Why Write Epic Fantasy?
The Keep of Winds, from "The Heir of Night" -- art by PJ Fitzpatrick
Having started to reflect on epic fantasy here on the blog, particularly what the “core” of the genre is, I’ve also started looking around on the internet to see what other folk are thinking or saying. And I have to say, as an epic fantasy lover and author myself, I potentially found it quite depressing. To understand why, here’s a sample of some of the things I read:
🙁 epic fantasy as a genre is misogynist, both in the storytelling and the attention paid to female authors of the genre (i.e. your chances of being a successful epic fantasy author are considerably reduced if you’re a gal);
🙁 epic fantasy glorifies violence for its own sake;
🙁 epic fantasy in particular (and fantasy in general) is reactionary and about denying change, growth and/or renewal;
🙁 other genres, such as romance, paranormal urban fantasy, crime and YA generally all sell a lot better than epic fantasy, so a writer has a considerably enhanced chance of a successful career if s/he switches to one of these genres.
Depressed, ‘you won’t be after the next exciting instalment of …’ But you may recall that I said “potentially” depressed, because I refuse to be actually depressed even if all this is true. So why is that?
Firstly, I love epic fantasy as a genre. Not necessarily every example that’s ever been penned, especially if the stories are misogynistic, reactionary and glorify violence (which sadly, I feel some do), but the genre itself. Remembering that epic fantasy at its best is all about the ability to address the grand sweep of events, in many cases world altering, ask the big questions and use the play of those events to examine the internal conflicts they generate within the protagonists. Great stuff, in my opinion—I love reading it, so it’s perhaps not surprising that I write it as well.
But there are other reasons, I believe, for choosing to write epic fantasy.
- epic fantasy is also high fantasy (I note that one commenter suggested these can also be separate genres in their own right, but I will explore that point further another time) and allows the author to write stories that operate at the mythic and legendary level of storytelling, in the same way as the epic sagas such as the Argonautika, Beowulf and the Morte d’Arthur, to name just a few;
- All SFF allows the author to explore ‘what if’ and ‘wonder’ and to speculate on the how and why of other worlds, but because of its grand sweep and focus on world altering events, epic fantasy—more than any other in my opinion—allows the author to speculate on the behaviour of characters and societies. Several reviewers have already commented on the matter-of-fact equality of men and women in the Derai society of The Heir of Night. The opportunity to “just do” this, without either “discussion or worthy treatise” (SFX) is part of what it means to write speculative fiction.
All SFF requires the writer to do a certain amount of world building, but while urban fantasy is almost-but-just-not-quite-our-everyday-world (Robin McKinley’s Sunshine is a great example of this) and steampunk draws heavily on what we know of late 18th-19th century history, epic fantasy requires world building on a, well, epic scale. The world is usually completely alternate to ours and has the possiblity of other beings, cultures, societies, and ways of doing things: fan-tastic.
In the end all fiction is about storytelling and in my experience epic fantasy, contains some of the very best stories, with grandeur and sweep, “what-if” ideas, a sense of wonder, intriguing worlds and tremendous passion and heart. Put quite simply, a significant number of epic fantasy stories rock! I love them—and that’s why I write them, too.
—
If you have enjoyed this post you may also like to read:
I *love* fantasy and always will! Frankly, I don’t want to relax by reading a super-depressing BUT deemed-by-the-media & booklist-promoted, award-winning ‘serious’ piece of fiction that makes me want to slit my wrists at the end of the day. Give me a good book that totally takes me away and I am game!
For sure, there are segments of epic fantasy that glorify violence and are misogynistic – but then I don’t really consider those ‘epic’ anyways (unless the sole consideration is the amount of paper involved) and those books almost always suffer from poor characterization and weak plots a la Mary and Gary Stu and their ever-multiplying majikcal powers. Bad books are bad books, no matter the genre. Some of my absolute favourite works are by women – like yourself *grin*, Lois Mcmaster Bujold, Robin Hobb, Robin McKinley, etc. I like George RR Martin and Neil gaiman whoo can write pretty dark stuff too. Fantasy/ScFi seem to share a lot in common with the comic industry in regards to the difficulties that female creators have (lame!
“I know” what you mean about fiction to slit your wrists by—although I’ve been surprised by books as well, like Emma Donoghue’s Room, which I only started reading because someone gave me a copy and said “you must.” I thought I was going to hate it, but by the end of a couple of chapters I didn’t want to put it down.
I certainly don’t think epic as a genre is or has to be misogynistic or glorify violence, although I think some of it does—I discussed a take on the latter, i.e. one-dimensional good vs bad in my Big Idea article on John Scalzi’s Whatever last year— but I suspect I could probably find examples of both in other genres as well if I went looking. And yes, I do see posts out there where people ask for recommendations based on the gender of the author or protagonist—mostly men in the former case and more mixed in the latter—but so far The Heir of Night has generally had a positive reception from male reviewers as well as female, plus good feedback from both male and female readers, so I intend to proceed on the basis of my experience (and not switch to one of those other genres just yet, although I suppose technically Thornspell is YA.)
Having said that, I am still a little worried that the failure to incorporate the initials RR into my name may have been a strategic error … 😉
By the way, Bujold, Hobb, McKinley, Martin and Gaiman are amongst my favourite authors also—although that being said, I have a lot of favourites.:)
To read something because it’s epic fantasy – well that often leads to disappointment – for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. I know writing is about money – but it’s also about love and when you’re reading it’s always best when that love shines through.
I agree with “write what you love”—there are book genres/styles that I may enjoy reading ‘well enough’ but know I could never write, because writing is a tough game and you need something more powerful than ‘liking well enough’ to get you to the final line.