My love of fantasy wasn't always as strong as it is today. I think I've always liked it, but it wasn't until I was in middle school that I really fell in love with the genre. Still, even as a little kid I loved the magical elements of fantasy.
One of the first fantasy books I remember reading was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. It remains one of my all time favorite books and I count it as one of the main influences on my writing today. I think it's the first book that really introduced me to what fantasy could be. Other worlds and great adventures, magic and sword fights, great evil and greater good. So many of the big things that I love about fantasy. I don't know how many times I read and reread that book. So many that I almost had it memorized. I actually still have bits and pieces of it burned into my brain. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
There's something so incredible about fantasy. I'm not sure I can even describe why I love it so much. Maybe it's because when you write fantasy there so much creation involved. You're not just making up the characters and the story line. You're making up entire worlds with their own rules and ways of doing things. And all of those things influence how your story turns out. Every aspect of a fantasy world interacts and influences every other aspect. You get to decide how cultures interact with each other, what those cultures are, and how that influences that way your characters think. That in turn influences why your characters do the things they do and even what they can and can't do. You make up all those rules and so many more.
And that's not even counting magic (if your fantasy world has it) and how that impacts everything else in the world. It's so amazing and I love every part of it.
I'm not saying there's not a lot of creation that goes into other types of stories. There absolutely is. I don't think any one genre is better or more complicated than another. It takes an incredible amount of time and dedication to create any story world, whether you're basing it here in our world or creating and completely new one for it.
But for me, the most interesting and exciting genre is fantasy. I just love it, all those possibilities. The ability to rewrite the rules any way you want. The joy of creating everything from the ground up. It's amazing and I'm not sure I'll ever get enough of it.
So do you like fantasy? If so, why? Or are you more drawn to another genre? What other genre do you prefer and why?
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