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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

"Why Fantasy?" My answer, and asking yours.

 On Reddit someone was collecting various authors' answers to the question, "Why Fantasy?" It's an interesting thread, and despite being completely exhausted, this little explanation burbled out of me.

Because my mind has never been bound by the same rules as my body, and while I have great respect for pragmatists and wonder in the face of science, it's the fantastic that elicits my greatest intrigue and loudest laughter.

Nonsense is my mother tongue.

I'm an irrationalist. It's my nature.

If you care for Fantasy: why?
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12 comments:

  1. Elephant's ChildNovember 12, 2013 at 1:50 AM

    Fantasy is a realm I spend a lot of time in. I am taken to places I never would have discovered on my own, some to become very real in my head and heart and others have made their way to everyone's reality. Nonsense is less stable than quicksand.

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    1. Elephant's ChildNovember 12, 2013 at 1:51 AM

      And more fun.

      Delete
    2. John WiswellNovember 12, 2013 at 1:06 PM

      I do like swimming in Fantasy quicksand. I agree it's more fun than the real stuff.

      Delete
  2. Helen A. HowellNovember 12, 2013 at 4:46 AM

    Because I like to create worlds, people and situations that just don't exist in the real world - far more exciting to ride a dragon than a horse! ^_^

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    1. John WiswellNovember 12, 2013 at 1:08 PM

      Anything but horse riding! That's why I've embraced dinosaurs. I like that, Helen.

      Delete
  3. TessaNovember 12, 2013 at 12:54 PM

    Because there's no limit to the imagination. Where else do you get to throw rationality out the window? When answering 'what if' really anything is plausible if I make it so.

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    1. John WiswellNovember 12, 2013 at 1:09 PM

      I can't argue with any of this. It's much safer to throw rationality away on the page than in traffic or at a doctor's office, and the desire never goes away.

      Delete
  4. Margit SageNovember 12, 2013 at 3:29 PM

    I love your answer. For me, "Because my mind has never been bound by the same rules as my body" is very true. Also, I find the difficult truths easier to tell when warped through the lens of speculative fiction. I think they're easier to swallow, too.

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  5. AnonymousNovember 14, 2013 at 4:51 AM

    I love your answer. I enjoy being immersed in a different world for a few hours.

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  6. JenelleNovember 15, 2013 at 10:06 AM

    Oh, so many reasons. I may have to write a whole blog post in response to this question...

    I like your answer though, nice and succinct.

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  7. CynthiaNovember 18, 2013 at 4:12 AM

    Good question. Fantasy, when written well, gives me a chance to escape into a world where people are not confined by the rules and laws of nature that I'm familiar with here. It gives me a chance to try something else out, without physically being there.

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  8. BevimusNovember 18, 2013 at 9:33 AM

    A question i'm struggling with myself as I am deep into my NaNo novel which I have categorized as such. A variety of incredibly scientifically impossible things are happening, and continue to happen and my MC has spent a great deal of time struggling to comprehend them, wrestling with a constant stream of "This can't possibly be happening" thoughts and struggling with other conclusions that explain it ('I'm hallucinating' and the like). I find that she's voicing my own thought process and struggles with the material that I'm writing.

    But then I watch a movie or read a story and the laws of physics or limitations of reality have absoltuely no place in them and I realize that I need to just shut the hell up and write.

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