Exploring New Horizons

Art by Thomas Blackshear

[NOTE: This post began as an FB post in response to a recent Black Gate article by Cynthia Ward, but I wanted to expand and clarify my thoughts for the sake of posterity.]

It seems that the ongoing sword-and-sorcery revival continues to inspire conflict, argument, and debate. Three things I'm not very interested in pursuing. I'm a storyteller, and I write fantasy fiction, which means I don't want to limit myself or my creations. I also don't want to be judged by my personal characteristics, personality, or political leanings. I only want to be judged by my work. To tell the truth, I really don't want to be judged at all, but when you're making art for a public audience, being judged is simply part of the game.

Several years ago, the late Howard Andrew Jones encouraged me to create more "blood-and-thunder" characters like Gnori the Bold and Brugo of Carsonne, but I have never been content to write fiction that is "only" sword-and-sorcery. I've been very outspoken about this--fantasy is fantasy--I'm interested in doing something new with sword-and-sorcery, or at least putting a new spin on it. Readers can decide if my efforts were successful or not.

Art by Bruce Timm

At this point, with Howard gone (RIP), I wonder if his message of inclusion and contemporizing the S&S genre has been lost as well. Personally, I'm rapidly losing interest in the entire genre, and any future fantasy tales that I write will be "fantasy" first and foremost. I've always felt that the "sword-and-sorcery" label is too limiting, and now it's inspiring political and gender-based conflict that I'd rather avoid. In this age of endless conflicts and incessant arguments, I don't need any more of either in my life.

Writers should be judged on their writing, not on their gender, their sexuality, or their political stance. But that's the age we live in...it's one reason why I've dropped out of pursuing "mainstream" fantasy publishers. They tend to judge me by my skin color and sexual preferences before they ever take a look at my work. Who needs them? Kindle Direct Publishing lets me run my own imprint (Flying Wizard Press) and publish exactly the kinds of books I want to write. I don't have to adhere to some narrow definition or genre rules--in fact, I relish defying and escaping those definitions and rules.

Art by Gino d'Achille

I still write stories for NEW EDGE SWORD AND SORCERY as well as OLD MOON QUARTERLY because those magazines have impressed me with their high quality and tend to embody the kind of fiction that Jones embodied without being bound by artificial constraints or author-identity quotas. "Fantasy" is a big, wide genre, and there's room for everybody under that huge umbrella. A legendary writer once said that "All writing is fantasy," meaning that any story you make up can be considered fantasy fiction. That's a bit extreme, but he was making a good point.

Genre categorizations exist to be defied, just as rules were meant to be broken. Especially when it comes to the arts. The very concept of genres began as a commercial consideration, not an artistic one. Genre classification is necessary for marketing purposes, but too often writers are chained to genre expectatons. The best and most innovative artists defy those expectations rather than clinging to them, and that applies to every art form, not just the writing of fiction.

Art by Vincent Segrelles

I encourage anyone who's inspired to write sword-and-sorcery fiction to take a broad approach and move beyond narrow expectations or a "checklist" approach to how a story must be written. Anything is possible in fantasy fiction, so why limit yourself? I have no interest in arguing about what IS or ISN'T proper S&S. I just want to write (and sometimes read) great stories that fire my imagination and don't put me to sleep. I love a good adventure that takes me someplace I've never been.

I consider myself a creator of "alternative fantasy" that brings a literary sensibility to pulp-inspired narratives. Elevated pulp is a term I've used before, and it's as good as any--but as I've said before, elevated pulp ain't really pulp, but it's not mainstream fantasy either. However, it is an alternative to a literary establishment that has gone off the rails and categorizes authors by personal characteristics rather than literary ones. So be it.

Now that I've done a few "warrior" characters, I plan to move back toward less easily classified protagonists. This is one reason I wrote a pacifist character (Dram the Spirit-Walker) into WE LAUGH AT DEATH. There's plenty of sword-swinging in that book, but Dram provides an important counterpoint as a man of peace in a violent world. Gnori the Bold was my most "blood-and-thunder" character ever, and his saga has now been told (and collected in the WORLDS BEYOND WORLDS Expanded Edition).

Art by Don Maitz

So, I'm off to explore new ground, something I encourage all writers to do. As for Brugo of Carsonne, his stories are still appearing in NEW EDGE, and they will eventually be collected in a Carsonne collection. That forthcoming volume may be my last foray into the whole "blood-and-thunder" realm that my good buddy Howard inspired me to explore. At this point, I've been there, done that. Time to explore new horizons, and isn't that the point of writing fiction anyway? It is to me.

I started my writing career with mainly cerebral or intellectual or artistic protagonists because those are the kinds of people I most identify and understand in real life. For example, Artifice the Quill, the writer-turned-sorcerer protagonist in THE REVELATIONS OF ZANG or the bard protagonist in "Yael of the Strings" (also collected in WBW Expanded).

It was fun and challenging to explore the psyche of the warrior for a while with characters like Gnori, Brugo, and the various warrior types in the Scaleborn Series, but now I'm ready for the next writing challenge.

There are no limitations but those you set upon yourself. Write on.

Peace & Broadswords,

John