Mainstream Fantasy

[Spriggan]

That wouldn't be the first, or last, time you've had to use an Umbrella to keep yourself from getting coverd in something besides water.

[Entsuropi]

Someone sounds jealous.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

Jade (and incidentally, you MIGHT be able to get away with using "Jade Knight" if you want to have a female pen name, justdrop the "the".

anyway, your first stories and books can be pretty generic. You're still learning, adapting. You have to start somewhere.

[The Jade Knight]

Well, see, here's my problem.  I've the intention of sticking largely with just one Fantasy world.  I've spent years developing it, and I'd love to spend years more working on it.  I'm just wondering if I will be shunned because I follow on the Tolkienesque tradition.

I'm already beginning to think that my writing will have to be of an "exception that proves the rule" style - focusing on the less "orthodox" aspects of the world in order to remove myself from the D&D steriotype.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

well, as EUOL told me, "if it doesn't act like an elf, than it's not an elf." so if any of the races act different, just name them different. Of course, I don't know how different yours is, not having read it, but there's something.

There's always exceptions. After all, Terry Brooks does very well with elves and dwarves and such. Of course, his first is 30 years old now, but still. i think you'd have a better shot at publishing with a completely original world, but if you're writing for yourself and the love of what you've done, then who can nay say that?

[The Jade Knight]

That begs the question of why.

Granted, Fantasy is Fantasy—Speculative Fiction.  It's supposed to be "different", right?  But does that mean reinventing the wheel?  Tolkien didn't.  Jordan certainly didn't.  It sounds like Eragon didn't.  We all know Harry Potter didn't.

In fact, even classics like Sir Orfeo and Gawain and the ilk were just continuations of a rich tradition of "embellishing" what we have.  Some Fantasy, granted, was quite imaginative.  And Tolkien took the Medieval "stereotype" to a whole new level.

But why does it have to be different for the mere sake of being different?

I like to think I'm taking a rich tradition, choosing elements I find personally pleasing or meaningful in some way or other, changing them as I perceive they ought to be, and adding my own material.

Yes, there will be new races and monsters and creatures.  But why must the old also be precluded?

Do we read Fantasy merely because we never want to see the same race or monster twice, or is there a greater sehnsucht (as Lewis called it) that just makes us want to see magic in the world?


I concede, of course, that if the market is dead-set against any further Tolkienesque Fantasty, I'm going to be in trouble trying to get published in my own setting (as it stands).  But, if it's that way, then why?  And if it isn't that way, why are we acting like it should be?


[Out of curiosity, does the full dash above appear correctly for anyone?  I'm wondering if my computer is just having formatting problems or if the forum doesn't support full ANSI]

[Entsuropi]

The forum doesn't like apostrophies sometimes, especially if copy/pasted from outside the text box.

[fuzzyoctopus]

Yeah just don't copy paste, in general, and that will solve the problem.

[EUOL]

All right, time to weigh in.

Jade, I have no problem with you resurrecting this thread, since it seems you have something very rational and interesting to say.  Well done.

However, I see myself in a little bit of a position to give advice on this matter.  Don't take anything I say too harshly--I'm partially just playing devil's advocate here.

Your take on Tolkienesque fantasy will not be original, and it will not sell.  You've spent years working on a world.  Good job.  Write a book (one) in that world, and do it quickly, then move on.  

Almost everyone who wants to break into this genre has a pet world they've been working on since they were fourteen.  The problem with these worlds is twofold.  First, it will be TOO big.  You'll have too much you want to show--and because of that, your narrative will get laden down with your worldbuilding and the whole thing will sink.  Secondly, you are putting all your eggs in one basket.  If this world isn't good enough to catch an editor's eye, you won't get published, no matter how many books you write in it.

This is just my personal theory.  However, I think that if you force yourself to write consistently in new worlds, you will get better at writing much more quickly.  You will force yourself to be more original so that you don't repeat yourself, and you will get practice starting new plots, worlds, and characters from scratch.  

This worked for me.  It was hard to toss my pet world.  However, the beauty in it was I was able to come BACK to that world later, after I'd practiced a lot of quick, effective worldbuilding, and then I was actually able to do it justice.  I didn't do that until I'd written SEVEN other novels, however.  

I guess the short answer to your question is: Yes, writing a book with elves and dwarves will seriously hamper your ability to get published.  People are tired of reading those stories (no matter how clever your take on them) and editors are tired of reading them.  

You want to think yourself an exception?  Well, I truly wish you good luck.  Exceptions get published all the time.  However, why start yourself out of the gate so far behind everyone else?

(By the way--most current fantasy I read has very few, if any, non-human races.  Also, remember that Robert Jordan--the last big Tolkienesque writer--started fifteen years ago.  The genre has changed a lot since that day, even though he has enough momentum to keep selling large numbers.)

This was a response to your first post.  Response to your second one coming next.

[EUOL]

Okay, response number two.  (Look above this one for my first response.)

Now let me address your questions in the second post.  These were also very good for discussion, and I compliment you on them.

My reaction is as follows:

Granted, Fantasy is Fantasy—Speculative Fiction.  It's supposed to be "different", right?  But does that mean reinventing the wheel?  Tolkien didn't.  Jordan certainly didn't.  It sounds like Eragon didn't.  We all know Harry Potter didn't.

I beg to differ.  Where did orcs come from?  I know of no mythological foundation for them.  Also, Tolkien's elves.  They're very different from fae folk I've read of in lore.  He did create quite a bit, and the rest he changed.

The difference between him and you is that he did it first.  I'm sorry, but that's the way it is.  Because Tolkien did it, and because he had such an effect on the market, anyone who uses 'elf' in a fantasy book has to react against what Tolkien wrote.  

Jordan didn't, but he's fifteen years old.  That was during the era where Tolkien clones were still in vogue (though, I'd argue that his books mark the transition.  He used a good mixture of the old and the new.  The big difference is that he made it 'feel' new.  If I read 'elf, dwarf, ect' in a book, you CAN NOT make it feel new to me.  You've essentially shot yourself in the foot, and all your creativity has been thrown out the window.)

Now, Harry Potter is a different story altogether.  For good or for worse, much YA fantasy doesn't take itself as seriously as mainstream adult fantasy does.  In the adult market, we're all a bit pompous and self-important.  In the YA market, things are different, and the younger readers are willing to accept different things.  

(And as for Eragon--it sold off of reputation and novelty.  And it didn't sell to the traditional mainstream fantasy market.)

However, even still, Rolling reached back to the original sources (like Tolkien did) and created something new from them.  If you're using Tolkien as a primary source instead, I think that you're kind of making a copy of a copy, which weakens the piece intrinsically.

But why does it have to be different for the mere sake of being different?

Because that's one of the reasons people READ fantasy.  To get something different!  If it's the same as Tolkien, then why read your book?  I'll go read Tolkien!  Or one of the people who ripped him off with style, like Tad Williams or Stephen Donaldson.

I like to think I'm taking a rich tradition, choosing elements I find personally pleasing or meaningful in some way or other, changing them as I perceive they ought to be, and adding my own material.

Great!  Have a blast.  We don't want to read it.  If you enjoy writing it, then that's a good reason to do so.  However, don't expect to sell it.

Yes, there will be new races and monsters and creatures.  But why must the old also be precluded?

Do we read Fantasy merely because we never want to see the same race or monster twice, or is there a greater sehnsucht (as Lewis called it) that just makes us want to see magic in the world?

It's not about seeing the same monster or race twice, Jade.  It's about seeing it a HUNDRED times.  There's a reason why Tolkienesque fantasy sold so well through the 80's.  It was still fresh then.  However, it's been done so much that it's worn thin.  

I concede, of course, that if the market is dead-set against any further Tolkienesque Fantasy, I'm going to be in trouble trying to get published in my own setting (as it stands).  But, if it's that way, then why?  And if it isn't that way, why are we acting like it should be?

Trouble?  Try A LOT of trouble.  I'm not sure if I understand those last two questions.  Why is it hard to sell Tolkienesque fantasy?  For the same reason that it would be hard to sell SF books with Klingons, or make a comic book character called Spider-guy.  Copyright issues aside, we already have those stories.  We want new ones.  

I ask you, why are you so set on using Tolkien's races?  If your take on them is original, then why are they Tolkien's races any more, and why do you have to give them the same names?

Again, I'm hitting it harder than, perhaps, I need to.  However, I do believe what I'm saying.  Also, I do have a little bit of experience with selling first novels....

[stacer]

Now, Harry Potter is a different story altogether.  For good or for worse, much YA fantasy doesn't take itself as seriously as mainstream adult fantasy does.  In the adult market, we're all a bit pompous and self-important.  In the YA market, things are different, and the younger readers are willing to accept different things.

Um, EUOL, I beg to differ. The YA market takes its work seriously enough. But it grows out of a different tradition, perhaps. One thing we talked about a lot at the conference I was at this weekend was how in the 1950s, juvenile SF shifted from being written by SF writers like Heinlein to drawing mainly from writers for children. They have different goals. SF writers wrote with an eye for the hard science, and writers for children focused on other things, such as social interaction and society building, and the hard science became secondary. I think the same might be said for fantasy, though there is a bit of crossover in the older age groups. Perhaps what you might be referring to is a willingness to draw upon archetypes? I really don't see the distinction as that of seriousness. Would you elaborate on what you mean by "different" things that younger readers are willing to accept?

Harry Potter, by the way, is strictly middle reader to early YA, until the last book, if you're going to slot it in any one age group.

[EUOL]

Stacer,

I knew you would take exception to this, even though I meant it as a compliment.  

The YA I have read--and yes, I am a philistine who puts middle-grade together with YA--has been much more lighthearted than the typical 'adult' fantasy.

Harry Potter.  Lemony Snicket.  Artemis Foul.  All three of these tell very good stories, but the authors don't seem to take themselves quite as seriously as people like Jordan, Donaldson, or Goodkind.  They aren't as worried about inconstancies in the worldbuilding, and they don't have the ponderous air of seriousness that I see in their mainstream fantasy counterparts.  

The 'different' I was talking about refers mostly to worldbuilding, I think.  But, there is also an air of whimsicalness to the YA lit I've read, something that is mostly absent from the adult counterparts.

[stacer]

I'll give you that, but only because your sample size is small and tends toward middle readers. All three of them, actually, go in the middle reader section of the bookstore (to use your definition of genre), not the young adult. Thing about your "philistine" view, is that there really is a big difference between those age groups.

I'm currently reading Charles de Lint's Riddle of the Wren, which is YA fantasy, and it more resembles the non-whimsical, though world-building is still not the top of the list. But that's not to say that his world-building isn't good. But he's also a crossover writer. Who knows, even though it's currently being marketed as a YA, it might have been released as an adult book back in 1984 when it was originally published. He does publish specifically for the YA market now (The Blue Girl, which I reviewed last fall, is his most recent) while still publishing books for adults, sometimes in the same world.

What do you think of the idea, though, about juvenile SF changing in the 1950s? Do you think something similar is what's going on in fantasy? I'd say yes, though I'd qualify it that there was never a shift in YA and children's fantasy the way that there was in SF, but the idea remains the same: fantasy writers for adults have a much shorter history to draw upon, if they're just looking back to Tolkien. This goes back to the idea that fantasy has long been considered the realm of the young. Alice in Wonderland, George MacDonald, Water-Babies...all the Victorian fantasists, and then the American fantasists like Frank Baum, are a foundation that current children's writers build upon and react to (in addition to Tolkien--another boundary-crosser--and adult fantasists).

But it's not just the history, I don't mean to say that--it's also the emphasis. Just because they don't focus on worldbuilding doesn't mean that they're not taking other elements seriously. They just focus on other elements, such as characterization and plot.

[stacer]

Stacer,

I knew you would take exception to this, even though I meant it as a compliment.  

Hey, I like to argue with you. It's been a while since I've had a good one.  

[Entsuropi]

Tolkiens elves were not based upon fae (which were celtic) but upon the nordic elves. Not sure what they were like either, but from what i've seen his dwarves are pretty close to the original myths.

The Midkemia books still sell, featuring elves and dwarves (though he did start writing them into the sidelines after the first book).

Finally, uh, how is Jordan a tolkien writer? It has trollocs (which are described very differently from orcs) some other critters (again, different) and humans. While it has similar 'everything great is gone, the present is the twilight of the past' theme to LoTR, thats hardly uncommon.