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Is it really easier?

Do fantastical and genre elements in story craft make for easier writing?

I suppose on the surface it seems so. After all, here is instant hook factor. Instant drama. Fabricated problem. And it can be as big as one likes. No tiny, angsty conflicts need apply. The fate of worlds hang in the balance. So yeah, it seems easier.

 Say that a fellow writer at the University had to strip out all the genre elements from one of her stories and the more interesting points of view. What's left? Without lesbian roommates and zombie cats--where's the drama?

Oh, it's still in there. It was there all along, but without the fantastical, you have to get at it through old-fashioned subtext. Not as fun as zombie cats.

But it pays to remember that in fantasy, as well as everything else--what ever you introduce, you have to deal with--and that is absolutely not easy as it sounds.

So I don't know. In my own out-of-class writing, I have a great big fabricated problem that takes a lot of my thinking time when it comes to deciding how to make all those moving pieces work together. It's not easy. My favorite critique partner's book. There at the end he had to take that meandering journey through hell and give it context--a monumental task.

I guess the answer to this question is, we'll see.

 

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Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter.
Oscar Wilde