The Bigger Picture - Why Am I Writing and For Whom

So I studied the sundry sub genres of Fantasy, and found that are indeed, a large number of them. I think the most interesting revelation to me is that the things that seem to separate most of them are setting and story. The story axiom is either nitty and gritty (anti heroes or the threat of immediate physical threat) or broad and world shattering. I know which of those two kinds of story I write better. I'm a 'blow up the planet' kind of guy.

The setting tends to be "real world" vs "historical" vs "completely made up." Now, Historical has the caveat that it can be a historical period with the serial numbers filed off. For example, a Song of Ice and Fire is (according to the website anyway) based largely upon the War of the Roses.

I can see the appeal. One of the reasons I made Gemini a copy of Earth in "Manifesto of Three Peoples" was because making an entirely new world is HARD. This is especially true if just one person is doing it. There are so many things that make up a world; religion, politics, geography, geology, economics, culture, war, peace and on and on. The closer you base your world on the real world, the more reality you have to draw from.

And that brings the central point I realized that I had to ask....WHY am I writing this?

The first novel I wrote because I simply wanted to write one. It was a life goal, and I am glad I completed it. I used the setting I gave to my mother when I was 15-16, because I'd always felt it wasn't being used and I was tired of giving her lame birthday presents.

The second novel was written largely because there was a plot I always had had in mind, and I wanted to write a near future novel, and at the same time write something with Narcoleptics in it.

This novel I want to write entirely for my own enjoyment. But I also firmly believe the greatest art is the kind that has deep meaning and is enjoyed by a lot of people. Norman Rockwell was not well respected by art critics of his time, but it enjoys a timeless quality about it, in part because it has become part of the popular culture and in part because it is really really good and in part because it speaks to so many people.

I want my novel to be something that anyone can enjoy, even though I'm writing it for me.

Which means some aspect of the novel has to connect with the real world. I'm not entirely opposed to the 'transplant from earth' model, but I'm not doing that with this novel.

The more I reflect upon the kind of story I'm really itching to tell, I think it has to be High Fantasy, but the advances made in the last 10-15 years in the 'historical' and 'urban' fantasy genres is such that I really don't want to ignore them...which tells me of a story that starts small and gets very very big before it is done.

Only I have to do this in a way that doesn't seem too rushed. Galb's suggestion that I do something more like 'The Hobbit' for my Gemini setting was a good one
, which means that while High Fantasy might be in the background, it also has to really be just a tiny fraction of the larger puzzle.

It's a place to start at least.