Pages

Saturday 6 April 2013

F is for Fantasy

I love fantasy. If you're looking for a post with a bit more substance, this is not the post you're looking for.

There's not much I can say about it, which works out well because I have an amazingly busy day ahead of me and I don't have much time to blog (it's my own fault for not preparing this earlier! This morning I helped my friend make her wedding invitations and now I'm away to help my mum set up for my birthday party later tonight. Phew!)

You can make up your own rules in Fantasy. You have to be careful about world building, because it's very easy to leave gaping holes. However, no-one can reprimand you for doing anything 'against the rules' because you're making up your own rule book!

That's why I don't think I could ever write a historical fiction. Even contemporary can be troublesome for me sometimes as I feel like I'm always on google checking to see if this is right, or if this is a thing. I recently did a fanfiction and you wouldn't believe how long it took to check how long it would take to get from London to Switzerland via train because one character had a fear of flying!

My favourite fantasy series at the moment has to be Game of Thrones. However, I've heard the phrase 'sweeping epic' applied to this fantasy series and, boy, they're not lying. I enjoy the TV show because 1) it's amazing 2) it's mostly filmed in my country!


I also enjoy the books, but I can only ever read one every 6 months. There are so many characters and theres so much going on that my brain can only handle so many Ser's and so many locations in one sitting. Otherwise I'd be caught up by now!

Fantasy is also that genre that can be crossed into from almost any other genre. Like, Sci-fi fantasy such as Star Wars. And then there are contemporary fantasies  though it's tempting to call those paranormal fiction.

Like me, do you find wading through the endless amount of characters in some fantasy stories hard? What do you think about fantasy in general? Yay, or nay?

Sarah x

9 comments:

  1. New follower. Fantasy is very versatile! I can't to historical either. have a great day!
    ~Summer
    My A-Z

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think too many characters in any book can make your head swim from keeping them all straight. I must get round to reading some Game of Thrones at some point!

    Happy Birthday!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your theme for A to Z, nicely done!

    I nominated you for a Liebster Award. If you would like to accept, come on over for the details….

    http://dgwordworks.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fellow A-Z challenger stopping by to say hi! I have a couple of friends who write fantasy and they love it for the reasons you mentioned -- being able to create your own rules around characters, settings, creatures, etc... I can't seem to write it, but envy those who can.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have GAME OF THRONES on the shelf waiting to be read... and I will, soon! I'm not a big fantasy reader, outside of Terry Pratchett. But I have dipped my toes in the water a few times to know what it's like.

    I understand what you mean about keeping up with a multitude of characters. Some authors provide a list of names and a short bio of each character when their novels are long and the cast is large. This can be helpful. I think writers need to be mindful, however, that many readers have enough trouble keeping up with their RL address books and are not likely to do much better with a directory of fictional characters. If a character is really not important--even if you know the character's birthday (happy birthday for last Wednesday, btw, Sarah--I hope the party went well!) and shoe size--if we the reader don't need to remember him, don't even give him a name, or anything that might make us think "ooo, I should keep an eye on that one!" Just my thought. :)

    All the best with the A-to-Z, Sarah! I hope you find time to keep up with it. I've enjoyed going back and reading your posts. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. first, dystopian is amuck! almost all the previews when we saw the hobbit, were dystopian!

    now, Game of Thrones!! woohoo!
    my hub started us watching & i tried to read the first book as season one re aired before season two came out...
    talk about character soup! i was hopelessly lost. but i really liked the show and things came together. i read the third book after season two and am so psyched to see it! (and yay, they just signed season 4!)

    ReplyDelete
  7. sorry i rambled! great posts!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I love Fantasy! :)

    They are filled with many much moosen characters (paraphrasing Brian Regan, there). Particularly the more "sweeping" ones, like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time... my gracious the sheer number of characters!

    They're not ALL like that, however. Terry Brooks keeps his character count down, as does David Eddings. Margaret Weis isn't too bad either... comparatively... although, if you're comparing to Robert Jordan... just about any character list would be shorter. :)

    Happy A-Zing. I'm being entertained by how many of us chose "Fantasy" in some fashion or another for our "F" posts. I'm in good company!

    http://jenelleschmidt.com/blog

    ReplyDelete

I love reading your comments!