The Inclusive Power of the Fantasy Genre

   I want to write a "pirate" story at some point in time.

What does that even mean? Probably not what one might immediately imagine. Not the cliché adventure story, equipped with a “skull and bones” flag and a captain named “(insert colour here)-Beard.”

     Nor a strict period piece that one might label historical fiction.

     (Not that there’s anything wrong with those things!)

     No, it’s the aesthetics and tropes that interest me. The unique colour pallet, painted on a canvas misted with salt water. The distinctive spice combination, cooked with a splash of rum to draw out the flavour.

     So, it’s more accurate to say that I want to play with the ingredients characteristic of such stories, and come up with my own unique recipe.

     And that is why I love fantasy. It allows one to do precisely this.

     That’s what the story will really be – a fantasy tale. That’s true of almost every story I have/am/will write. The brightness may vary, but the fantastical light will be present somewhere.

     It might simply be a candle flame in a familiar room, shedding a novel glow on an old view.

    Or it might be a cascade of brilliant colours pouring from the night sky, fashioned to capture the wonder of dreaming.

     The beauty of fantasy is that it can be both these things. It is a tool, more than a genre, able to break the rules of reality in useful ways, often to illuminate an even deeper truth that simply cannot be reached by mundane tools.

     “But reality is reality for a reason, maaan. It simple minded and easy to just break the rules and do whatever you please. And after all, is it not the limitations we place upon ourselves that stoke our creativity?"

     True. Restrictions are a catalyst for creativity.

    But being forcibly bound to the rules is constricting.

    In this instance, restraint is self-imposed – it implies discipline, understanding and problem-solving.

    Constraint is external – it implies the theft of freedom, the burden of conformity.

    The difference is night and day.

     Fantasy isn’t about doing whatever you want without repercussion. Internal logic formulated and followed, limitations are designed and respected. However, things can be shifted, when necessary, if that shift moves you closer to the story you want to tell.

     Perhaps you want to tell a story about a point in history that has inspired you. But perhaps that time was not so great for certain groups of people. Fantasy lets you explore the aesthetics of our past, the pieces of beauty we have created in our time…

     …without all the racism and misogyny baggage.

     It's not that you refuse to deal with such things in your book – in fact, it may very well be the point of your story to explore prejudice. But you don't have to deal with such subjects the same way. I imagine, for groups historically oppressed, seeing the same depictions of their oppression in story after story might just get old at times.

     Let us return to the aforementioned “Age of Piracy,” and that list of ingredients.

     Through the romantic lens, we can experience the wonder of such times.

Forgotten islands. Buried treasure. Sleet rain falling across the deck of a ship, as it rides a violent storm. And the one legged captain bursting from his quarters into the moonlight, to laugh in defiance at the danger.

     His laugh is infectious.

     But such times were also the height of slave trade and white supremacist racism.

     To write of that history now, one must depict the truth of what we humans were doing to other humans without faltering - to think, what we have inflicted on each other, simply due to something as trivial as skin colour, simply because we had the power to do so.

     This is an important story to tell. We all need to acknowledge our history – we cannot skip a beat in this. We cannot forget any of the cruelty our descendants inflicted on others. We cannot dismiss it as simply past.

     Such things are not a matter of blame, but of empathy.

     And storytelling has the power to imbue us with this kind of empathy. The experience of a well told story can lead to understanding and connection.

     But there is another kind of experience inherent in storytelling, fundamental to being human.

     It is the experience of imagining, of transportation into worlds of wonder, of exploration and immersion.

    It is being swept of your feet, or discovering you can fly - whatever your preference.

    It is the young girl who imagines a rainbow-feathered parrot on her shoulder, and a big, black captain's hat on her head, sailing towards a chest of shining gold.

     And no genre can quite compete with fantasy in this regard. Ne genre is quite so inclusive.

     That young girl does not know such a thing would be historically denied to her. She will eventually learn that that time in history was not so kind to her, in ways that will make her angry. No women captains. No black Admirals.

     No rainbow parrots for her shoulder.

     Should she be denied even the fantasy of such a world? Should she be told even such imaginings are off limits for her?

     These are paradoxical questions, of course. Fantasy is the power to create any world you so desire. The imagination has no limits.

     While sci-fi can look forward and explore the shape of our future projections in profound and fascinating ways, fantasy is the only way we can look back at the silhouettes of our past and choose what colour to fill them with.

     Fantasy means that girl can experience the wonder of that story, even as she learns her world was not so inclusive.