Herein, I will go off on one about writing in a stream-of-consciousness oupouring.  Feel free to tune out, I won’t be offended.  Or hitch a ride in my fevered imagination and thought-processes…

A thought occurred to me today; almost all fantasy/ sci-fi writing seems to be either wish-fulfilment or some kind of cathartic self-help.  The former is obvious in many works; in the case of some books (which I will decline to name), it is painful to watch the Marty-Stu character bumbling around becoming a hero, while authors such as Robert E. Howard manage to draw you in, even if Conan is sometimes described with such sensual language that it could be borrowed by Mills and Boon.

One thing I need to make clear is that I do not find this wish-fulfilment to be a negative thing; read any Neil Gaiman and you can tell the man is writing the kind of thing other people love and enjoying it.  This is the essence of great fiction, that sense of camaraderie you share with the author as you fulfil your shared wishes.  Essentially, he is trying out something fun and encouraging you to come with him.  Tolkien was dark in places, but the Lord of the Rings was an English-language scholar inviting you to go off with him while he follows the Fellowship.  The films where twice the wish-fulfilment, because you had a huge geek directing the films and you could tell that he just wanted to show you what he saw in his head when he read the book.  Even the actors were getting into it, like they were players in the greatest roleplaying group of the world.

Tolkien also brings me to one of the specific issues that seem to drive fantasy writers; there are no dragons left to slay, nor dark lords to overthrow.  By writing a big opus, whether it is Dragonlance or Star Wars, the writer acts as hero and bard; they set an example, an ideal to live up to, and then deliver it to their audience.  There may be no dragons left, but writers can still remind people of the reasons why dragons need to be fought, just in case they come back.

Going back to the topic in hand, wish-fulfilment, I think nearly all fantasy writers (even me) would love to go out and live those stories with a band of adventurers, but we have typically reached an age where we are just a little too fat and a little too married-with-kids, so we can either learn to play D&D or we can take down a pen and let the readers ‘follow Obi-Wan on some damn-fool crusade’.  We don’t tend to actually own a sword (with some exceptions), but we still want to go on our own Hero’s Journey.

Now cathartic self-help…  That is something we understand better.  Take one look at Steven King’s early works, the self-destructive writers and the New England residents searching for an escape, and it is not hard to see.  Tolkien poured all his anger and hatred at the pointlessness of war into Middle Earth.  It would  not be fair to deconstruct this, as I am just a bard and not a psychologist.

So…  Conclusions?  Fantasy writers are often seeking wish-fulfilment; bad ones write about Mary-Sues, good ones let you share the wish-fulfilment. I said it was stream-of-consciousness; I was exploring, not teaching…