Writing Tips and Reviews

The Work in Genres

I'm tired of listening to "science fiction takes more work to make than fantasy", because it's not true. Just because it works on real-world logic doesn't mean it's harder to work with than fantasy. It could be argued that fantasy is harder since you're making the world and rules by scratch instead of using what already exists. "It's in a fantasy game, so it's not faithful to the historical figure," that one is popular among people who don't know the years of work Nasu does to make his heroic spirits faithful to their original counterparts.

It doesn't matter what genre a story is in, don't undermine the work that went into it because "it's fantasy, it's not based on real-life, so it's easier." That way of thinking is insulting to fantasy writers, if you don't like fantasy stories and want to make science fiction, then do that, but don't go around insulting someone's work because you think you have it harder. And excuse me, but are you using phones and computers in a fictional world? Wow, that's the same as Nasu using Gilgamesh and Enkidu in Fate Grand Order. And again, it could be argued that fantasy takes more work since Nasu integrates real-life figures into his work, gives them abilities based on information on their life, and personalities that are slightly exaggerated to fit his work.

What about other genres? Horror, mystery, comedy. Or what about mixing genres? Horror-comedy, science-fantasy, Madoka Magica.

No matter how you slice it, each genre takes work, and undermining the work of one because you like another is a terrible thing to do. It ultimately depends on the person and what they're working towards. Fate Grand Order can't be called a lazy game because it's fantasy and Bioshock can't be called better made because it's science fiction. Not to mention one's a mobile game and the other is a console game, that would go into the development of a game more than a genre. And we're talking about the development of the story and characters.

I write fantasy and I have thirty-page documents with world-building, character design, development, and everything possible needed for a big story. Someone else could only use one page of notes. Another could have a dictionary of notes. It's all about the person and how much effort they want to put into their story. If they're focused on the important aspects of a book, then they're going to take longer and have more effort, but if they're focused on a power fantasy with a self insert who's always good, always better, always stronger, and everyone else is a whiny bitch, then it's not going to be good.

I can spend thirty chapters with a mixed story of the Holy Grail War and some downtime for character development and someone else can spend thirty chapters on the characters crying victim to shit they started and got called out for. And we never got introductions to anything.