Why is fantasy getting so popular all of the sudden?

Discussing it with my wife, she made an interesting observation: Maybe the popularity of fantasy is booming because our culture was getting too saturated with reality TV?
Hm. I read somewhere the more rational the world gets, the more irrational fantasy needs to be.

Fantasy is one of the oldest forms of storytelling. We used the fantastic to attempt to explain the world when science could not. But, now that science can explain a great deal of the workings of our world, where does fantasy fit in?

We dream in fiction every night. So fiction must be important to our everyday lives, somehow. My wife jokingly said, “I don’t know anyone who dreams in non-fiction!”

I fondly look back on my early childhood, remembering what it was like to live within the constraints of my imagination without impunity. As I grew older, role-models made it clear I was expected to cast aside my childish ways. The problem with that was, any innocence I loosened my grip on could not be regained. The imagination I have left is what survived being smothered by grown-ups, and what survived the harsh sting of the real world. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve read that a great way to learn more about writing quickly is by joining some kind of writer’s circle or critique group. So, I’ve been looking around, and found there’s only one local group around where I live, called “Wordsmiths by Night” (named such because they all have day jobs, and gather together at night after work to write at the local coffee shops). That sounded really nice, but I guess I was hoping for a fiction-only group. Maybe even a fantasy-only group. I checked at my college and, to my dismay, they didn’t even have a writing club! Realizing how limited my options were, and not having the free time to run my own, I took my search online.

I joined writing.com and critiquecircle.com, but the upgrade-to-paid-membership schemes there were a big turn-off. Luckily, I came across a blog that mentioned Forward Motion (fmwriters.com). I was surprised I hadn’t come across it before, considering it was founded by Holly Lisle. It’s been around for more than ten years and the group is tightly knit. It houses a treasure-trove of knowledge and the people there are very friendly, patient, and willing to help writers of any skill-level. Their mission statement is basically to guide its members to a writing level suitable for being considering for publication. Despite the website’s archaic appearance, it’s one of the largest writer’s communities out there. Considering the friendly, inviting atmosphere, I’m not surprised!

They post challenges every month as writing warm-ups, and this month was haikus. I dove right into their challenge and had a lot of fun. And, as usual, critiques are welcome!

Dare I rhyme haiku,
Even though I don’t have to?
Dare to rhyme, I do.

Scratches on the wall …
In a jail cell … in a jail
Cell … in a jail cell…

To him, it was like
A morganatic union;
Left us with nothing. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not a writer should write in such a way that risks offending some of their readers. I know I’ve watched movies or read books where it seemed like the political or moral points were painfully transparent. People often say they are too preachy, trying to shove their ideals down their throats. But the secret is, almost every movie and book out there has an opinion; fiction, non-fiction, whatever – Some writers are just more skillful at disguising it with metaphor and plot than others.

Hearing opinions challenges people; forces people to think – to face things they have never faced before – to look in the mirror and finally admit “That’s me”. It’s my contention that people need to hear opinions. It is both healthy and necessary for humans to explore their opinions, state them, and try to understand why somebody else’s might differ, without losing their temper. It takes practice. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay…
After most of my personal inner struggles were out of the way and all the dust seemed to settle, I was left with the lucid fact I wanted to write high fantasy. My goal had become ‘to complete a book I could enjoy writing and be proud of – publishers be damned!’ So I pressed onward.

Books on authoring typically claimed the next step for the aspiring writer was the tired old cliche: “Read, read, read”. Read fiction. Non-fiction. The phone book. The backs of cereal boxes. Everything.
Fair enough.

Read the rest of this entry »

I guess the first step is to declare that you do. “I want to be a writer.” There. Easy. Well … not so easy. The first thing the authors of most books about ‘becoming a professional writer’ try to do is scare you away from the very idea of becoming reclusive monsters like them, complete with horror stories of broken families, heartbreak, total ruin, nervous breakdowns, paltry incomes where they had to eat ramen every day for a month, and other frustrating situations. And if that fails to deter you, they still leave you faced with a tough, life-altering decision.

I actually decided I wanted to be a writer one day when I was mindlessly flipping through TV channels at my wife’s parent’s house. (For the record, I almost never watch TV.) But anyway, there was this interview with J.K. Rowling on. It was the day before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was going to hit the shelves. A large chunk of the world was trembling in drooly anticipation for their copies. I remember there being a … let’s call it a ‘suspicious modesty’ … about her as she bounced from question to question. But the interviewer was incredibly savvy at slipping in difficult questions making them seem like innocent follow-ups using the ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique, and, before she knew it, Rowling was transported back to her past. She found herself talking about her beginnings; writing the first Harry Potter book on a typewriter in an upstairs apartment, weeks away from being evicted. About how she came up with the idea for the book randomly on a train ride one day, with just a name at the tip of her tongue: “Harry”, and a vague idea that he would attend some kind of magic school. About how the rest of the story came with a lot of hard work and conviction. It was amazing. Then, I found myself wondering how many times I had dismissed my own ‘Harry’ ideas. And, most importantly, I remember thinking, “If she can do it, why can’t I?”.

But then a Deathly follow-up question creeped up on me. And it was: “What do -I- have to offer to the world of literature?”

Read the rest of this entry »