might vanish away, swamped by a tide of irrationalism and mythic thinking. As a result, mythos was suppressed for a time. Even religion itself largely abandoned it and tried to make itself a wholly rational enterprise reasoned from the first premises of scripture. A part of that suppression was the banishment of myth and fairy tale – of fantasy – from adult literature.

By the middle of the twentieth century, however, logos had given birth to death camps, nuclear weapons and a threatened environment, and it became clear to many people that, however great the benefits of linear thinking, it would not suffice all by itself to build a good life or a good society. Mythos has enjoyed resurgence since then in many forms. Mythic thinking within religion has reclaimed much of its place, the value of myth has been recognized by philosophers and psychologists; fantasy for adults has become a popular genre of fiction once again.

Fantasy, the Imagination, and Spirituality

Any fiction has to connect with its readers and relate to their lives in some way, while also stretching beyond the banal. We don’t read stories where we can’t identify with the characters, but at the same time we don’t read stories that are exactly like ordinary life. We want to engage both sympathy and imagination. The reader wants to feel a connection and kinship with the characters and to imagine being the characters, but in doing so wants to experience things that are outside of – and more interesting and exciting than – what he goes through day to day. In fantasy, the stretching is accomplished primarily although not exclusively through the fantasy elements. Connection with the readers? That’s accomplished, as always, by good writing.

Another common but not quite universal attribute of fantasy fiction is that a lot of it has a theme or sub-theme that’s religious or moral or spiritual in nature. By this I don’t mean that the theme conforms to the doctrines of any particular religion (although that’s possible; C.S. Lewis’ fantasy fiction, for example, was strongly Christian, while Marian Zimmer Bradley wrote fantasy with a Wiccan theme). I mean that it involves questions that religion attempts to answer, such as:

• What is the ultimate nature of man/the universe/the divine?
• What should the goal of a human life be?
• What is the right choice of action in any particular circumstance?

Within the context of the fantasy story, questions like these are often posed and sometimes answered, the answers always being of a mythic rather than a straightforward character. That is, they are not literal statements but metaphors for truths that can’t be put into exact words, impacting our understanding on a non — verbal level — tricky when one’s artistic medium is entirely verbal, but by no means impossible as every poet knows. It’s a type of knowing that arises from mythos, not from logos.

Bad fantasy, on the other hand, becomes “preachy” and gives the reader the feeling of being lectured. This pitfall, as in all good fiction, is something to be aware of and avoid.

Sub-Genres of Fantasy

Fantasy is a broad enough genre that several sub-genres exist. First one may distinguish between so-called “high” and “low” fantasy. Low fantasy contains a few fantasy elements, such as minor magical or psychic ability on the part of one or more of the characters, interaction with a ghost or demon or angel or elf or some such creature, the impact on the characters of a talisman, etc. High fantasy is a story in which the fantasy elements are more pronounced, typically taking place in an alternate world, and are pervasive throughout the created world.

(Side note: I’ve seen low fantasy characterized as being set in the “real world,” while high fantasy is set in a “fantasy world.” While that may be a good rule of thumb, I don’t believe it’s the important distinction here; one may have a high fantasy as I’m using this phrase that’s located in the real, contemporary world – actually, my own Star Mages trilogy is exactly that, as is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling – or a work of low fantasy set in an alternate world, provided the alternate world is mostly non-fantastic. A work of alternate history, such as Harry Turtledove often writes, is set in an alternate world but it is not necessarily high fantasy and most of Turtledove’s alternate history isn’t fantasy at all.)

An example of low fantasy is Stephen King’s Firestarter, which is basically a thriller/horror story with psychic powers as part of the plot and character development, while Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is high fantasy.

Another distinction is between the sub-genre of contemporary fantasy and–well, fantasy that isn’t contemporary. While the classic fantasy template has the story take place in an alternate world or in the legendary past, contemporary fantasy is located in the world we know with fantasy elements added. In contemporary fantasy, we have all of the technology and cultural features that exist in modern life, while non-contemporary fantasy is often set in an ancient or medieval milieu. There are a number of sub-sub-genres of contemporary fantasy, such as urban fantasy and paranormal romance, which I won’t go into beyond mentioning they exist. One can pigeonhole a story to the point where the main goal–to tell a good story well–is lost.

The main point in acknowledging the different sub-genres of fantasy, other than being able to choose an appropriate genre designation when indie publishing at Amazon or another outlet, is to show the range of story that can contain fantasy elements. It’s wide open. The technological sophistication of the society of the story can run from the Stone Age to science fiction, and the prevalence of fantasy elements can range from minor to all-pervading. Fantasy provides the writer with a varied canvas and palate and can’t be simplified to a single formulaic template.

Can Fantasy Be a Crossover?

Of course it can. Why not? Writing from any genre can appeal to an audience outside that genre’s usual readers, if it’s good writing, not overly formulaic, and of broad general appeal–in other words, if it’s a good story told well.

Some fantasy titles have already become crossover books. One example is Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon, a retelling of the Arthurian legends from a perspective that was both feminist and Pagan. This was a sufficiently original concept and execution that it appealed to a lot of readers who don’t normally read a lot of fantasy. Also, it may be that because the Arthurian legends are old and respectable, many don’t consider them to be fantasy stories. They are.

There are a number of other fantasy authors whose books have crossover potential, and also there are some fantasy titles that already do straddle the border between fantasy and some other genre. Much of Stephen King’s writing falls into this latter category.

Since fantasy is defined as any story containing fantastic or mythic elements, it’s particularly likely to achieve crossover status, compared for example to romance, mystery, or thriller, all of which are defined more narrowly. The range of stories that could be called “fantasy” is enormous, and again, if one avoids formulaic writing and strives for originality, solid characterization, strong plot, and the rest of what characterizes good storytelling, the potential appeal is equally huge.

Why Write Fantasy?

I write fantasy because I read fantasy. In fact, I think one can make that a universal rule: any type of fiction you write should also be what you like to read. If you don’t like to read it, you won’t understand it and you won’t write it well, at least not if you’re trying to write it. (If you end up writing in a genre by accident, that’s different; in that case you’re already halfway to creating a crossover story. But one cannot deliberately set out to accidentally write a particular type of story; that’s oxymoronic.)

The question then is not why one would want to write fantasy but rather why one would want to read it. Answer that question and the other answers itself.

This brings up the question of what we expect from a story, something that varies from reader to reader except in the most general terms. And that in turn brings up the observation that literary genres fall into two categories relating to how they are defined. Some are defined in terms of what kind of plot devices or story elements are present (fantasy, mystery, science fiction, romance, westerns). Others, however, are defined in terms of the feelings they arouse in us (thrillers, horror, romance, erotica). I put romance in both categories. It belongs in both, because it’s defined by story elements and by prevailing emotional tone. There can be quite a bit of crossover between these two sorts of classifications. The fantasy horror story is a perfect example; actually most horror is also fantasy, though not all (that most fantasy is horror, however, is absolutely not the case). The techno-thriller is a cross of the thriller and science fiction. A fantasy thriller is also quite possible. So is a fantasy romance, or a western horror story, or a mystery thriller; you get the idea.

If there were a common emotional tone to fantasy (even at times if it is horror or thriller fantasy), I would say it’s a sense of wonder. In reading a fantasy story, one should have the sense (part of the time anyway) that one is in the presence of something extraordinary and beyond the norm, before which one’s impulse is to stand in open-mouthed awe, to sink to one’s knees in devotion, or to recoil in loathing. That sense of wonder happens to be something I like and something I seek in real life. I’m also inclined by nature to mythic thinking (though I understand the difference between that and linear, logical thinking and the importance of the latter). All of this is important in fantasy, and, thus, it’s a genre that appeals to me–provided, always, that it consists of a good story told well.

How-To Information about Fantasy Writing

The best way to learn how to write fantasy is to read a lot of it, and then just do it. There really isn’t–or at least shouldn’t be–a fixed set of rules for fantasy writing other than those that apply to all fiction writing in terms of style, characterization, plot development, and so on.

For that reason, I’m going to resist the temptation to present links to web sites or references to books that claim to offer instruction in “how to write fantasy.” If you want to learn how to write fantasy, then you should:

1)  Learn how to write fiction
2)  Read fantasy

There are a few hints, though, that apply more to fantasy than to other fiction writing; they involve what not to do.

1) Don’t let your fantasy elements become more important than the story.
2) Don’t try to write fantasy to a rigid formula.
3) Don’t get so reliant on the fantasy elements of your story that they become a deus ex  machina that takes the place of good plot construction.

To make a story a fantasy story, all you have to do is include fantastic elements in it in some fashion that makes sense according to the story’s internal logic. Take Gone with the Wind and splice in a slave who hits Scarlett O’Hara with a voodoo curse and you have a fantasy. Take The Grapes of Wrath and add a migrant farm worker who is advised and comforted by his grandmother’s ghost and you have a fantasy. Take The Three Musketeers and give D’Artagnan a magic heirloom sword and you have a fantasy. That part’s easy. The fantasy elements are what make the story a fantasy, but they aren’t by themselves what make it a good story.

The rest of writing good fantasy is again just writing good fiction. The rules are no different than they are in any other sort of fiction writing. If you try too hard to conform to what you believe are the conventions of fantasy, thinking that fantasy fiction is somehow going by different rules than other sorts of fiction, you’re not going to be as successful as you could be. There’s only one sense in which the rules are different in fantasy. A fantasy fan may (but then again may not) appreciate fantasy writing that isn’t good enough to appeal to someone who isn’t a fantasy fan. But to set out deliberately to appeal to that sort of reader is, in my belief, a mistake. Write something good, and you’ll still appeal to that sort of reader, but you’ll appeal to others as well.

However, in the spirit of this point, I would like to present one web site that caught my eye in a humorous vein. It consists of a “fantasy novelist’s exam” and presents a number of shticks and tics that anyone who has read a good bit of bad fantasy will recognize and laugh about, and that anyone who wants to write good fantasy should avoid.

There are two more tips, which may be generalized to any genre of fiction writing but apply particularly well to fantasy:

1)  Make sure that your fantasy elements are logically consistent. You are making something up and adding it to ordinary reality. Take care to ensure that your made-up elements don’t contradict themselves.
2) If you are incorporating non-fantastic elements in your story that are not part of the ordinary reality experienced by most people, for example ancient or medieval arts or facts of life, do your homework and ensure you get them right. There are people who know about blacksmithing, horsemanship, fighting with antique weapons, and the feudal system, for example. If you’re going to write about these things, make sure you do, too.

Other than that, the only rule to writing good fantasy is to tell a good story and tell it well.