Secondary World Fantasy
Jun. 18th, 2026 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerAt the end of April, I had just finished a draft of my secondary world fantasy novelette The Paper Bird. asakiyume agreed to give it a beta read, and liked it! At which point my head promptly swelled to the size of the Goodyear blimp and I cheerfully informed everyone that I was finally going to write the dozen or so secondary world fantasies that have been knocking around in my brain for the last fifteen years, fifteen years ago having been about the time that I concluded I needed more life experience and primary world knowledge before I could attempt a secondary world fantasy again.
Since then my head has returned to its normal size (hot air balloon). I have recalled that it is not in fact possible to write a dozen stories at a time and have therefore settled on one that has been knocking around since my senior year of high school: the tale of Jess and Innis, which begins when Jess’s cousin (commandant of a prisoner of war camp) foists one of the prisoners of war on Jess, who objects that actually he doesn’t WANT a pet prisoner of war.
Cousin Commandant: Too bad! We have a big overcrowding problem! He can help you sail your little sailboat through the archipelago helping you collect folktales or whatever if is you do.
I’m not absolutely wedded to the folktale collecting of it all, mostly because it would definitely require me to write some folktales, not just for Jess’s people (the Naditai) but also for Innis the prisoner of war turned folktale gathering assistant. Obviously less work for me if Jess is collecting butterflies. However, probably also less thematic resonance.
ANYWAY obviously Jess and Innis fall in love, obviously there is culture clash, different expectations about what love is, for instance, marriage doesn’t exist in Jess’s culture and honestly they consider the whole idea kind of titillatingly weird. Romance genre imposes an ending to shoot for (happily-for-now in this case) which is very helpful to me; the challenge with a LOT of my other ideas is that I have what I consider a wonderful set-up but no actual vision for how to structure a story on top of it.
Among its other fine qualities, this is one that I could self-publish as a trial balloon to see how my readers feel about secondary world m/m. Hopefully positive? It’s just like my historical m/m, except this time the culture clash is between cultures I made up!
asakiyume agreed to give it a beta read, and liked it! At which point my head promptly swelled to the size of the Goodyear blimp and I cheerfully informed everyone that I was finally going to write the dozen or so secondary world fantasies that have been knocking around in my brain for the last fifteen years, fifteen years ago having been about the time that I concluded I needed more life experience and primary world knowledge before I could attempt a secondary world fantasy again.Since then my head has returned to its normal size (hot air balloon). I have recalled that it is not in fact possible to write a dozen stories at a time and have therefore settled on one that has been knocking around since my senior year of high school: the tale of Jess and Innis, which begins when Jess’s cousin (commandant of a prisoner of war camp) foists one of the prisoners of war on Jess, who objects that actually he doesn’t WANT a pet prisoner of war.
Cousin Commandant: Too bad! We have a big overcrowding problem! He can help you sail your little sailboat through the archipelago helping you collect folktales or whatever if is you do.
I’m not absolutely wedded to the folktale collecting of it all, mostly because it would definitely require me to write some folktales, not just for Jess’s people (the Naditai) but also for Innis the prisoner of war turned folktale gathering assistant. Obviously less work for me if Jess is collecting butterflies. However, probably also less thematic resonance.
ANYWAY obviously Jess and Innis fall in love, obviously there is culture clash, different expectations about what love is, for instance, marriage doesn’t exist in Jess’s culture and honestly they consider the whole idea kind of titillatingly weird. Romance genre imposes an ending to shoot for (happily-for-now in this case) which is very helpful to me; the challenge with a LOT of my other ideas is that I have what I consider a wonderful set-up but no actual vision for how to structure a story on top of it.
Among its other fine qualities, this is one that I could self-publish as a trial balloon to see how my readers feel about secondary world m/m. Hopefully positive? It’s just like my historical m/m, except this time the culture clash is between cultures I made up!
