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Carrion Luggage #1096997 added September 9, 2025 at 10:08am
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In a World of Pure Imagination
Sometimes I find articles actually related to writing. This is one of them, from Big Think:
People sometimes look down on fantasy — not the prize-winning, metaphorical magical realism kind, but the kind of fantasy that has swords, sorcery, and dragons.
I contend that all fantasy is metaphorical.
The snobbery of those who look down on fantasy has a long pedigree — so much so that, in 1947, J.R.R. Tolkien felt the need to defend the genre in his work, “On Fairy-Stories.”
I can understand, to some extent, the snobbery. The popular stories could be legitimately bad. But the true lit-snobs don't even give it a chance.
To enter Faërie is not to enter a world of simple make-believe; instead, we perform an act of “sub-creation,” in which we form a world within our wider “reality.”
So that's what the slightly clickbaity title refers to. A bit disappointing it's not about making the perfect hoagie. I suspect that to many writers (even me), that's old news with a new headline.
When we sub-create a world, we “make a Secondary World which the mind can enter.” This world has its own internal logic, laws, and systems.
Well, I just always called that "using one's imagination," but if it helps to think about it that way, why not?
We see, feel, and live in this world in a way far beyond the words on a page can alone provide. We color in background details and add sights, smells, and wonders that go beyond the narrow bounds of the words in the book.
Yes, that's worldbuilding. Most writers do that to some extent; at the very least, they're creating a world much like ours but which doesn't contain the same characters. Fantasy / SF writers take it to extremes.
Then there's a section about Beowulf, but I'll only comment on the last bit of it:
It says that no matter what monsters we face, we shall overcome and live on. We shall not be defeated.
And that's part of what I meant up there when I said all fantasy is metaphorical. Even the pulpiest fiction can be metaphorical—if often clichéd.
Books of all sorts are escapist. Fictional narratives and made-up characters define a novel.
The article goes into this a bit, but I don't think "escapist" should be a dirty word. |
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