Periodically there are online discussions (and arguments) about what constitutes epic fantasy, who can and can’t write epic fantasy, which books are or are not epic fantasy, why someone should (or should not) write or try to write epic fantasy, what settings work or don’t work for epic fantasy, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 Given my writing schedule, I usually hear about these weeks to months after they appear and far too late to add my two (hundred and thirty seven) cents to the discussion.\u00a0\u00a0 But a recent one (October of this year) in another venue, that I happened across by following links on Twitter about something else (you know how Twitter links jump topics, right?\u00a0 It’s how I ended up following a bunch of shepherds in the UK) drove me to comment even though I was very late to the party.\u00a0\u00a0 It was a sensible, thoughtful, interesting discussion, and I thought I had something to add to it.<\/p>\n
It also led me to think more analytically about my own thoughts on epic fantasy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And here they are.<\/p>\n
Epic fantasy differs from other fantasy in several important ways.\u00a0\u00a0 Most readers of it agree that it has more scope: the story-space is larger, and the stakes are higher.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s not about small stories, in either the spatial or the stakes sense.\u00a0\u00a0 So the family quarrel, or the adultery, or the dispute with the IRS that can center a perfectly good story…is not enough for an epic (fantasy or otherwise.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Opinions differ on whether a kingdom\/nation wide problem can spawn an epic or whether it takes multi-kingdom\/nation effects to make epic possible.\u00a0 I’m of the “bigger than one state\/nation\/kingdom” contingent.\u00a0\u00a0 High stakes mean something more important than a character’s own success\/life is at stake–it’s the entire region, if not world, that’s at stake and everyone will be affected by the outcome, good or bad.<\/p>\n
Another way epic fantasy differs from other fantasy is that “indifferent” isn’t an option.\u00a0 The outcome is not going to leave things the same as they were before whatever set off the trouble appeared.\u00a0\u00a0 The stakes are too high, the effects too widespread, so there will be change and it will be big.\u00a0 (The criticisms of epic fantasy based on the notion that it’s about static, unchanging worlds is wrong.)<\/p>\n
Note that it’s possible to write a story with a big story-area and have it fail as an epic because the stakes are not that high.\u00a0\u00a0 A gradual cultural change from, say,\u00a0 primitive farming to organized agriculture, with shift of population from small rural villages to cities…is not an epic in my terms.\u00a0\u00a0 It can be very important history, but it’s not an epic.\u00a0\u00a0 (The abuse of the term “epic” to mean anything big or important is, um, a problem here.)<\/p>\n
And it’s possible to write a story with high stakes (life or death) and have it too small to be epic.<\/p>\n
Even stories with a huge story-area and high stakes (something will destroy the whole world–Death Star or aliens or a natural disaster) doesn’t always make the epic designation, because it fails for lack of the final leg of the tripod that I consider a requirement for epic.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (And fantasy trilogies require a fourth leg, which makes the whole thing more prone to wobble…they also need the fantasy element.)<\/p>\n
What is the third leg?\u00a0\u00a0 The character(s).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An epic must have the right characters to make the emotional connection between “too big, too hard”–the scope and stakes requirements–and one or more characters’ capacity to struggle and prevail or fail in averting the big-stakes disaster.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The main character or characters in an epic must have agency–they make decisions and act in ways that affect the course of the story.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They are not just along for the ride and they are not pawns being moved around a plot chessboard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Because they are plot movers, they must have depth so the reader can see the motivations that drive their decisions and thus their actions.<\/p>\n
A common failure in “big picture\/ big stakes”\u00a0 stories–failure in the epic sense–is characters who can’t do this….who are either passive, without agency, or who lack the depth of character needed for epics, so even when active they float along in the stream, battling monsters or slave armies\u00a0 or whatever, but with no solid connection to the reader’s core sense of what people are and can do.\u00a0\u00a0 Actions must have consequences, and consequences with teeth.<\/p>\n
Am I saying an epic needs a moral\/ethical aspect?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A character may start out with an ordinary,\u00a0 almost automatic motivation (Paks wanting to leave home so she wouldn’t have to marry the pig-farmer’s son: lots of kids run away to avoid something at home they don’t like) but an epic character must have more depth and complexity, going right down to the root of good and evil, however those are measured.<\/p>\n
I’ve mentioned before that Aristotle’s Poetics<\/em> has formed a lot of my thought on story (Dorothy L. Sayers’ writing on writing is also a big influence, but she was familiar with classical sources herself.\u00a0\u00a0 “Familiar” understates her scholarship.)\u00a0 Aristotle’s comments on tragedy make sense in terms of effective storytelling of any kind, barring the “unity of place and time,” necessitated as it was by the limitations of Greek theater and the attention span of an audience sitting out in the open.\u00a0 We can replace that with writing techniques that keep the reader oriented across a span of time and another of locations…but keeping the reader oriented always matters.<\/p>\n What makes Aristotle’s comments on writing more useful than Plato’s is that Aristotle wrote from observation: what worked for audiences.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Plato had an idea of what literature should be based on his theories of human nature and what a perfect government should be.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Both knew that literature intended certain effects on people, and thus considered how best to write to have those effects, but Plato wanted to limit literature to the effects he thought good (very much like censors in any age) and Aristotle wanted to discuss what made the writing work.<\/p>\n So, back to epics.\u00a0\u00a0 Looking at the history of what are called epics, and the literature that grew out of them (as the Homeric legends and others in Greece\u00a0 gave rise to countless tragedies), what effects does an epic produce, when the attempt at one is successful?<\/p>\n On the surface, an epic holds attention with action in response to a threat:\u00a0 a threat to reputation, to a valued element of society, to a group of people larger, to a way of life.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus epics often include a lot of “action”–including fighting and war.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But war stories and fight stories alone do not make an epic or hold long interest.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aristotle said that the end of a good story, whether a desired or undesired outcome, had to feel just to the reader\/viewer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To arouse the pity and awe Aristotle thought were the aims of tragedy, justice must be served.\u00a0\u00a0 So in the course of an epic,\u00a0 as the surface action whirls all around, the motives of the characters are exposed more and more, and the consequences of their thoughts, as well as their behavior, play out….and the readers can see ever more clearly how these fallible and limited people are affecting the fate of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions….and the motives behind their actions.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The next fascination below the action itself is this motivation, and the reader’s response to the motivations–shallow or deep, selfish or unselfish, etc.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Will this character have to endure punitive change–hurt his\/her deepest sense of good–to attempt something to stave off disaster…and will the quality of the motivation affect the outcome?<\/p>\n Because epics (fantasy or otherwise) tend to be long, expansive, complex,\u00a0 they can then arouse the same pity and awe as a tragedy, but also, along the way, many other strong emotions placed in close proximity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Fantasy epics, which have the additional supporting leg of the fantasy element itself,\u00a0 are always a little imperiled by that.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What if the fantasy doesn’t quite come off?\u00a0\u00a0 But if it does,\u00a0 the fantasy can add another set of dimensions (those associated with fantasy, and–in terms of non-fantasy tragedy or epic–most closely related to awe.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wonder, and what the Welsh call hierath<\/em>, which to my understanding is related to longing for the other, what’s beyond.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A form of terror that’s different from ordinary straightforward everyday terror…that magic can be inimical and is outside the usual understanding of just\/unjust.\u00a0\u00a0 Fantasy plays with reality…well, we all know that, but in the context of epic, which already has the huge scale and the high stakes, fantasy plays with the whole range of reality that the huge scale has set out.\u00a0\u00a0 What parts are going to come unglued, as it were?<\/p>\n The early epics contained much that we now think of as fantasy…but that may not have been experienced as fantasy when they were first sung or acted.\u00a0\u00a0 Reality itself was more expansive then, in the minds of those hearing epics sung by bards like Homer.\u00a0\u00a0 The golden fleece needed no explanation of gold flecks in streams trapped in soggy sheepskins…the gluttons turned into pigs were not a metaphor…clashing rocks were just clashing rocks.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But as we have nailed and stitched and glued down firmly what we think of as reality, we are more aware of crossing into unreality…and then treating it, in a story, as<\/em> reality–a temporary reality, to which the reader agrees for the effect desired.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An epic fantasy now is consciously constructed as a fantasy…and an epic.<\/p>\n Pause for comments now.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let’s hear from the reader side of things!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Periodically there are online discussions (and arguments) about what constitutes epic fantasy, who can and can’t write epic fantasy, which books are or are not epic fantasy, why someone should (or should not) write or try to write epic fantasy, what settings work or don’t work for epic fantasy, etc.\u00a0\u00a0 Given my writing schedule, I 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