Good day, Internet! Emma here.
I am about to make a bold statement. This statement is something I believe strongly, and will argue til the day I die. Are you ready for it? Are you sure? Once it's out, I can't take it back. Alright, here it is.
Fantasy and Sci-fi are the hardest genres to write.
Oh I know, all of you 'non fantasy/sci-fi' writers are screaming in your heads right now. But, don't exit the blog and regard me as uninformed, just read.
Firstly, I just want to say I don't really like lumping Sci-fi and Fantasy together. I think they are largely different from each other, but they do face a lot of the same difficulties when it comes to writing it.
Alright, on to my points.
1. The rules.
Now think about this. You write a novel set in this world with no fantasy elements. All your rules are already set for you. The physics, the laws, most of your settings already exist. You don't need to think those up. Where as if you write fantasy or sci-fi, you need to create new rules. If your story is set in a different world, answer me this...
What is the air like?
Is the world round, flat, square?
How does the sun rise, is there a sun or some other form of light source?
For sci-fi, how does the technology function?
What are the rules of the magic in the world?
How do the separate towns or planets make their livelihood? What do they export?
Is your world run on a monarchical system, democratic, communist or something different?
If you can answer these few questions of the top of your head, you are fantastic. If you can't, you're still fantastic, you just need to think deeper.
2. The characters.
Now before you start screaming 'but every writer has to create characters', let me finish. Is the character human? If not, what are they? What do they look like? What powers come with this race? What is their origins? Creating a non-human character is a lot harder than a normal human character. I mean, you can sum up a human with the basic of all descriptions and it'll do just fine. But if they aren't human, if they are an alien, you have to go much deeper into that detail so the reader can properly imagine this character. Now, I don't really write sci-fi, so the most trouble I have is describing the talking lizards in my current novel.
3. The world.
You set a novel on Earth, and you can almost visit every possible setting you might have in your novel. It is a lot harder to create and explain a world that exists only in your book than it is to set your novel in a coffee shop. Everyone goes to coffee shops, we can all imagine the basic set up of a coffee shop. But what about an alien planet in a far off galaxy? Can you imagine that? I know I certainly can't unless someone sets it up for me with a long, elaborate description.
Now, I know I've listed these reasons as to why writing fantasy and sci-fi is hard, but at the same time, I could never write a normal fiction book. They, to be blunt, bore me. It's not a challenge. I want to read about somewhere I haven't been, somewhere I've never seen or even heard of. I want to read something new and exciting that I have to visualize in my head. I don't like our world. If I liked it, I'd spend more time outside. I prefer fantasy and sci-fi worlds. Because they are interesting. Earth is boring.
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