The fantasy genre seems to have taken over the popular consciousness. Or at least film and premium streaming services. A wide-ranging genre, audiences enjoy everything from epics like Game of Thrones to more intimate stories of personal crises and relationships like Logan. But what, exactly, makes us call a piece of art “fantasy?”

Definition

As I’ve previously discussed in other genre blogs, category labels are for the most part marketing terms. Books, films, and shows are grouped so that the consumer can more easily connect with stories of interest.  Fantasy is a kind of speculative fiction involving some version of magic. These works generally take place in a fictional universe, often inspired by real-world myths and legends. Sometimes that fictional universe looks like the real world on the surface, but some unusual elements exist beyond everyday reality. For example, in my novelette, Water of Life, the 1920s world of the bootleg-running protagonist collides with mysterious fae creatures of the Southern Illinois forest. Vita Nostra presents the magical reality of a college for young people with paranormal abilities secretly co-existing, uneasily perhaps, with the mundane life of modern Russia. 

Audience Expectation

Genre readers have specific expectations, and fantasy audiences are no exception. Underlying fantasy worlds is magic—a departure, with no explanation based on real-world laws of physics (unlike science fiction), from our day-to-day reality. However, the fantasy universe must make sense and be consistent within itself for the audience to suspend disbelief and enter into the tale. 

While it is difficult to think of any fantasy examples that don’t involve magic, magical creatures, and/or supernatural abilities, some analysists point out that magic isn’t an absolute necessity. As long as the story takes place in a fictional universe—a magicless secondary world—it is still fantasy. Our conventional universe, transformed, often by a change in a past key event, skirts the line with another genre, alternative history.

Fantasy Subgenres

Like other genres, fantasy can find itself an element in another sort of story, such as horror, science fiction, weird, or romance. And fantasy is a big tent with many subgenre and cross-genre works. A few examples include:

• Contemporary—The universe appears to be our usual, mundane reality, but—with magic!
• Dark fantasy, dark urban—Gritty, edgy, some horror elements, often in a contemporary setting. Viscera by Gabriel Squailia is an excellent example.
• Sword-and-sorcery—Adventure tales of sword-wielding heroes. I’d guess LitRPG (literary role-play games) is son-of-sword-and-sorcery.
• Fairytales, fable, myth-based legends—Classic stories of this type are generally fantasies, and they often inspire artists to create new versions of the old tales, still within the fantasy genre. Snow, Boy, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi is an example, as is Sleepy Hollow: Rise Headless and Ride by Richard Gleaves.

High Versus Low Fantasy

Also known as epic fantasy, high fantasy often features larger-than-life characters and plots of world-shaking consequence. Kingdoms rise and fall, armies win and lose, and heroes vanquish monsters or die trying.

Low fantasy, in my opinion, is more about people and their relationships than the magical elements of the tale. The Harry Potter series started out low, as a young boy begins to figure out his place in society but wound up being quite epic. 

High Versus Low Magic

Not to be confused with high and low fantasy, high or low magic describes the universe in which the fantasy takes place. Just how magical is this place? The Harry Potter world seems to have a lot of magic, as does the book Repo Shark by Cody Goodfellow, although in both stories it is hidden from a mundane world. In other stories, magic is possible, but it isn’t an underlying force on which the world’s reality is built. Magic may or may not be a secret, and performing it is rare and costly. Lois McMasters Bujold’s Curse of Chalion is one of my favorites in this vein.

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