fantasy

"Nothing ever happens by accident in the fantasy world.  Some phenomenon—supernatural or magic or otherwise—is responsible.  This is the logic of fantasy."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  fantasy, David Gerrold

"Only fantasy writers are virtually forced to begin selling at novel length because the market is so much smaller for fantasy."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  fantasy, novel writing, writing, reaching your audience, genre, Orson Scott Card

"Skillful story technique can sell even the most outrageous premises and protagonists. Check out Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2001). They turned fringe into famous. You can, too."

— Donald Maass

for Creatives  |  books, fantasy, novel writing, literary fiction, writing, storytelling, Donald Maass, creative freedom, Vladimir Nabokov

Follow Your Curiosity

"What I have enjoyed about science fiction from the time I dove in was how it opened my natural space. If I were reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons or whatever, as I'm walking down the street, I'm thinking of the shit that I just read and the world feels a little larger. I'd be thinking that there's more layers, parallel universes and so forth. It has enhanced my view of possibilities. It's kind of like film in a way. Great writers leave space, and that gap in between is your understanding."

— Saul Williams

for Creatives  |  reading, books, sci-fi, film, fantasy, writing, writer-reader relationship, value the art, Dan Simmons, Saul Williams

Follow Your Curiosity

"You can make up any rules you want for your fantasy story—but once you set those rules, you are bound by them.  You cannot break them; you cannot change them midway through the book.  Doing that betrays the trust of the audience.  Remember: If you are creating a world, you are behaving like a god—and gods don’t cheat."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  fantasy, writing, David Gerrold

"One surprising result of the ghettoizing of speculative fiction, however, is that writers have enormous freedom within its walls. It's as if, having once confined us within our cage, the keepers of the zoo of literature don't much care what we do as long as we stay behind bars. What we've done is make the categories of science fiction and fantasy larger, freer, and more inclusive than any other genre of contemporary literature. We have room for everybody, and we are extraordinarily open to genuine experimentation."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, writing, genre, creative freedom, Orson Scott Card, categorization of art, TAKE RISKS

"It is not experimental but traditional work that wins Hugo and Nebula awards within the field."

— Orson Scott Card (photo by Joy Alyssa Day & B.J. Johnson)

for Creatives  |  awards, sci-fi, fantasy, writing, Orson Scott Card, Joy Alyssa Day, B.J. Johnson

"The sf reader doesn't expect to receive a complete picture of the world all at once. Rather he builds up his own picture bit by bit from clues within the text. ... This, again, is one of the protocols of reading sf. The reader is expected to extrapolate, to find the implied information contained in new words."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  reading, sci-fi, fantasy, writer-reader relationship, Orson Scott Card

"In practical terms, you'll have a better chance selling to the [sf genre] magazines if your story is (1) short and (2) science fiction rather than fantasy. My career followed that track; so did the careers of most other science fiction writers in the field."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, the successful artist, writing, publishing, editors, Orson Scott Card

Universes in Suspension

the artwork of Alejandro Burdisio

Wonders  |  art, artists, sci-fi, fantasy, Argentinian, Alejandro Burdisio

Follow Your Curiosity

"In the long run, then, whatever is published within the field of science fiction and fantasy is science fiction and fantasy, and if it doesn't resemble what science fiction and fantasy were twenty years ago or even five years ago, some readers and writers will howl, but others will hear the new voice and see the new vision with delight."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, writing, reaching your audience, publishing, genre, creative freedom, Orson Scott Card

"Fantasy is about the assignment of consciousness and reason.  In fantasy, everything is conscious, or at least potentially conscious—animals, plants, rocks, machines, the wind.  Everything."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  fantasy, creative freedom, David Gerrold

"Almost all fantasy relies on personification—that is, whatever happens in a fantasy, there is an anthropomorphic reason, a causative agency."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  fantasy, writing, David Gerrold

"Fantasy looks like the abandonment of the laws of science. ... That's what it looks like.  Dig deeper.  Like science fiction, fantasy also starts out with an if."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, David Gerrold

"One of the benefits I get from doing [book] covers is, I get to read.  The main thing I like about what I do is that I'm away from reality and the real world where I live, in a make believe one—a land of someone else's imagination—as long as the project lasts.  I need that to survive." (artist)

— Kinukoy Yamabe Craft (artwork by Charlotte Bird)

for Creatives  |  reading, magic/mystery of creating/art, art, artists, fantasy, painting, Kinukoy Yamabe Craft, Charlotte Bird

"Fantasy is not the abandonment of logic.  It is the reinvention of it.  A believable fantasy is the creation of an alternate structure of logic."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  fantasy, writing, David Gerrold

"New writers are, if anything, even more welcome in the magazines. The appetite for new writers in the field of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy) is still enormous. If you write competently and if your story has any spark of life, you will sell it."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, writing, reaching your audience, magazines, Orson Scott Card

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

(written by Orson Scott Card)

for Creatives  |  books, sci-fi, fantasy, nonfiction, writing, writer-reader relationship, genre, Orson Scott Card

Follow Your Curiosity

"Fantasy is the most basic and longest-lived genre.  Shakespeare wrote fantasy.  Gilgamesh was fantasy.  The stories so important that they were passed down from mothers to daughters for millennia without being written down were fantasy.  The advantage of fantasy is that a reader can insert themselves and their own issues into the story."

— Shannon Hale

for Creatives  |  books, fantasy, reaching your audience, genre, Shannon Hale, William Shakespeare, Stephen Mitchell

Follow Your Curiosity

"The little Brontës, with their kingdom of Gondaland, the infant Alcotts, young Robert Browning, and H.G. Wells all led an intensive dream-life which carried over into their maturity and took another form; and there are hundreds of authors who could tell the same stories of their youth." (artist)

— Dorothea Brande (artwork by Henrique Alvim Corrêa)

for Creatives  |  art, artists, sci-fi, fantasy, creativity, writing, storytelling, H.G. Wells, Dorothea Brande, drawing/illustration, Robert Browning, Louisa May Alcott, Brontë

"It wasn't fantasy, but there was just something... like, I'd paint a still life but the colors wouldn't be quite like you'd expect them to be.  That's the magic of it, and I love it—the world building that occurs on the canvas as it does on the page."

— Aimee Nezhukumatathil

for Creatives  |  intuitive writing & pantsing, creative process, magic/mystery of creating/art, fantasy, writing, creating in the moment, painting, Aimee Nezhukumatathil

"A metaphor is a one-sentence fantasy.  It assigns lifelike or magical qualities to ordinary objects.  Metaphor and fantasy are bedfellows—and many fantasies are intended as metaphors; George Orwell's Animal Farm is the best example of this."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  books, fantasy, language, artist's message, George Orwell, David Gerrold

Follow Your Curiosity

"Go ahead, make something up!  Anything.  After all, this is fantasy, right?  Wrong.  The audience still wants to believe in your world—and believability comes from the recognition of an internally consistent system of logic.  If things are not consistent, they are (literally!) unbelievable."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  fantasy, writing, reaching your audience, David Gerrold

"There's psychology in anything if you're creating believable characters, but there's an enormous amount that's important that happens outside you, and science fiction and fantasy and detective novels and romances tend to be about action."

— Eleanor Arnason

for Creatives  |  characters, mystery, romance, sci-fi, fantasy, writing, Eleanor Arnason

"The appetite for new writers in the field of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy) is still enormous. If you write competently and if your story has any spark of life, you will sell it."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, the successful artist, writing, reaching your audience, Orson Scott Card

"I had a 260-page screenplay [for Something Wicked This Way Comes].  That's six hours.  [Director] Jack [Clayton] said, 'Well, now you've got to cut out forty pages.'  I said, 'God, I can't.'  He said, 'Go ahead, I know you can do it.  I'll be behind you.'  So I cut forty pages out.  He said, 'Okay, now you've got to cut another forty pages out.'  I got it down to 180 pages, and then Jack said, 'Thirty more.'  I said, 'Impossible, impossible!'  Okay, I got it down to 150 pages.  And Jack said, 'Thirty more.'  Well, he kept telling me I could do it, and, by God, I went through a final time and got it down to 120 pages.  It was better."

— Ray Bradbury

for Creatives  |  mystery, film, fantasy, thriller, Ray Bradbury, film based on novel, screenwriting, Jack Clayton

Follow Your Curiosity

"Readers love the sense of possibilities ... of hypothetical worlds that mimic and mirror our own.  Our actual lives have become fantastical in many respects, and the hybrid story of realism plus fantasy seems to be touching that tender spot."

— Charles Baxter

for Creatives  |  reading, fantasy, reaching your audience, genre, Charles Baxter, magical realism

"A rustic setting always suggests fantasy; to suggest science fiction, you need sheet metal and plastic. You need rivets."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, writing, Orson Scott Card

"That sense of wonder is what you aspire to create; that's what you must create if you are going to write effective science fiction and fantasy."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, writing, David Gerrold

"The sense of wonder is the marvelous heart of every great science fiction or fantasy story.  It comes from the surprise of discovery.  It comes from the recognition of the magic within.  Most of all, it comes from the realization—the acknowledgment—of something new in the universe."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  magic/mystery of creating/art, sci-fi, fantasy, storytelling, David Gerrold

"The literature of the fantastic is about awakening that feeling of awe—and exercising it."

— David Gerrold

for Creatives  |  fantasy, writing, reaching your audience, David Gerrold

"I had discovered the first kind of boundary that marks the twin genres of fantasy and science fiction: the publishing category."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, writing, publishing, genre, Orson Scott Card, categorization of art

"The science fiction and fantasy audience ... is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honor when they applaud the tales you tell."

— Orson Scott Card

for Creatives  |  sci-fi, fantasy, writing, reaching your audience, writer-reader relationship, Orson Scott Card

Forward March

Forward March

(created by Pierrick Barbin, Rimelle Khayat, Loïc Le Goff, Guillaume Lenoël & Garrick Rawlingson)

Highly Recommended!  |  short film, fantasy, animation, Pierrick Barbin, Rimelle Khayat, Loïc Le Goff, Guillaume Lenoël, Garrick Rawlingson

Follow Your Curiosity

"If the setting is a spaceship or a magical land then we'll call it genre fiction, but anyone should be able to get caught up in the lives of such characters."

— Russell Galen

for Creatives  |  characters, sci-fi, fantasy, writing, genre, Russell Galen

"Successful fantasy uses this element of the unreal to help us see our own world in a new way." (artist)

— Rob O'Connor (art by Andrew Ferez)

for Creatives  |  art, artists, fantasy, writing, Rob O'Connor, Andrew Ferez

"I love the idea also that sometimes, if you're actually going to write realistic fiction, you're going to have to include fantasy."

— Neil Gaiman

for Creatives  |  Neil Gaiman, fantasy, nonfiction, writing

"Dickens used fantasy and no one ever called him a fantastic writer, it was all just writing back then.  Why do we need borders in the middle of a book shop?

— David Mitchell

for Creatives  |  fantasy, writing, genre, author David Mitchell, Charles Dickens, categorization of art

"There is a rule for fantasy writers: The more truth you mix in with a lie, the stronger it gets."

— Diane Duane

for Creatives  |  fantasy, writing, Diane Duane

Fortunately, the Milk

Fortunately, the Milk

(written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Skottie Young)

Highly Recommended!  |  Neil Gaiman, British, sci-fi, fantasy, children's books, Skottie Young

Follow Your Curiosity
The Sparrow

The Sparrow

(written by Mary Doria Russell)

Highly Recommended!  |  books, sci-fi, fantasy, spirituality, Mary Doria Russell

Follow Your Curiosity
The Mighty Boosh

The Mighty Boosh

(written by & starring Julian Barratt & Noel Fielding)

Highly Recommended!  |  TV series, British, fantasy, comedy, music, Richard Ayoade, Matt Berry, Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt, surreal

Follow Your Curiosity
The Wolves in the Walls

The Wolves in the Walls

(written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean)

Highly Recommended!  |  books, Neil Gaiman, fantasy, horror, Dave McKean, children's books

Follow Your Curiosity
The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains

The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains

A Tale of Travel and Darkness with Pictures of All Kinds (written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Eddie Campbell)

Highly Recommended!  |  Neil Gaiman, British, fantasy, short stories, adventure, Eddie Campbell, horror

Follow Your Curiosity
Magician

Magician

(written by Raymond E. Feist)

Highly Recommended!  |  books, fantasy, Raymond E. Feist

Follow Your Curiosity
Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

(written by Neil Gaiman)

Highly Recommended!  |  books, Neil Gaiman, British, fantasy

Follow Your Curiosity

Join my mailing list!

Don't miss a single, riveting word! Be the first to hear of new releases, special promotions, and other news and nifty things...