Welcome to My World

For me dragons are sentient, decent, fire-breathing, flying, speaking, mortal, almost human creatures. For you they may be animals, deceptive, snake-like, creeping, mute, immortal, very strange creatures. Why?

The fact is that when you read about my dragons, you are in my world. In my world, I decide how things are, why they are, how they came to be, and everything else. When I read about your dragons, I am in your world. Over there you decide who is important, what makes an action right or wrong, how justice is served, whether it is served, and what kind of food is served at dinnertime. We all have our own worlds, whether we are fantasy writers or not.

For some their world exists on Facebook. For others it is the realm of gor Jensihi Tyra, the Sixth World. For some the great histories are the most recent tweet. For others it is the chronicle of the first age of Middle-earth.

Fantasy writers though, do not tell their story in one hundred forty character blocks of text. More often it takes a fantasy writer one hundred forty pages to tell about their world. When we write, whether we are Facebook-ers or the next Tolkien, we introduce our readers to our world.

What is it then that separates gor Jensihi Tyra from Facebook? Instinctively we know that one is an official art form and the other is a product of social networking and that the two are very different. The difference is in the reflection, in the depth and resolution of the image.

A whole reflection can be seen in a drop of water, but it is far more brilliantly displayed on the surface of a lake. When I welcome you to the Red World, I am not only telling you what happened last night in half of a sentence, but I am telling you everything about me. A social blurb like, “Soccer game last night! :)” does not tell you what I felt about competition as does a novel devoted to the story of Caeron as he crosses the wilderness to fight the dragon.

Fantasy writers have even greater opportunity than writers of historical fiction or contemporary novels. Those writers are stuck with physics and creatures as we know them. The sun has to be a far away star that our planet orbits. It cannot be one of the last flowers of Telperion that is carried across the sky by a spirit being. Darkness has to be the absence of light; it cannot be a thing of itself.

We writers of fantasy are likewise faced with a dilemma. How can we reveal everything about our inner-selves and our worldviews in only one hundred forty pages? The fact is that most authors cannot. This is because we are not making just one moral point through our novel.

We are not addressing just one social issue. When we write our fantasies we take the world to task and ask it, “What are you?” We explore the depths not only of one emotion or the effects of one decision on one life, but the effects of the first rebellion on the whole world. We explore everything, from original sin to coming judgment.

The literary realm of fantasy rises above social media and stands over traditional literature. Perhaps it is this reason that the ancients did not write novels about men, but wrote myths of gods. They knew that no legion of novels about ordinary men would ever satisfy the depths of human curiosity. It is against that challenge that the fantasy writer strives.

The man on the street of the modern novel is of just one kind. The wizard that must fight the dark lord or the hobbit that must carry the ring into Mount Doom involve us all. We all strive against dark lords, whether it is the bully at school or the dishwasher that is busted. We all carry rings toward the volcano, whether it is the burden of temptation or the vendetta with the referee who didn't make the call when you were so obviously tripped within a few yards of the goal.

Fantasy writing is different from all others in that it does not study the world by analysis, but by synthesis. We do not investigate one man who feels out of place in his culture so that we can understand that kind of situation better. We do not investigate the relationship between two Jewish boys of different denominations and how they both relate to the world around them to understand that single culture better. Fantasy writers seek to tackle the whole world at once.

When fantasy writers work their craft, they do not send out a short message about how they are feeling today or the final exams coming at the end of the week. Neither do they just explore how they feel when encumbered by social expectations. They welcome others to view their whole selves, to investigate the essence of their hopes, dreams, and fears. The dark lord is both the gossip that destroyed our reputation as it is the god of this age, the real dark lord. The ring that we carry and that is our task to destroy is the hatred for the gossiper, and the willingness to partake of the true dark lord’s peace offerings.

In gor Jensihi Tyra, Nastar and Aerykun are the dark lords/the unfair soccer coach. Welcome to my world.

Brilliant article! I would be honored to have it on our blog.

It only needs some minor editing, and it should be ready to go.

Are you wanting this to be posted now, Jay, or filed away under the new system?

I think we should post it now.

Sounds like a plan. I am actually going to find someone, other than myself, to edit this one. My mind is not on edits, at the moment.

I will say it again Reiyen, I love this article.

It looks great

This is an article that could have very easily been superficial, but it quickly proved not to be.

And I love Evening! She has agreed to edit this for us.

Thank you very much Evening, for taking up this project

Alrighty, time to look back here. I am still on vacation so I don't have forever, so I will only get to address some of this. Thanks, Evening, for taking up the editing on this.

1. Semi-colon it is then. No debate or disagreement on this one.

2. a. How about, "how they came to be, and what exists at all." How does that sound?
 b. I was worried about that line a little myself; I knew it sounded to radical. My only counter argument would be that magic is wrong here but not over there, but I can definitely agree to remove that line, maybe switch it to pair with the previous phrase so that it reads, "Over there you decide who is important, why they are important, how justice is served..."

3. Yep, it's my world. Literally translated it means, "The sixth world." I wanted it because it is unfamiliar, a different language, and is actually my world to fit with the title, "Welcome to My World."

4. I am perfectly happy to add hyphens. That makes sense.

5. Thank you

6. a. I liked the reflection one, also.
 b. I wondered why it was gone. I deliberately left it as the punctuation marks.
 c. I had it there originally, then removed it last-minute, so I am willing to put it back in again.
 d. The connection isn't very obvious. The idea is that a novel about a guy competing with the elements and with a dragon tells you a lot more than a Facebook status with two words and an emoticon about sporting competition. I could re-work it as "...does not tell you what I felt about the competition as does a novel devoted to the story of Caeron competing against the elements and wild-beasts," but that loses some of its fantasy feel in my opinion.

7. Thank you again

8. a. Well I am talking about each separate author's worldview, which would mean more than one worldview...
That's all for now.

8. b. Makes sense, I am one of those people who often sticks hyphens in unnecessary places, like I do with commas.
 c. The idea was to say just as we have an advantage we have a dilemma. I don't think just removing "likewise" will cut it because then we have a very awkward and choppy transition between paragraphs. Perhaps substitute "also," instead?

9. a. Good point. So maybe we should have it read, "the depths not only of one emotion or the effects of one decision on one life, but the effects of any one decision on many lives." I like the way that runs if you do.
  b. The repetition was intentional, though I can also see how it would be annoying. Perhaps we should switch it to, "a single" so that it goes, "We are not addressing just a single social issue," because to say it differently might be to imply that we aren't addressing any at all.
  c. Yeah, that was an idea I had hoped to develop further and was largely the output of my current disposition, so I would agree that it requires replacement. "When we write out fantasies we take our world, turn it inside out, and try to figure out what it is all about." or something fun like that...

10. Thank you

11. I love to make people laugh out loud. Mission accomplished.

12. "Fantasy writing is different from all other arts in that it does not study the world by analysis..."

13. a. "God of this Age" is a title for Satan in my bible translation, that or the "god of this world." That is what I meant by it... how would you recommend making that more obvious?
  b. That would be another one of my wonderful sentences that mean so much but I never developed here, thus making it a tangent. The idea was that just as Frodo is tasked with destroying the One Ring, we have to destroy our sinful habits such as hating those who are mean to us and being willing to deal with the dark lord by accepting what he offers us against God's will, which ranges from sin to demonic power (though of course, the latter is less common today).

14. Yep, gor Jensihi Tyra is my world.
  b. I'll agree the slash is informal, but I used to keep the pace quick and help make the dark lord and the unfair soccer coach run together better.

Behold I have returned to make the edits that Evening pointed out for us:

Welcome to My World

For me dragons are sentient, decent, fire-breathing, flying, speaking, mortal, almost human creatures. For you they may be animals; deceptive, snake-like, creeping, mute, immortal, very strange creatures. Why?

The fact is that when you read about my dragons, you are in my world. In my world, I decide how things are, why they are, how they came to be, and what even exists at all. When I read about your dragons, I am in your world. Over there you decide what kind of ruler the people serve, how justice is served, whether it is served, and what kind of food is served at dinnertime. We all have our own worlds, whether we are fantasy writers or not.

For some their world exists on Facebook. For others it is the realm of gor Jensihi Tyra, the Sixth World. For some the great histories are the most recent tweet. For others it is the chronicle of the first age of Middle-earth.

Fantasy writers though, do not tell their story in one-hundred-forty-character blocks of text. More often it takes a fantasy writer one hundred forty pages to tell about their world. When we write, whether we are Facebook-ers or the next Tolkien, we introduce our readers to our world.

What is it then that separates gor Jensihi Tyra from Facebook? Instinctively we know that one is an official art form and the other is a product of social networking and that the two are very different. The difference is in the reflection, in the depth and resolution of the image.

A whole reflection can be seen in a drop of water, but it is far more brilliantly displayed on the surface of a lake. When I welcome you to the Red World, I am not only telling you what happened last night in half of a sentence, but I am telling you everything about me. A social blurb like, “Soccer game last night! ” does not tell you what I felt about the competition as does a novel devoted to the story of Caeron competing against the elements and wild-beasts to ultimately duel with a dragon. Once you've read, that, you'll know how I feel about competition.

Fantasy writers have even greater opportunity than writers of historical fiction or contemporary novels. Those writers are stuck with physics and creatures as we know them. The sun has to be a far away star that our planet orbits. It cannot be one of the last flowers of Telperion that is carried across the sky by a spirit being. Darkness has to be the absence of light; it cannot be a thing of itself.

We writers of fantasy are also faced with a dilemma. How can we reveal everything about our inner selves and our worldview in only one hundred forty pages? The fact is that most authors cannot. This is because we are not making just one moral point through our novel.

We are not addressing only a single social issue. When we write our fantasies we explore the depths not only of one emotion or the effects of one decision on one life, but the effects of many decisions on many lives. We explore everything, from original sin to coming judgment.

The literary realm of fantasy rises above social media and stands over traditional literature. Perhaps it is this reason that the ancients did not write novels about men, but wrote myths of gods. They knew that no legion of novels about ordinary men would ever satisfy the depths of human curiosity. It is against that challenge that the fantasy writer strives.

The man on the street of the modern novel is of just one kind. The wizard that must fight the dark lord or the hobbit that must carry the ring into Mount Doom involve us all. We all strive against dark lords, whether it is the bully at school or the dishwasher that is busted. We all carry rings toward the volcano, whether it is the burden of temptation or the vendetta with the referee who didn't make the call when you were so obviously tripped within a few yards of the goal.

Fantasy writing is different from all other kinds of fiction in that it does not study the world by analysis, but by synthesis. We do not investigate one man who feels out of place in his culture so that we can understand that kind of situation better. We do not investigate the relationship between two Jewish boys of different denominations and how they both relate to the world around them to understand that single culture better. Fantasy writers seek to tackle the whole world at once.

When fantasy writers work their craft, they do not send out a short message about how they are feeling today or the final exams coming at the end of the week. Neither do they just explore how they feel when encumbered by social expectations. They welcome others to view their whole selves, to investigate the essence of their hopes, dreams, and fears. The dark lord is both the gossip that destroyed our reputation as it is the god of this age, the real dark lord.

In gor Jensihi Tyra, Nastar and Aerykun are the dark lords/the unfair soccer coach. Welcome to my world.

Alright, Reiyen. The day is quickly approaching when this will go through the system and post on the blog. We've just got a couple weeks left of the Christmas Contest stuff! *is getting very excited!

Due to the fact that this article has been posted on the blog, it is now being archived. Thanks to all who participated, and especially to Reiyen for writing this up for us.