Defining fantasy

Michael · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 3:58 pm Post subject: Defining fantasy

Help me out please! Within each sub-forum, discuss how you would define classic and contemporary fantasy fiction.

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kiwusek · Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 30

I am currently writing a novel about a made up world and I have a small question about posting little excerpts here and there. If I was to post little excerpts where would they go under Sci-Fi or Fantasy because the story is set in an industrial era type world (many times more gritty than the one on earth) with ideas of time travel, space travel (only a few visionaries) etc. Yet the story has elements of Fantasy such as elves and dwarves and the lot of them maintaining their own traditions and way of life completely ignorant of the change.

Michael · Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:19 pm Post subject:

Kiwusek, thanks for asking, and welcome!

It doesn't matter which genre your story is. If you want a critique, it goes in the sub-forum "Critiques" under "Aspiring Writers." You'll see that I've got a couple in there already.

Please read the Critiques sticky first, although you've probably got an idea of how this works.

EDIT: Sheesh, for some reason it's not a sub-forum anymore. I thought something looked odd there. Oh, well, I guess I'll just have to fix that.

EDIT 2: Okay, back to normal now.
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Laura Stamps · Joined: 24 Jul 2007 Posts: 27 Location: Columbia, SC

Define fantasy and science fiction? I have no idea anymore! I have always thought of time travel as fantasy. But others think of it as sci-fi. And I think of space opera as fantasy. But others think of it as sci-fi. I have always thought of novels with vamps and weres and shapeshifters as dark urban fantasy. But I just read an artcle this week where one of my favorite dark urban fantasy authors was classified as writing "Humorous Horror." What???!!! Shocked

Now, being a dark urban fantasy fan, I can only classify Science Fiction as a novel that is full of scientific stuff that bores me. Then I know for sure it is a Sci-Fi novel. Otherwise, I am totally clueless as to whether it is science fiction, fantasy, or horror.

But I have a sneaking feeling this blurring of the SF&F&H genres is a good thing for authors. It expands our market, and exposes readers to the best of genres they might otherwise never sample. So I guess you could say I am happily confused and clueless. Wink

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Michael · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 10:45 am Post subject:

Laura Stamps said:
But I have a sneaking feeling this blurring of the SF&F&H genres is a good thing for authors. It expands our market, and exposes readers to the best of genres they might otherwise never sample. So I guess you could say I am happily confused and clueless.

Haha! I couldn't agree more, Laura.

On the other hand, do you have an idea how "classic" fantasy differs from "contemporary" fantasy? I know I'd include a lot of these stories that "blur" the boundaries, as you say, or "blend genres," in the contemporary category (like yours and mine), while Lord of the Rings might be considered "classic."

Somewhere, in another thread, kiwusek and I discussed how the genre actually precedes Tolkien, and mentioned a few stories that came before Lord of the Rings. Looking at it this way, LotR might be considered the foundation of the contemporary styles - which confuses the issue even more, of course. Smile

Normally, I'd think of time travel as sci-fi, but I guess it depends on how it's described within the story. If it includes ideas apparent int Einstein's theories or quantum physics, I'll call it sci-fi. I don't know about all space opera, but I'll have to agree with you when it comes to Star Wars. Definitely a fantasy if I ever read one!
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Ophelia-Stornoway · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 10 Location: New Zealand

I often find that fantasy and sci fi (at least soft sci fi) are the same product in different packaging: a magic sword becomes a blaster, a flying carpet becomes a hovercraft (blasters optional). Occasionally, however, a piece of hard sci fi comes along that you really can't define as 'fantasy': something like Orson Scott Card's Ender books, for example.

Laura Stamps · Joined: 24 Jul 2007 Posts: 27 Location: Columbia, SC

See, now that's where I get confused. I read dark urban fantasy, and in those novels you have blasters and hovercrafts (especially in Lilith Saintcrow's "Dante Valentine" series). The lines are so blurred now, I don't know what's what. But I'm not complaining...too many wonderful novels in my TBR pile. So I am having a blast with whatever is happening these days in SF&F. Smile

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Laura Stamps
"The Witchery Series" (Magickal Urban Fantasy Novels)
http://www.LauraStamps.blogspot.com (info about my novels)
http://www.OccultFiction.blogspot.com (my Author blog)

Ophelia-Stornoway · Joined: 16 Aug 2007 Posts: 10 Location: New Zealand

The blurred distinctions is one of the reasons we just mush them all in the same place at the bookshop at which I work, too Smile

Really? Blasters is modern urban fantasy? Wouldn't that be more suited to futuristic type stuff? - or is it the type of thing where research on scientific weaponry has zoomed ahead to make up for people being able to blast things with their fingers?

Laura Stamps · Joined: 24 Jul 2007 Posts: 27 Location: Columbia, SC

Blast things with their fingers, huh? How funny! Remember you're talking to a real Witch here (grin). No, I only use my finger in spellcasting, not for blasting (I promise). Very Happy

The Dante Valentine novels take place about 30 years in the future, but everything else is the same. It's just the rapid advance of computer techinology, I guess. And I find lots of urban fantasy falls in that "a little bit in the future" timeframe. Kim Harrison's books are another good example of that.

To me SF goes into all the technological "details" of the machinery (which is why it tends to bore me). Urban fantasy just uses blasters instead of guns and hovercars instead of cars. No long detailed explanation as to why and how and where. Does that make sense?

And my novels could end up in this same "mush" net at bookstores, which is why I have my publisher put "Urban Fantasy" on the top of the back book cover...to help you guys out. Otherwise I could end up anywhere, even in nonfiction. My novels are literary novels, but the Witches are the good guys, which tends to put them in fantasy. I have heard from my friends who are managers of bookstores that if the Witches were bad guys I would stay in literay fiction.

Then again so much of what is real to real Witches seems like fantasy to "normal" people. So I think urban fantasy is the best place for me. But I do sympathize with bookstore people. If a publisher doesn't help you out and put the category on the back of the book, who knows where many genre-blending novels would go these days?

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Laura Stamps
"The Witchery Series" (Magickal Urban Fantasy Novels)
http://www.LauraStamps.blogspot.com (info about my novels)
http://www.OccultFiction.blogspot.com (my Author blog)