Here be…
I’ve historically been reticent to write much fantasy. I was raised on fantasy, reading lots of bad (but fun) Dragonlance novels and playing D&D and watching Willow gods’ know how many times and what not. The Hobbit was the book that inspired my love of reading to begin with. But every time my mind wanders to writing fantasy I tend to shy away from it, primarily because I have a hard time coming up with ideas that don’t feel like they’ve been done a billion times before by writers both better and worse. How many times does a reluctant hero need to be yanked into the world to find some magical whoosit and rescue what’s-her-name so they can become the new king of wherever? The world doesn’t need it.
(To be fair, I could certainly say the same of any other genre, so…Also the likes of China Miéville and Gene Wolfe have considerably expanded my idea of what fantasy can be, so maybe I’ll start foraging in this direction more.)
But I had a fun image in mind and thought I’d play with it a bit. So here’s the beginning draft. It’s kind of stalled out a paragraph or so after the clip here, because it started to veer in the direction of another Allanah story, but then I realized it would be virtually the exact same story, but with some fisticuffs. So maybe this will go nowhere. But it’s kind of a nifty beginning, I thought. I think adding a technological element makes it easier for me to identify with the characters, and juxtaposing that with an old-world aesthetic is interesting and offers possibilities that don’t exist in other genres. Then again, maybe I’m just a fan of guys in armored suits. Continue reading
