Young Writers Society

Apparently, this must be a new style. In a new series including The Sea of Monsters (which is about a boy who finds out he's the son of Poseidon), The Empire State Building is the stairway to Olympus, and Los Angeles is a favorite hangout of Medusa and Ares.

Should vampires be 'isolated' into a world of humans and no other kind of people? Or should vampires, werewolves, and wizards stay in their own dimensions?

Does fantasy really rule the world in Fantasy-Fiction?

Post your comments, thoughts, rants, and any other here.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but fantasy should definitely be realistic. In fact, everything but the fantastical element must be real, or why should your reader believe your world? I just wrote an article on this ... I might post it ...

I think fantasy works best when mixed into the real world. One of my favorite scenes out of any book I've ever read has a faerie knight sitting on a mortal woman's couch, eating toast with honey and watching TV. (It makes sense in context, I swear.) Somehow, it's just so much more interesting than keeping said knight in a fairy tale world because it's completely unexpected.

Can you remember what that book is? Because it sounds interesting!

Has anyone read Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman? That's very slight fantasy (there's no *actual* magic ... I think) mixed in with the realities of being homeless in London. It's an amazing blend.

That said, while it might be unexpected to have toast and faeries, it's important to have an explanation for that. You can't just dump the faerie there and never say why ...

Of course I can! It's Tithe, by Holly Black.* There are two others in the same series, Valiant, and most recently, Ironside. (I'm sorry, I should've mentioned it in my last post.)

Ah, I just saw in the first post "aparently this must be a new style..." I'm not sure how "new" it is, but the genre's called "urban fantasy," because the "modern day faerie tales" (or whatever) tend to take place in or near cities, where you'd least expect them. (We're more likely to think of magical things being out in the country.)

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*my second favorite book to date

Yeah, that's what I really meant, "Meep". Hehe.

I don't know. I was bored, I wanted to post a topic, there ya' go.

Personally...I think it's getting to be an upcoming cliche. I don't know. Is it just me?

PerforatedxHearts wrote:Apparently, this must be a new style. In a new series including The Sea of Monsters (which is about a boy who finds out he's the son of Poseidon), The Empire State Building is the stairway to Olympus, and Los Angeles is a favorite hangout of Medusa and Ares.

Should vampires be 'isolated' into a world of humans and no other kind of people? Or should vampires, werewolves, and wizards stay in their own dimensions?

Does fantasy really rule the world in Fantasy-Fiction?

Post your comments, thoughts, rants, and any other here.

I'm fairly certain that variations of that have been around for awhile. I mean, there's high fantasy, with elves and goblins and orcs and all that good stuff, and then there's "low fantasy", also known as "contemporary fantasy", which has some of those things with a modern-day spin.

If contemporary fantasy did not exist, there would be no Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I do not believe I could cope with such a tragedy!

Ah, Buffy.

Of course it's an upcoming cliche. Because it's a hot genre at the moment and there will come a point when all the critics will declare it's all been done and urban fantasy is over. Then they will start looking on high fantasy with renewed interested and the trilogy I'm writing will suddenly become terribly attractive to all publishers, and I'll make my millions.

I think I strayed into realms of daydream somewhere during that paragraph ...

Haha, we can all dream, Imelda.

Now that I think about it, the modern parts of the Vampire Chronicles are urban fantasy. (I suppose that even some of the historical pieces are, too.) Mmmmmm, Vampire Chronicles. (Nicholas de L'enfent~ ♥)

*ahem*

While we're on the subject: elfpunk, anyone?

Great. It's really hard to write these days cause it's either a cliche or a copy or crap.....

*sorry that was a rant.

I'm a "contemporary fantasy" writer and at this point it's next to impossible to get anything published. and there are two words to explain this: "Harry Potter"

due to it's sucess and last book coming out a Contemporary fantasy novel has absolutely 0 chance of getting published. Of course i'm there are exceptions(I hope to be one of them) but i think it is better to hold onto the work and create something else to establish yourself with. Then you might be able to get it published.

I think that whole thing was a rant. But yeah. Reality plus fantasy is great! It gives a little hope to this cruddy little world.

I'm seconding your rant. I hate that popular fiction creates cliches and you have to wait a couple of decades for that to fade. I also find it annoying from a reader's point of view--because high fantasy has dropped off the bookshelves and since I'm not a snooty critic I still enjoy reading that. I think, in some ways, that that's where POD publishing would be great. Publishers would be able to take risks on accepting genres that aren't 'hot' or that are 'cliche', and the public could get their hands on them and decide what should be 'hot'. Because who actually decides that? A group of editors in the top publishing houses around the world? I don't know, but it's annoying.

Maybe we should stop ranting now ...

You shouldn't write (or not write) something because it's popular (or not).

I don't see why the success of Harry Potter will make it harder for a contemporary fantasy novel to get published. Indeed, since it is sort-of contemporary fantasy, and publishers know it's possible and will be looking for something to fill in the void, it's probably going to get easier, at least for a little bit.

Becuase Writing and Publishing is so competative and risky when a Great bok of one genere comes out other publishers dont want to compete with it.

Really retarded but they simply aren't willing to take the risk. A few are and a good agent helps to push the publisher but it's still rough. I'm with Imelda, POD publishing would be a great aid to publishers and authors alike.

My story started as contemporary (sp?) fantasy, then it changed to high fantasy.

For some reason, I'm not so good at writing contemporary fantasy.

But I love both of them, contemporary and high.

I think the danger with Harry Potter is not the idea that there's magic in our world -- but magical schools of any kind [there were quite a few books of that kind before HP and I haven't seen any good ones since], as well as a sort of sub-society that's a lot like the "wizarding world".

There a different ways to mix fantasy with our world, and I like almost all of them. Besides urban fantasy there's fantasy that's a lot more like magical realism than anything else - where the fantastic elements just happen in the context of the story. They aren't part of some 'other world'. I've never read any magical realism novels -- besides maybe American Gods -- but its something that works well in short stories.

And it's fun to recognize some things, or parts of things, and then see them transformed or a different in this semi-realistic world. Is it our world? Is it not our world? That always intrigues me, at least