The vast majority of the fantasy I've read has been about big, sweeping things: questing to stop evil powers threatening the world, foiling government conspiracies to slaughter large contingents of the population, overthrowing evil rulers. Even if the events of the story are a bit more localized and the fate of the universe isn't at stake, the events are usually pretty important locally - the whole story might be set in one small country, but the protagonists will be overthrowing the leader of the country and initiating massive changes. Fantasy is uniquely suited to this, since in an imaginary world you can make up whatever huge world-threatening situations you want. In more realistic fiction and historical fiction, you're generally stuck with what the real world has in the way of terrible threats.

But ARE there still fantasy stories about little goings-on in people's lives? Stories about people's relationships and efforts to find their identity and little conflicts in daily life without all the world-saving? The kind of stories that you might find in literary realistic fiction, but that just happen to be set in fantasy worlds? I was racking my brain the other day trying to think of any. I'm not the widest reader of fantasy, but I do think I have an okay general sense of what's being written and read these days, and I couldn't think of anything. Can you?

I'm considering this because the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is the sort of fantasy I want to write. I enjoy epic fantasy, but when it comes down to actually making up stories myself, I find the fiddly, exotic, often humorous details of daily life in a fantasy world much more interesting. And I find severely underpowered, somewhat bumbling protagonists - or in other words, normal people - much more interesting than really powerful amazing protagonists, even if said amazing protagonists have lots of character flaws or other issues.

One fantasy story of this sort that I like is Kiki's Delivery Service, though it's a movie. This kind of fantasy might be most common in books aimed at younger readers. I imagine it's a subgenre of fantasy that's going to grow in the future, both for young readers and adults.

That's why I've had the disagreement with The Hobbit movies when compared to the books. The Hobbit still did big things, but it was about just one little Bilbo in a very big world.

I try to keep that distinction in my story. Big things do still happen, but the fate of the universe could hardly take place in a thirty mile radius, even though someone's whole world could be there. That's the essence I try to achieve.

You made me research all this out, Alison, and I was going to write up what I had come up with, but then I found this, and it pretty much said what I was going to say, with a little more stuff thrown in too, so you can read that instead. Though, caution about a little bad language.

Her last point--that the new-ish non-epic fantasy storylines tend to have problems--is something I have noticed myself.

She talks about post-Tolkien works mainly. He was the big high fantasy patriarch. He did not begin it, though.... 'The Well at the World's End' is apparently the first high fantasy published, and it was done in 1896.

Before that, there was still fantasy, but it was not secondary world fantasy.

High fantasy is connected to secondary world fantasy, but they are not quite synonymous... so I'm not certain that The Well at the World's End is the first secondary world fantasy. I wouldn't be able to say when secondary world fantasy started. However, when you go back far enough, there are not really any secondary world fantasies at all (that I know of). Technically, Aesop's fables are fantasies, and so are all the fairytales, and all the myths. But though they are fantasies, they are all based in or connected to earth.

And many of these non-secondary-world fantasies have non-epic storylines (Aesop's fables is a kind of example.. but if you want a more serious one, there is Watership Down as well, and Jonathan's example of Kiki's Delivery Service, and also Howl's Moving Castle, though that might be borderline epic, like The Hobbit).

* thoughtful * So I guess... non-epic fantasies are common and always have been, but only the non-secondary-world kind... and non-epic secondary world fantasies are probably going to be more common in the future.

If anyone wants to contradict me, please do it....

Thanks for responding, everyone!


I suspect this is part of why I liked The Hobbit (the book) much more than the LoTR books - the LoTR trilogy generally struck me as being Very Serious All the Time while The Hobbit was a bit more lighthearted. However, I'm one of those weird people who didn't enjoy LoTR much at all, so...


Ha. Thanks for sharing that article - it was really interesting. Like you said, she has a good point in not trying to drag your story in a different direction than where it naturally "wants" to go. If Ursula K. LeGuin can't do it, I certainly can't.


Hmm. Interesting. I wonder...When I think about the kind of non-epic fantasy stories I would like to write, they primarily focus on how normal human beings and their lives would be different given how their world is different - if it has magic, if it has different climate or flora or fauna, if somehow their technology developed differently, if there are different types of political institutions, &c. So basically: "If things were this way, what would life be like for normal people?" If this is a common focus of non-epic fantasy (IF - I can't say that it is), then I could see how non-epic fantasy would tend to be set in the real world - because then you can just tweak the real world a bit (add magic, add some alternate history stuff, &c) and then easily compare and contrast how people would be different given those tweaks.

So for instance, say I wanted to explore how life would be different if people had magical powers that let them create certain things out of thin air. I could make up a whole different planet with different geography, history, &c and stick my magically-gifted humans there, then see how their lives would be different. Or I could just say, "What if people suddenly got these powers in the Middle Ages?" and then figure out what the modern world would look like if this had happened. If my end goal is just exploring the effects of the magical powers upon human society, bestowing them upon unsuspecting medieval Europeans rather than upon people on an alien planet removes a lot of the distracting variables - maybe society on that alien planet is different not because of the magic, but because of the planet and its different background...

I feel like those two paragraphs could have been condensed into a few sentences...but alas, I am too wordy and I know not how. I hope I've made my point, though; it's just an idea about why non-epic fantasies tend to not be in secondary worlds.

Anyways, I would love to hear any other recommendations or thoughts you folks have on this kind of fantasy.

@sheesania: I think you're onto something when you say that non-epic fantasies (i.e. those exploring the human condition given a different set of variables in the environment) tend to take place in this world (with modifications worked in) rather than a secondary world. If the intent is to showcase what it means to be human in different circumstances than those to which we are accustomed, the greatest effect to that end will be achieved by keeping the setting of the story within this world, thus showing most drastically the changes in history, culture, and human behavior that result from the changes one has made to the variables of existence.
I guess I'm no less wordy than you. Or maybe I just figured out how to fit it all into one sentence.

Epic fantasies, on the other hand, aren't usually so much about the human condition as much as the epic (obviously) battle between good and evil, both internal and external, limited and global. This is a part of the human condition because it intimately effects the characters, but the focus is on the struggle of the characters, rather than the condition of the characters, and while minute, I think there is a difference. Given this, the global setting isn't going to play hugely into the effect of your story, as it does for non-epic fantasy - so the more exciting and fantastic (and epic) the world is, the more exciting and novel (and epic) the book is, right?

I don't know. I think there is a definite difference in focus between the two kinds of fantasy, and things to be said both for and against both.

Don't know if that puts any more fuel on this conversation, but I was piqued by the subject.

Areth,

Ka

The thing I like about the Hobbit is that it does have very large scale events happening around a very small person. Big things happen, and there are subtle influences in that, and the moving of the tide that no one could ever hope to change. What endears it to me is that we are told Bilbo's story, not the grander story of the battle and the dragon and the changing of events and the rebuilding of civilizations. Bilbo is just one small hobbit, lost in a huge world. The fact that he has such and impact on the turn of events is greatly encouraging. We get that because of a small perspective of big events. It's something of a balance, I suppose.

I think maybe you could say the difference between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is that the Hobbit is fantasy about small events (or rather, from a small perspective), while the LotR is fantasy about large events (broad perspective).

-Ka

Hm.. well, it's about smaller events than 'The Lord of the Rings', anyway: but 'The Hobbit' isn't exactly about afternoon tea. It's still an adventure.. I think.

This makes a lot of sense. I think you are right, Alison.

What's really interesting is that this is exactly how hard science-fiction operates. It's focus is on how technology affects and changes society. I don't think I've ever run across a fantasy series with the same emphasis or focus.

Huh. That's interesting. And that raises the question: if hard science fiction is focused on technology and how it would affect society, how come fantasy can't focus on magic and how it would affect society? I would think that at least some authors would use magic over technology in these kinds of stories simply because then there's more leeway in what they can get away with; you don't have to worry as much about your idea being plausible. Perhaps it's because this business of exploring the effect of something imaginary on society has a analytical, scientific air to it, and that sort of atmosphere fits better with technology than with magic?

Or perhaps it comes down to the distracting variables again. Real people are more used to technology than to magic. (Well, I suppose it depends on your cultural background, but anyways.) Thus, if you want to make a point about modern society, and you want to do it by writing a story with some speculative element introduced into the real world, but otherwise you want to leave the world as unchanged as possible in your story so you can parallel the real world more effectively - then perhaps it would make the most sense to have a technological speculative element rather than a magical one, simply because it fits into the real world better and thus is less distracting.

I don't know. Just theorizing here. I guess I've been spending a lot of time these days thinking about genre and what sorts of books I want to write.