/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20141567]

Why do young beginner writers almost always gravitate to writing fantasy?

[Anonymous No.20141578]

Maybe fantasy has some quality that draws people who are more likely to write than other genres.

[Anonymous No.20141579]

because imaginative storytelling is a natural form of expression. the fairy tale and the adventure novel will outlast all other genres.

[Anonymous No.20141839]

>>20141567
Because it's easier to come up with new magic spells and new fantastic lands than to come up with a new philosophy on life.

[Anonymous No.20141855]

>>20141567
the genre's aesthetic is inherently distant from the author. it's easy.

[Anonymous No.20141860]

when i took intro creative writing in college nobody wanted to write fantasy
are you sure you actually mean most people or just weirdos on the internet

[Anonymous No.20141885]

>>20141860
Did the people in that class actually have an interest in writing or did they need to fulfill a general education requirement and figure it would be easier than a boring research writing course?

[Anonymous No.20141949]

>>20141567
I though it was romance.

[Anonymous No.20141998]

>>20141860
Weirdoes on the internet write mostly gay smut. Fantasy is not a factor.
I don't know where OP gets his info from, but Fantasy is a declining genre both in published and amateur writing.

[Anonymous No.20142188]

>>20141567
She has nice cleavage

[Anonymous No.20142723]

>>20141567
Why Junko blu??

[Anonymous No.20142735]

Because it's not an actual story, it's just copied numbers and statistics from their video games or tabletop rpgs.

[Anonymous No.20142758]

I have argued at excessive length with sci-fi/fantasy writers over writing. The main takeaway I've gotten is that they think poor writing is not only acceptable within the genre but positive. They will go to extreme lengths to justify why they don't have to write well, they just need to [tell the story/depict the actions/build the world/etc.] because they grew up reading Martin and Sanderson. They're utterly incapable in their decrepit minds, terminally stunted by video games and anime, of seeing the medium as deserving of mastery. Writing, to them, is just a different variety of inserting anime into their brains.

So, for the very few beginner fantasy writers who aren't addressed by the above, they're most likely enticed by the literally nonexistent standards. Fantasy writers are literally all the equivalent of picrel's "artist." They put a similar (or less) amount of work into becoming actually-good writers and want to pretend that it's okay to be an author without at least making a collegiate fucking attempt at being a decent writer. Fantasyshits and Dude It's Science! faggots will do anything BUT improve.

My guess is that new writers are just attracted by how low the bar is set.

[Anonymous No.20142772]

>>20141567
From what I've noticed beginner writers gravitate towards autobiography/memoir and have a tendency to share all their grand ideas about the world in an unfocused manner.

[Anonymous No.20142773]

In my experience that's no true.

[Anonymous No.20142797]

>>20141860
I and two other people are the only ones who didn't write fantasy in my creative writing class. Don't worry it's real, I'm trying to learn why too.

[Anonymous No.20142958]

>>20141567
Fantasy is easy. You can make up anything, and if anything that would be a stumbling block in reality, namely realistic depictions of things, can be just handwaved away. For example, a monarchy. IRL, you can't have a monarchy without the complicated political webs that come along with it. In a fantasy story, you can just make the king evil, ignore everything else and be done with it.

[Anonymous No.20143074]

>>20142188
Yeah

[Anonymous No.20143156]

>>20141567
They want to make video games and anime but those require money, skills, and resources that they will never have so they turn it into a book.

[Anonymous No.20145226]

>>20143156
Visual novels

[Anonymous No.20145313]

>>20141567
Because they lack life experiences to draw from and thus naturally gravitate towards a genre where it isn't a necessity.

[Anonymous No.20145338]

>>20141998
>but Fantasy is a declining genre both in published and amateur writing.
I hate to be that guy but source?

[Anonymous No.20145346]

>all the guys who think their 1000 page "magnum opus" about modernity will cement their name in literary history seething about fantasy itt

[Anonymous No.20145436]

>noooo you have to write about a boring everyman and his boring friends while his wife cheats on him and maybe he does drugs to show how KUHRAZY the modern world actually is!!!

[Anonymous No.20145465]

I took about six creative writing courses, and every time only two or three people wrote fantasy. A few more would write sci-fi, but the rest all wrote literary fiction. So unless OP has a source, I'm not convinced.

One girl did share a story about how a beautiful, young, woke college girl got raped by a fat stinky guy. I'm calling that one fantasy. God damn the shit you have to read in those classes...

[Anonymous No.20145469]

>>20142758
>My guess is that new writers are just attracted by how low the bar is set.
This, and it goes both ways: ambitious wanna-be writers see how low the bar is and realize that they can easily surpass it with enough effort, therefore garnering praise and acclaim just for being even slightly talented; non-ambitious writers see how low the bar is, and realize that they can get a readership just by doing the bare minimum in terms of honing their craft. Either way, the standard for publishable, readable fantasy is very low; you know how there are very few literary writers in the genre? Because its the Sandersons and the Martins and the Kings that have the largest, loudest fanbase. The literary writers barely get mentioned except by a few dedicated autists.

>>20141998
>but Fantasy is a declining genre both in published and amateur writing.
this is literally not true, fantasy is currently one of the largest genres, right next to YA. The sci-fi genre (specifically hard sci-fi) is the one that's dying

[Anonymous No.20145475]

>>20145469
>The sci-fi genre (specifically hard sci-fi) is the one that's dying
That's surprising given the rise of "i f*cking love science" bugmen in recent years.

[Anonymous No.20145484]

>>20145475
That's initially what I thought, but when you look at "hard sci-fi" most of the "hard" part comes from spending pages and pages explaining advanced physics or the mechanics of space travel or something similar (the best example of this is Greg Egan); the bugman crowd is more closely aligned with the pop-science of public intellectuals like Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson

[Anonymous No.20145486]

>>20145226
that would require having to draw and create music, too much work

>>20145475

[Anonymous No.20145496]

>>20145486
Forgot my reply to >>20145475:

none of those people know enough about science to write hard SF.

[Anonymous No.20145548]

>>20141579
>"imaginative storytelling"
>literally just the same book copy-and-pasted over and over again
Fantasy is the least creative genre. Shame, because it really should be the most.

[Anonymous No.20145570]

>>20141567
>>20141860
everyone in my workshops wants to write thriller
i'm the only one who writes fantasy

[Anonymous No.20145587]

>>20145548
because 90% of fantasy authors think they have to write LOTR again but with [x quirk].

[Anonymous No.20145622]

>>20145548
It's really strange how it came to this. Fantasy seems to me far less creative than simply telling a story without relying on crutches. What's creative about another story with dragons? Dragons are so fucking overplayed it makes me sick. Anyone with something to say can tell a story without couching it in some epic anime power system.

[Anonymous No.20145639]

>>20145548
>>20145622
modern fantasy doesn't actually feel fantastic. the authors writing it don't have the religious sensibilities of past authors or an understanding of just how important religion was to premodern peoples. they just end up badly aping Tolkien without an understanding of what made Tolkien so captivating for many.

[Anonymous No.20145676]

>>20145496
Peter Watts does, but after Firefall and Rifters he was utterly consumed by tranny ideology and everything he writes now is just the same ideas but with modern liberalism raised a power.

[Anonymous No.20145681]

>>20145622
I understand. Fantasy shouldn't be elfs orcs and kingdoms. Even the Japs are more creative at making original fantasy worlds

>It is set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by three enormous walls that protect them from the gigantic man-eating humanoids referred to as Titans

[Anonymous No.20145690]

>>20145681
>Even the Japs are more creative at making original fantasy worlds
why wouldn't they be? I feel like the "Asians not creative!" meme should be retired at least as far as Japan goes

[Anonymous No.20145723]

>>20145681
I really don't have the stomach for anime but the first time I watched a Ghibli movie, I thought "damn, this is what fantasy should feel like: actually fantastical." Howl's Moving Castle was the first one I watched (which is actually based on an American fantasy book, go figure), but a lot of Ghibli's movies 'feel' fantastical; they remind me of that Borges quote about purposefully writing stories that take place in indeterminable times and places so that people can't find inconsistencies or inaccuracies in your setting. As much as it feels weird to say, Ghibli does fantasy better than almost 98% of the genre that is currently being published in the west, I feel like they tapped into that 'true fantasy' vein that you saw with a lot of early authors like Lewis Carrol, Clark Ashton Smith and George MacDonald, and was carried on through authors like Mervyn Peake, John Crowley and (to some minor extent), Terry Pratchett.

[Anonymous No.20147046]

>>20141567
Because you literally make stuff up

[Anonymous No.20147073]

>>20141567
Because young people, especially in the 21st century, lack experience so they flock to the most effete form of literature.

[Anonymous No.20147107]

>>20145313
>>20142958
>>20147046
these very much. i used to write fantasy but over time i've gravitated more towards history since it will always be more detailed and rich than what a single person can come up with

[Anonymous No.20148396]

>>20141855
explain

[Anonymous No.20148412]

>>20141567
Well i've only written 2 little novels for the sake of it and it is fairly naturalistic and I try to stay down to earth as much as I could.
But that could be only me because I fucking hate fantasy and I love depicting common, usual and mundane tasks.

[Anonymous No.20148440]

/thread