Content area
Full Text
2012 CLA MASTER CLASS: FROM THE AUTHOR
Fantasy writer, John Stephens, discussed the crafting of fantasy with attendees of the 2012 CLA Master Class.
IMAGINE A YOUNG FARMHAND. Call him Bob, parents dead in a tragic accident years before. As Bob grows into young manhood, he feels this odd yearning, a sense that he has a great destiny. One day, this old, long-bearded wanderer comes to him saying, "I'm giving you a quest." "Awesome," says Bob. The old guy says, "I want you to write a story. It's about a young, dumb, orphaned farmhand like yourself who has to go and save the kingdom from the evil guy who's taken it over by means of his magical thingy. On the way, the farmhand meets dwarves, elves, trolls, and other monsters and finally learns his true, noble heritage." "I feel like I've heard that story before," says Bob. "Probably, dodo," says the wanderer, "But you've got to make this story feel fresh and familiar." "Fresh and familiar," says Bob. "Isn't that kind of oxymoronic?" "Well, kid," said the wanderer. "There's the rub."
I was asked to talk about my approach to writing fantasy, and that's kind of it in a nutshell, to make it feel familiar and fresh. The question is, Why make it familiar at all? Why not make it all fresh? Why not write a story that doesn't dredge up all those hoary tropes, that doesn't insist on pulling in those well-known narrative pit stops, but which is completely and wholly original? I would argue that no one comes to write fantasy who is not, first and foremost, a lover of fantasy, who does not know its ins and outs, the various plot stratagems, the characters who insist on popping up. It somewhat stands to reason that when that person goes to write his or her own fantasy book-as I did- they don't immediately set about chucking everything that came before; rather, they embrace those tropes, decide what their own spin will be, how they will breathe new life into the genre that they love-knowing that is also what the readers expect.
Story
In the context of story, I present one of the hoariest of hoary chestnuts: the quest. A group of people,...