Greetings;
Writing a fantasy story is a labor of love and perseverance. First, your writing mechanics should be in place because the imagination and research skills required for fantasy are extensive. The word fantasy (phantasy) evokes a unique mental image or representation, much like a composition, which doesn’t conform to normal rules of music. Derivatives include words like fantastic, fanciful, and even the movie title, FANTASIA.
“Fantasy Fiction” relies on strangeness of setting, characters, (supernatural or unnatural beings) and mood, where one’s frame of mind can run the gamut from anger to whimsical. It involves creating unrealistic or improbable happenings of previously perceived persons, objects, and events. Such fantastic ideas, behavior, and even climate descriptions must scale far beyond normal limits.
In years past, so much bad fantasy was sent to editors that many finally declared in the annual market guides, “no fantasy.” The trend is changing since the amazing success of books like the Harry Potter series. Editors still don’t want redone classics and fairy tales, but they are yearning to discover an original idea. They expect the writer to have developed a well-researched plot. (One can’t write about a flying machine or “original” bird without researched knowledge of flying skills.)
If the spelling, grammar, and story sequences are a mess, the editor will surmise the writer isn’t sincere enough about writing to have mastered those essential writing tools. There’s simply too much work needed to correct numerous errors.
If you still feel a need to write a fantasy story, visit your library and read the newly released books. If you don’t know a title, ask the children’s librarian for they are knowledgeable in specific genres. Also, check the publisher of each book and make notes of who has accepted fantasy stories.
When writing for children, keep in mind they are very aware of smells, colors, sounds, tastes, and the texture of things. Use those senses when describing characters, settings, and feelings, and please, write only words young children can understand. I know one writer who reads her stories backwards to catch errors so she won’t get too involved in reading the story. Whatever works.
Keep in mind children like moving through a story that contains some rhythm to the thoughts. Whether you show sounds like “…howling in his head,” or “…rain drip, drip, dripping on his head”, those word sensations can provide a clue to what is happening IN his head– that all-important “showing” skill. Children love finding clues to what might happen next.
Building illusions of reality, while making the plot believable, is necessary for the genre of Fantasy. Those enduring stories read and re-read over the generations were and are those where characters, plot sequences and places are realistically presented. Parents do mourn when children are away from home, day does follow night (unless specifically changed within the story), and strange things do and can happen without notice.
Fantasy stories should contain some periods of real happenings so children can relate, but in a story written for young children, wrongs are finally righted, main characters survive, and a new day of happiness emerges. (Shakespeare’s “All’s well that ends well.”)
Until next Wednesday, be well and share a smile. Linda