Right? Ursula K. Le Guin I think would back me up that authors and readers often have really low standards in the fantasy fiction genre. Not that there aren’t a lot of good ones, but there are a lot of bad ones.
Right? Ursula K. Le Guin I think would back me up that authors and readers often have really low standards in the fantasy fiction genre. Not that there aren’t a lot of good ones, but there are a lot of bad ones.
Indeed, and even a superficial swim in YouTube suggests that most young aspiring writers have between one to 10 fantasy books in them, desperate to be unleashed on the world. It makes me feel a little sad.
I think it's staggeringly difficult to create compelling fantasy or sci-fi.
Based on my reading of Le Guin, I think writing good sci-fi comes down to having real, fleshed out characters. Funny how the basics of good storytelling apply here too.
Silly names, banal and cliched inciting incidents, random world building, childish magic systems, wooden characters and dialogue, tortured writing style - the sins of wanna be, and actual, fantasy writers are extensive. I don't know why so many people imagine themselves to be capable of being a fantasy writer, it's the most difficult genre, to my mind.
Even though there are dedicated fantasy and sci-fi writing Reddits, the “general” writing ones are still overwhelmingly populated by aspiring writers of fantasy/sci-fi and a bit of horror. Many of the questions (which boil down to “Can I do [X]” - as if there’s a Council for Enforcing the Rules of Writing) are answered with variations on “What would Brandon Sanderson/Stephen King do?”
Right? Ursula K. Le Guin I think would back me up that authors and readers often have really low standards in the fantasy fiction genre. Not that there aren’t a lot of good ones, but there are a lot of bad ones.
Indeed, and even a superficial swim in YouTube suggests that most young aspiring writers have between one to 10 fantasy books in them, desperate to be unleashed on the world. It makes me feel a little sad.
I think it's staggeringly difficult to create compelling fantasy or sci-fi.
Based on my reading of Le Guin, I think writing good sci-fi comes down to having real, fleshed out characters. Funny how the basics of good storytelling apply here too.
Silly names, banal and cliched inciting incidents, random world building, childish magic systems, wooden characters and dialogue, tortured writing style - the sins of wanna be, and actual, fantasy writers are extensive. I don't know why so many people imagine themselves to be capable of being a fantasy writer, it's the most difficult genre, to my mind.
Even though there are dedicated fantasy and sci-fi writing Reddits, the “general” writing ones are still overwhelmingly populated by aspiring writers of fantasy/sci-fi and a bit of horror. Many of the questions (which boil down to “Can I do [X]” - as if there’s a Council for Enforcing the Rules of Writing) are answered with variations on “What would Brandon Sanderson/Stephen King do?”
To paraphrase Sturgeon's Law, 90% of fantasy is crap; but then, 90% of everything is crap.