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Mark Kamibaya posted an update 9 years, 2 months ago
@kate-flournoy So what exactly is quality fantasy?
Mark Kamibaya posted an update 9 years, 2 months ago
@kate-flournoy So what exactly is quality fantasy?
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Hm… good question. 😛
I think it’s the kind of fantasy that isn’t full of stereotyped plot twists and characters who just toss magic around like it was nothing. It’s complex— believable. It has creatures no one has ever heard of before— in this case Naldo and Ingrim and Nervil, and beautiful moths that glow in the dark. 😉
It’s a fantasy story that isn’t always told from the perspective of this poor guy who doesn’t know who his father was, (though that can sometimes be a valid plot twist) and it has a lot of complicated, realistic human relationships— and dragon relationships. It’s full of hard-hitting themes, struggling, human characters, friends betraying each other and becoming enemies… in short, it’s quality fantasy. Not ‘just another fairy tale’.
At least… in my opinion. 😀
Sounds awesome! I really love the fact that it’s full of hard-hitting themes and struggling/betraying stuff. I mean the chosen one (who’s usually an orphan) is so overused (even though I’m all for giving a stereotype and then psyching out the reader by flipping it). Fantasy, I believe, is written as a quality novel in a unique setting and unique characters. When you allow the author to have that large amount of creativity and so much uniqueness you expect something of more quality. It’s so cool that you’re aiming high for this.
Well, better to aim high and fall short than to aim too low and reach it. 🙂
Yes, it definitely helps to come from a unique perspective and think about the facets that aren’t usually explored in fantasy. One thing I forgot to mention in my first post was the villains. You probably noticed that most fantasy villains (speaking generally) are the ‘dark lord’ stereotype. I like taking regular men with regular ambitions and family lives and things like that, and turning them into these awesome (if you will permit me to say it 😛 ) complicated bad guys who inspire both pity, understanding, and hatred. I only have one Dark Lord, and he pretty much had to be that way for his story and because… because of something I can’t say without spoiling a part of it! 😉
Something also I’ve noticed about ‘normal’ fantasy that I am working with to twist around is that more often than not the MC’s don’t have real inner conflicts of their own. They are all eager and inspired to go get the bad guy and save the world and all that, but they’re not really interested in moral stuff— flaws they have in their own character that need fixing.
And all the betrayal stuff and the hard hitting themes really make it so much more enjoyable to write.
Oh, by the way (and the post is getting longer and longer) I have this weird theory that a Christian theme will actually come out much, much stronger in a book where the characters themselves don’t have a Christian worldview. I think that’s one of the things that makes fantasy such a great opportunity to weave in a lot of important themes. Maybe it’s because when a non-Christian reader picks up a book and sees a complete absence of, say, prayer, or ‘religion’ in the characters, they don’t feel like they are having the author’s worldview shoved down their throat, which makes them that much more receptive to your final climax of a theme. What do you think?