Imagine I had all the writers of the world at my mercy, and commanded them to write me the perfect story. The story that’s perfect for me. I could tell them vaguely, “don’t bore me”, or I could give them lists and lists of what I dislike and don’t want them to do.
I imagine when they finally sit down, armed with their book of Thou Shalt Nots, they still wouldn’t have a clue where to start. They still don’t know what I like, only what I don’t like.
So what do I like?
This question, asked by Abby (Mercwriter of the Toasted Scimitar, who currently has a thing for baby Balrogs) in a mail recently, gave me some pause. What about Urban Fantasy appeals to me? Why do I read Fantasy? or Science Fiction? or Horror? Why do I even read?
Surprisingly difficult questions to answer.
My best response is the rather lame, “a sense of wonder.” Admittedly, slightly better than my all-time favourite, “because I like it.” Definitely preferable to the also sometimes true, “because I’m bored and there’s nothing better on TV.”
Not very helpful.
An excellent place to start is Michael Chabon’s essay on entertainment. I’m an entertainer, says Chabon; entertain me, he asks when he reads. An important point he drives at — that I agree with — is that Entertainment has a bad rep not because of any inherent problem with the word or concept itself, but rather because of how narrowly we, ourselves, have come to define its meaning.
There are so many ways in which to be entertained, and a myriad of methods in which to do so. And if you don’t like the word entertainment, you could always substitute tried and honored phrases such as “engage me”, or “make me give a damn.”
Looking at different definitions of the word, “amusement” and “diversion” are two that feature prominently. So does “pleasure” and, since I’m not an 18th century Calvinist, the word pleasure is one I am in favor of, sinful though it may be.
Fantasy as an amusing diversion is probably what supplies all the ammunition for the school of thought actively opposed –to the point of being personally affronted even — to the wish-fulfilment and escapist tendencies the genre can have. That all literature has, actually. It’s also a very limited view.
Entertainment is also defined as ” That which engages the attention agreeably.”
As a broad, general rule that’s a good place to start when applied to Fantasy, to all genres. And that’s what I want when I read - I want you to get my attention and to keep it, to give me a form of pleasure that makes it worth my while to stay.
The different needs and desires that make people read, is what makes it such a damn headache when trying to talk about the specifics of what captures and keeps the attention.
To answer Abby’s question, I’ll take a stab at pointing out some specifics of why Urban Fantasy, in particular, appeals to me.
I’ve been following this thread on Jim Butcher’s forum on and off. There’s a fairly large amount of agreement as to what people like/ dislike in UF there. Predictably, the more specific it gets, the wider the gulf of disagreement.
Take, for example, the concept of the ordinary person in the role of hero. It’s a concept I’m in favor of — I, too, wouldn’t mind seeing more ordinary people involved in UF adventures.
The argument against goes briefly like thus, “but heroes can’t be ordinary. By definition, they are extraordinary.”
True enough.
What I mean, when I make a plea for more ordinary people involved in UF, is an ordinary person who happens to get caught in extraordinary events. How they react to those events, what they do, is what makes them extraordinary, makes them worth reading about.
Let me digress for a sec:
Now, I do like stories about people with special powers — that they’ve been secretly hiding from the world, or that they’re unaware of –and people who are half-vampire, or bitten by werewolves, or somehow related to shiny-glittery beasties.
Sometimes, I like those stories. A story about a person who learns magic, or discovers magic, or gets bitten by a vampire and has to learn to deal with the effect always has a thrill for me.
People who have been singled out from birth for specialness, who are extraordinary by the virtue of simply being, feels a bit like a cheat. I, am not a fan of the Chosen One. These kind of characters need not do anything to be extraordinary, they simply need to exist. Hold on to this paragraph, it’s an important one.
Even in my most cynical moments I like to believe that people are capable of good, that great things are not the domain of the chosen but something everyone can aspire to, that can come under the right circumstances, it is a choice that is made to accept this challenge or to turn away from it that make people extraordinary.
But they are ordinary, by which I mean: Everyman. Everywoman. Anyone.
A quick rule of thumb for what makes a story fantasy is to say that if you can remove all the fantastical elements and the story is unaffected, it’s not fantasy.
UF, obviously, has fantastical elements. If you take the above paragraph, and you apply the concept to the paragraph I emphasized, what you get are characters who, if removed from their fantastical setting, are not only ordinary, they are incapable of ever being anything but unremarkable.
What I want from my UF characters are people who, although ordinary, you can remove from their fantastical setting, place them in this world and they will still be capable of doing remarkable things, being remarkable people. Even in this world, without the magic powers, they are still the kind of people who try to be good, who won’t turn away when a moment of crisis presents itself.
Crisis, is not a world-hangs-in-the-balance event. Crisis, is that moment in a story when the heroine decides to fight back. In that moment, for that character, the world does hang in the balance. The world at large, doesn’t care and won’t notice either way.
What I adore about UF is that it’s open and perfect for “low fantasy.”
Les Miserables is epic, thrilling stuff. The student’s revolution is world-changing stuff, the kind of event that can shape and change the destiny of nations, of the world. If it succeeded.
Valjean, Javert, Cosette, Marius — these human dramas of life and death, hope, despair, damnation, redemption, vengeance and love consume the lives of the people who live them. In the scope of the world, they’re unremarkable, not noteworthy, doesn’t register.
They mean the world to the people who live them, but mean nothing to the world.
Low fantasy.
That’s the kind of stories I look for in UF. The forgotten human dramas. With fantastical elements of course.
I have a pretty loose definition of Urban Fantasy — it doesn’t have to be only a story where the city itself is a character, or integral to the story. Contemporary fantasy, folktales, faery tales, fantasy stories that take place in this world.
Anything remotely like that, I call it UF.
The more alien the world becomes, the less our world and the more other world, the more I read it like second world fantasy. Second World Fantasy I’m more tolerant to the Chosen One. This style of fantasy I do read for world-shattering, grand events. History in the making. Waterloo. The students revolution.
UF I look for Cosette, Valjean and Javert.
When you get right down to it, that’s pretty much all I’m looking for in UF.
With all the writers of the world at my mercy, how to go about helping them to give me that . . .I can’t help them with.
Vera Nazarian mentioned two more things that I like in her essay for Fantasy magazine (my interpretation, not her exact words):
1) Too fast-paced - a negative, but it leads into the second point;
2) too blase. Even when a fantastical element is perfectly normal in a world, even when the character reacts without wonder at meeting the wondrous — I don’t want to be left feeling its unexceptional. In UF, I look for the ordinary to intersect with the fantastical. To make the fantastical bland is to make the story dull.
Why would I want to read something that’s dull? That doesn’t excite or interest me in some capacity?
I don’t want the story to be too slow; if nothing happens, I lose interest. On the other hand, if it moves too fast I never get a proper chance to savor the world and its people, to get a feel for them. It’s like being told the story of the people in a small town while driving through it at 160 km/ h.
I’ll get the general gist, but I won’t care. You moved too fast for me to get a proper look at and feel for the buildings, the streets, the people.
The plot can still move while I’m being allowed to linger and get a look at this world I’m being invited into, to get my bearings and to see not only what the fantastical elements are, but how they interact with the world.
That’s the thing about UF. It’s not enough, for me, to be told, “okay, we’re doing vampires today. They live in clans and fight each other. Go!”
I want to be able to see and appreciate the presence the vampires exert in this world.
I suppose what I read for in Urban Fantasy is not all that different than what I read for in general, with the only exception being the low fantasy element. The human dramas that mean everything to the people who live them. With fantastical elements.

So, yeah, I suppose that’s still not all that specific. Those writers of the world have their work cut out for them.

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Tags: entertainment, Fantasy magazine, Jim Butcher, Les Miserables, Michael Chabon, random, select, urban fantasy, vampires, Vera Nazarian