(Reprinted from The Lonely Cry newsletter)
Even today, in our data-choked world, people are impressed when they meet a writer."What do you write?" they ask.
"Fantasy. You know -- dragons and stuff." Nine times out of ten they look puzzled and embarrassed. People who don't read Fantasy simply cannot understand why any adult would write it, let alone read it.
The answer involves a curious paradox. All fiction is impossible. Real people don't speak in prose, let alone think in it. Real life is never so tidy, although we like to believe it may be, with lovers strong and true, and little old ladies outsmarting Scotland Yard. In most genres, if we try hard we can ignore the unreality and pretend that this could happen.
But Fantasy is fiction with the gloves off, set in a completely unbelievable world. The challenge for the writer is to keep the people believable. The paradox is that, as the setting becomes less credible, the characters matter more; the thread of "universality" that all good stories require becomes more evident. This, I am sure, is why J.R.R. Tolkien was repeatedly forced to deny that his Lord of the Rings was an allegory. It is obviously not true, and yet it feels true because the people are true. That is the test of good Fantasy.
For example, suppose an employee is instructed to do something that feels unethical. Not illegal, just shady. I have seen this happen, and probably you have -- it is not a rare occurrence. In the real world a refusal risks no more than a paycheck or future promotion, balanced against the loss of self-respect. But when I make the employee a swordsman and the employer a sometimes tyrannical king, then the stakes become liberty and life itself. Now the problem is more focussed. It matters.
Foxes don't really eat grapes, you know.
© Copyright Dave Duncan
