I was reading the blog of someone I used to speak to more in former days than I do now, back before they got a little strange and decided to break contact with a group of friends we used to have in common and go off into their own 'the way I live my life is right for me and forget everyone else' bubble. Now, although I rarely hear from them anymore (at all, really), I was reading their blog. They, like myself, was a fan of the fantasy genre, but more recently they've decided they 'want to write about real people and real scenarios because fantasy is made-up.' Not their exact words, but the sentiment was there.

And it annoyed me greatly.

Now, I don't have a problem with them wanting to do that, per se, but I did have a problem with the narrow-minded way they spoke of fantasy, as if it was only for children or people out of touch with reality. Here, I will make the assertion that such a sentiment can't be further from the truth.

As a writer, as any kind of writer, whether you like fantasy, romance, horror or crime stories as your genre of choice to write about, there are a few things you need to know, need to do. You need to know about people and human nature--what makes people act and tick, what makes them do the things they do, say the things they say. This is something universal that cuts across all genres, regardless of whether you've made up the world your story is taking place in or not. If you'd like to write something in a realistic setting, hats off to you. Have fun. But keep in mind that the above still applies--you can be writing about the king of England and if you don't make him believable to your reader, whether he's real or you're supposing he's someone that will rule England in the future, he's going to come across to an audience as a flat character and even if your story is realistic, people won't care for it. If you don't know human nature, or know the basics behind how the world (and this applies to any world) works, you're going to screw it up. But if you think your writing will be 'better' just because it takes place in the 'real world' have fun thinking that.

I suppose the point I'm driving at to refute what this person has said is, it's not what you write but how you write it. It's always irritated me when people relegate fantasy into a corner because it never happened or never can happen. That doesn't mean the stories are 'immature' (look at the Kushiel series if you want a hint of what I mean) or exclusively for children and teenagers. Even stories in fantastical settings require research if the author wants to convey something similar to what exists in real life, Kushiel being another good example of adult fantasy that does that (yes, *gasp* I said the words 'adult' and 'fantasy' in the same sentence, it does exist, Virginia!).

You need to have a certain mindset to observe people, as well. If you're more of a talker than a listener, you won't grasp as much as say, the person that is sitting listening rather than actively joining into a conversation. Not to say that you can't talk and observe at the same time, but the key is, you need to have an awareness outside of yourself, an awareness that isn't selfish and self-absorbed and interested only in what you think, want, or are speaking of. Again, it's something universal to all genres, not just fantasy, not just crime stories or realistic-what-have-you. If you're selfish with your feelings, closed off to the feelings of others, or are afraid to be open to things because your personal feelings/religion/etc. forbids it, you're not being a writer. You're not experiencing the full gamut of life, even if you dislike or have moral objections to some of it. You're being selective and in the end, limiting your own growth as a writer and more importantly, as a person. Just because you write about something doesn't make you that thing or subject. I could write about a crack-smoking street-walker in first person, but that doesn't make me a crack-smoking street-walker, it makes me a writer putting myself into the shoes of a street-walker for the duration of a story, nothing more or less.

I'm sorry if this seems out of the blue or even crass to some of you; I have pet peeves when it comes to narrow-mindedness based on limited experiences or people thinking one genre is 'superior' to another. That's something else that simply isn't true.

There are superior writers, not superior genres, and I wish more people would recognize that.



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