“Here there be dragons”
“Here there be dragons”. Words written on maps in ancient times, to indicate places where no humans had been, which were unknown, unexplored, dangerous, magical. The places where real magic might really dwell.
“Here there be dragons”. I’ve chosen the fantasy genre because of that very thing. It’s freeing to me to know that even if I don’t, personally, know the lay of the land in the places where the dragons lurk – well – neither does anyone else, and therefore I am free to create my own geography, my own history, my own world.
I’ve always loved the worldbuilding aspect of the fantasy genre, the part where I get to go wading out into the dark unknown with nothing but a tiny flashlight in my hand and it is by that light alone, MY light, the light that I choose to shine and the spot I choose to illumine, that determines what anybody else who might be following me is likely to see, understand, remember.
All the worlds are a blank page before a writer’s eyes fall upon them.
But I cannot seem to get that dictum to stick with stuff that is supposed to take place in the “real” world, our world, the mundane everyday days that we all inhabit routinely. For some reason I can write lush, rich, penetrating prose about characters who can never exist – who live only inside my own head, who cope with dragons or their equivalent on a daily basis – but present me with a cast of characters who are living realistic, mundane lives in the common shared reality with the potential reader, and I freeze.
