Swords and Dragons and Stuff

Sometimes when you’re reading, you just get in a mood for something, you know? With me, I might go stretches where I want something dystopian or fantasy or whatever, and then I don’t really want to read anything else while I’ve got that sort of a vibe. I’ve literally had conversations before where I’ve just been like, “I want a book with dragons.”, and that’s been that.

I’ve noticed though, particularly with the fantasy genre (fitting since that’s been the latest reading kick I’ve been on), there are certain tropes and elements I like that I really love to see, so I figured I’d talk about that for this week, along with some general info about the genre as a whole.

Since Kristin and I started querying our manuscript The Visionary, we’ve become uncomfortably aware of the fact that there’s eight million different ways to categorize a story. Though our story is not a straight fantasy in the sense of, say, something about knights and kingdoms, we were suddenly bombarded with trying to figure out all the little differences between classifying words like “contemporary fantasy” versus “traditional fantasy”, or “high fantasy” versus “low fantasy”, just to throw out a few examples.

So, let’s start at the beginning. I’ve not looked into the exact differences, but the way I would explain it is that high fantasy versus low fantasy depends on the level of fantasy elements used in the story.

To me, a story that qualifies as higher fantasy is one that would take place fully in a completely fictional world- all peoples, places, creatures, forms of magic, languages, etc. are completely created by the author and tend to be somewhat complex in nature. The examples that always come to my mind are the Lord of the Rings books by J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I have yet to read any of Tolkien’s work, but I’m going to assume it's safe to say that it’s extremely well-known for its use of created language and story. I have read The Inheritance Cycle though, and it too takes place in a fully fictional world, with complex magic, and several different languages created entirely for the various peoples inhabiting Paolini’s world. Books like these, in my opinion, tend to require a lot of attention due to their complexity, but are a fantastic way for authors to show off their creativity in world-building.

Now, that is not to say that lower fantasy in any way requires less effort or creativity. Lower fantasy to me just means that the application of fantasy elements is a little less intensive. Though lower fantasy still might have swords and dragons and stuff in the same way a higher fantasy story does, it might be dealing with elements more familiar to the reader. For example, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter or Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series are both fantasy series featuring a whole host of magic, creatures, and incredible elements, though both take place right over top of the normal, everyday worlds readers experience.

This helps lead us to our categories of contemporary versus traditional. Like I said above, I tend to classify stories as contemporary fantasy if they take place with things familiar to the reader. To me, traditional fantasy tends to take place in its own self-contained, fully-created world. I’m not sure if self-containment is a specific identifier between contemporary and traditional, but it’s one of the ways I usually distinguish the two. Granted, I’m sure there are some stories that can walk the line in between, being as all these categories seem to have kind of blurry lines between them. One good example of a contemporary fantasy that contains high and low elements and switches between the known and created worlds is Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air series (YA or New Adult). Despite our matching last names, I’m pretty sure we’re not related, despite the fact that that’d be cool.

Judging from my past reading, I think I tend to prefer contemporary/lower fantasy to traditional/higher because I really like that vibe of all these incredible things happening right underneath the nose of the normal world. Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures…all of these work on the same premise mentioned above. I’ve also noticed this preference extends to sci-fi as well: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Stargate TV series, James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, etc.- all are set as if they are happening right alongside normal life. I have enjoyed the higher fantasy stories I’ve read in the past, but I’ve not read nearly as much as lower.

Kristin and I were also discussing certain types of elements and tropes we liked regarding fantasy, which tend to go hand in hand with genre. Sci-fi and fantasy obviously tend to utilize a lot of similar tropes as sister genres, but here’s some of the things that I enjoy:

Diversity of Creatures:

One aspect I really love when utilized in fantasy (high/low; contemporary/traditional) is when authors make a point to include a wide range of creatures. Now something like one of Rick Riordan’s series might be fairly locked in to whatever cultural mythology he’s decided to write about, but take author Cornelia Funke, for example. I love that every time I read one of her books- Inkheart, Dragon Rider, Reckless- they always feature this massive conglomerate of mythological creatures from several different cultures. This is always interesting to me because you’re not only getting creatures in the stories you’ve not heard of before, but you’re also learning about the mythology of other countries as well.

Also, if there’s room, you should always include a dragon. Dragons are cool.

Utilization of Characters

Fantasy, and usually sci-fi, by definition, tend to have a lot of characters. Lots of people are needed to fly a spaceship or fight a war or make up the court in a castle. When you have a lot of characters competing for roles and attention, I hate it when good ones get left behind because there’s simply not enough time for them. I’m always super impressed when authors are able to carefully weave an impressive story, utilizing the characters fully.

Let me brag on Cornelia Funke some more. Her fantastic contemporary fantasy trilogy Inkheart has a massive cast of characters, and yet when the story is focused on one character in particular, that character feels as if they are the lead. I literally have no idea how she pulls that off, but it’s amazing. I also feel like she makes a point to utilize characters that aren’t always very prominent in fantasy, like letting more women and children play crucial roles within the story. Another fantasy book that I think pulled off multiple characters feeling like the lead is The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (Middle Grade). It’s fantastic. Go read it.

Quest Stories

Just going off my preferences, I’ve also noticed I tend to like quest stories where the characters set off in search of some mystical or long-lost thing, as opposed to fantasy stories that tend to occur in the same few locations. I jokingly refer to these as “Wander through the woods” stories, since that’s usually what ends up happening to the characters. I don’t really know why I seem to like these types of stories better- maybe it’s because the plotline is a little more cut and dry, maybe you just get to experience the worldbuilding a little bit more, or maybe it’s always fresh since the characters are constantly moving. Some examples of quest stories are The Chronicles of Narnia, Percy Jackson and the Olympians- the most recent quest story I read was The Stolen Heir by Holly Black (YA or New Adult) and it was very good.

Worldbuilding

This element is the one that maybe leads me into more traditional fantasy, but it can be very prominent in contemporary fantasy as well. Fantasy stories always hold my attention way better if the world in which the story takes place is really interesting. You know, where the setting, creatures, and systems just buzz with uniqueness and creativity. A lot of this depends on the writer, but I’ve encountered books where even if there are certain aspects of the story/character development I didn’t like, I’ve kept reading because the world was so interesting.

As I mentioned above, The Inheritance Cycle has a very complex language system regarding magic and the peoples of Paolini’s world. Cornelia Funke’s Reckless (YA or New Adult) series has this insane mashup of magic and what I would call an almost steampunk vibe. I’ve not read all the books, but Terry Goodkind’s The Sword of Truth series (Adult) has a magic system I’ve always thought was really interesting. Same deal with Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner’s The Other Side of the Sky duology (YA)- very interesting magic system, as well as two very distinct major settings. Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air series shifts effortlessly between the normal world and the extensive magical world with all its rules and regulations she’s created beyond it.

All in all, those are just a couple of the elements I’ve observed that I really like in fantasy. I tried to avoid getting too much into tropes, but I will say that I love good plot twists, tropes that get turned on their head to be used in a surprising way, and I love fantasy series that allow themselves to have a good dose of humor.

If you agree with me about some of the things listed above being your favorite tropes too, let us know in the comments. If you know of something else to mention or a good fantasy book to read, share that with us too. Hopefully some of the books listed might be some of your favorites or if you think they sound interesting, go out and give them a try!

Thanks for reading. Write on.

-Kamryn