Are You Writing Serious Fantasy?

[Starbreeze]

Thanks so much for the link Maril!

How much research does everyone put into their work? Like, if you need to know of a poison, or of symptoms or animal behaviors, etc. Or, when, say, "inventing" a sickness (ie. Frodo after he got stabbed by the Morgul blade) do you spend that much time on making it realistic? A friend of mine says she doesn't. That because it's HER story, and it's FANTASY, that whatever she says goes. No questions. End of story. I am inclined not to agree. What about everyone else?

Um, research...well, lets just say that I spend more time on research than on my story, but that's half the fun! I love researching, I hope to persue it as a career, and it adds extra enjoyment to my story. I also love to learn, so investigating herbs, or celtic mythology, or medicine through the ages, or clothing, is really satisfying.
I think that in fantasy, to make it really good, you need to make it real, not just a superficial world that vanishes when you put down the book, it has to come alive, and live on past the pages, in the inaginations of real people, then it becomes real, then you have created real fantasy.
Did you ever hear the quote "Fantasy is a place"? I hope to reach that place in my writing, and I won't be satisfied until I do.
Going back to what little man poet said about the levels of writing - well, to make good fantasy, level 5 or 6, you need detail and you need to make it real - without those factors its just another book - I would not be happy if people saw my work in that way.
Tolkien's books are not 'just another book', they are real - as we can see from the number of members on this board, and on others.
I have to make my world real for me. I have to make it so that I can escape there when I write - then I know that when people read it they will escape too. I feel that the main purpose of fantasy is to enable the reader to escape, if I can't achieve that, not least for myself, then it needs more.
Well, I was going to write more, but I guess I have already repeated my self too much and I don't want complaints that people have died of boredom, I don't want that many deaths on my hands! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Welcome Naaramare, to the Downs! Post lots and enjoy being dead!
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