by
A. K. Taylor
For this article I would like to discuss why we fantasy and sci-fi authors build worlds opposed to how. Several of my friends and I have agreed on this in some form or another on blog, Facebook posts, and tweets. It is a lot of laughs, but in all seriousness, it points to the underlying roots of why fantasy and as sci-fi exists and why we enjoy creating and consuming it.
In a nutshell these are the reasons:
- The real/natural world is boring.
- Reality stinks.
- The real world has so many limitations for the extraordinary, so then it becomes ordinary
- Rules- the real world is so full of them. Everybody hates rules (especially the can’t-dos), and they are made to be broken.
The things of everyday life become mundane, so why do we want to read or write about it?
Escaping the ordinary world and going to a new and extraordinary world on a glorious adventure is a breath of fresh air. We do this as authors, and we surly hope that readers will do the same when they pick up our books. We come home from an ordinary day and become the extraordinary when we sit at the computer. We leave being a lab technician at the “door” and transform into being a chosen warrior on a quest to save the world. We leave the real world behind for hours at a time. Time seems to stop. We hate to leave the computer or book to “come back” to the ordinary world--even if it is for dinner.
