Genre or Literary

In my last post, I mentioned the fiction with “genre-“ in the vanguard, and I thought I’d dive a little deeper into that today. It’s an interest of mine, because “fantasy” is a kind of fiction often arbitrarily attached to “genre-.”

Now, don’t get me wrong: I know that “genre-fantasy” is real, it’s alive, and it’s rampant in America today. My academic advisor has intimated – well, in truth, he has outright said this; I’m not sure that’s a holistic definition for him or not. But he has indicated a belief that all fantasy is genre fantasy. I don’t think truly discerning critics will see no difference between Dragonlance and Lord of the Rings. And there are books out there trying to firmly divide asunder the difference between literary fantasy and genre fantasy. Let me try to briefly give my own views, and one goal I am working personally toward with my book(s).

Genre fantasy is fantasy in which the author and reader live firmly in the knowledge that they are reading a fantasy world. A great example is Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I have both the book and the movie, and both are good in their own ways. But the characters’ worldview is one in which heroes are “Chosen” and go on quests and adventures, and defeat great evil. And to an extent, even the characters in Lord of the Rings acknowledge this – but its more from a sense that they are living in a great and terrible time, and great deeds must meet great evil in order for everyone – or even anyone – to survive. The characters’ hesitancy is not: “I’m not a hero,” as it is in Dragonlance. Rather, their hesitancy is simply in their feeling of inadequacy to meet the challenges before them. No real human being is ever going to say, in the midst of a real-life circumstance or struggle, “I’m not a hero.” They may very well say: “I don’t think I can do this,” which is in Lord of the Rings.

That, I believe, is the key to literary fantasy – and constitutes my goal when writing my book. I want my readers to reach the end and think something along the lines of: “I understand this has dragons and magic in it; but why is this labeled fantasy? It seems like real life to me.” In different words, I don’t want my characters to live in the knowledge that they are in a fantasy world. It’s fantasy to us, because the creatures and some of the rules in it are fanciful, and don’t actually exist in reality. By definition alone, the world in the book is fantasy; the characters, however, should be real. I want the book to say: “You will never fight a Cerberus; but you will encounter a circumstance that seems to overwhelm you, that you feel completely unequipped to fight, and may paralyze you with terror; and this is how you may feel. But with strength and friends, you can overcome it.”

That is what genre-fantasy ignores: it says that this world and these characters are fantasy to you, and to the characters. It doesn’t acknowledge that the fantasy world is normal to the characters – there’s always some assumption at some level by the characters that things aren’t real. Not our real, anyway.

See you tomorrow.