Hello hello! Welcome back! It's blog day again! Today I'm dragging my braincells together to talk about why fantasy is my genre of choice and what made me turn to it in the first place.
Sometimes even I question why I willingly put myself through the trouble of inventing an entirely new world on top of the endeavor of everything else that goes into writing a book, but the truth is, as much as I complain about worldbuilding, I do have fun with it.
Like so many readers and writers I know, I have always found a haven in books. They're an escape from our world, and even if they still take place in our world, the stories on the pages take us away from our own lives and allow us to step into another for a while. We set aside our cares and worries and instead follow a protagonist along their journey, and maybe that journey helps us along our own. One of my favorite feelings is getting absolutely lost in a book. That feeling where the book grabs you and doesn't let go until you turn the last page, and you have to stare at the wall for a bit because somehow 6 hours have gone by and you didn't notice a thing because that book just hit different.
I think I'm in a reading slump right now, because I haven't actually felt that about a book in a hot minute, and now I'm wishing for it lol.
Anyway, I love getting lost in books, especially in worlds that are not this one. Or worlds that are this one, but with a twist. I grew up with books like The Tale of Despereaux and The Chronicles of Narnia, so this love of other-world fantasy has been there for as long as I can remember. In middle school, Harry Potter was a gateway drug to so many other books that refreshed my love of reading. Then in high school I got hooked on Doctor Who, which opened up a world of possibilities to my creative little brain. I started to realize that the stories I wrote could take place anywhere, and I could just make stuff up and make my own rules and it didn't have to make sense because, y'know, ~magic~!
I quickly learned, however, that invented worlds do have to make some kind of sense, and listen, fantasy is great because you can make everything up, but at the same time... you have to make everything up. A blessing and a curse. Worldbuilding is hard, and with every new, sprawling world I sketch out for a book comes a wealth of questions and nuances that I have to answer in order for it to seem like a real, liveable place. Settings are characters, too, and fleshing them out takes just as much effort as developing the actual characters. I struggle with worldbuilding for pretty much every book/story I write, but y'know what, it's worth it. Because that moment when it comes together and I finally get a gorgeous harmony between the characters and their world and how those two things affect each other, it's unmatched glee.
Writing is, to me, like an elaborate game of make-believe that never ends. Think about it. Did you have imaginary friends when you were a kid? Did you take your toys and stuff on adventures and make up stories for them? Like not to get existential on main, but writing books is literally the same thing as that, except on paper. My characters are just imaginary friends that I like to kick around and be mean to. Writing fantasy lets me continue those make-believe games with all the whimsical and impossible elements that makes them limitless. Sure, I have to explain the impossible things, I guess, but having a structured and logical magic system and having a touch of whimsy are not mutually exclusive. That's the beauty of magic: it changes, it evolves, and it can be anything. I doubt I will ever write a book that doesn't have at least a little magic in it. If I can't have cool magic, then damn it, my characters will!
Also, writing second-world fantasy lets me take a break from this world. Sure, the fictional world is going to have its own problems, but they're not going to be stupid things like sexism and homophobia. What's the point of writing a fantasy novel if you're just going to keep our world's bigotry? All of my books have queer and/or trans characters, and they have better things to deal with than ignorance. Like saving magic from destruction. Or stealing an old artifact from a god. Let them do their thing without it being a huge deal that they're queer.
So yes, inventing an entirely new world in which I have to make up the rules and structure and all that is not a walk in the park. But the worlds in my books typically evolve naturally alongside the plot and characters, so at this point, it's just another part of the process. I don't tend to do a lot of conscious worldbuilding; only when I'm trying to nail down a magic system and establish rules for it. Otherwise, the vibes and inspiration and aesthetic develop as I write and get fleshed out and revised along with everything else. But despite the struggles, there is something freeing about writing a fantasy world of my own invention, and it's really cool to see how it changes over time with the story.
Also every time I place a lamp post in a fantasy novel, it's a personal flex against Tolkien.
But yeah! Fantasy is fun! And basically limitless! Full of potential! And the awesome thing is that no two fantasy writers are ever going to do the same thing the same way. This genre has so much potential for so much diversity, and I love that I've been seeing a lot more non-western-inspired fantasy novels these days. I can't wait to see what the genre looks like a few years from now.
Before I go, some updates!
What I'm reading: god who knows. I've got three books going: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn, Amelia Unabridged by Ashley Schumacher, and Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo. Three books that are really cool and really good, and yet! I can't read! I hate reading slumps!! I need to get in gear with Shadow and Bone, though, because some friends and I are doing a full Grishaverse re-read before the Netflix series premieres, and I'm already three days behind so like I Actually need to read today. I should...go do that.
What I'm writing: still making my way through revisions of THE DEMON MAGE, and it's going well! I'm at the turning point chapter, the point of no return where shit hits the fan. The plot really picks up after this point, so I'm hoping to power through the rest of the draft in the last few weeks of the month. I'm also picking away at a new short story, penciling in a Save the Cat! for the sequel to The Oracle Stone, and fiddling with a novella I started a while back. But TDM is my priority right now, so that's getting most of my attention.
That's all for this week! See y'all next time!
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