Why I Wrote A Fantasy Has to Do with Who It’s For

[My just-released epic fantasy, Mirrororrim, has now hit audiobook shelves. Go here to get links to its Audio, Print, and eBook formats…

[My just-released epic fantasy, Mirrororrim, has now hit audiobook shelves. Go here to get links to its Audio, Print, and eBook formats from a variety of retailers!]

Why A Fantasy?

This story, in one form or another has been inside me for 40+ years. I wrote it for the same reason that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis wrote their fantasies — they’d agreed that no one was writing the kinds of stories they enjoyed, so they set out to do it themselves.

what’s sorely needed in contemporary fantasy, is how relatable-ly and those characters manage it once they get to wherever they’re going.

What I’ve found lacking in the still-burgeoning fantasy genre is, well, cultural relatability. Most fantasies are set in completely different worlds/universes, and, yes, Mirrororrim is no exception. I love Lewis’ convention of getting the Pevensies, Eustace, and Jill into Narnia, a trick I’m sure he lifted from Lewis Carroll. But what he didn’t lift from Carroll, and what’s sorely needed in contemporary fantasy, is how relatable-ly those characters manage it once they get to wherever they’re going.

In Mirrororrim, I get Angelia, Paul, Cesara, and Killian Brave to the fantasy place. But that’s just the beginning. Who ARE they once they’re there? And how do they manage their outsider status once there?

In Mirrororrim, I get Angelia, Paul, Cesara, and Killian Brave to the fantasy place. But that’s just the beginning. Who ARE they once they’re there? And how do they manage their outsider status once there? The Brave kids don’t stop being themselves (though they do go a bit native). C.S. Lewis hit upon a little of this in Narnia, but, once the Pevensie kiddos breathe that Narnian air, well they become more Narnian than some of the Narnians!

The Brave kids constantly face a dilemma — they’re firmly planted in two worlds. Yes, they’re mesmerized with problem-solving the adventure into which they’ve been plunked, but they always, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, want to go home. Eventually, they find that, ironically, the best and only way to get home is to be faithful to their encounter with Mirrororrim — with who are they are in it and to who they are as persons who don’t manifestly belong there.

The Brave kids constantly face a dilemma — they’re firmly planted in two worlds … we have to, like the Braves, go out of our world for a time. But all the while we’re there, we’re most emphatically ourselves.

They can’t stop being themselves. And, indeed, in writing it, I found that I couldn’t stop them from quoting movie lines, snide cultural references as hyperbole or insult, and, of course, passé prog-rock band names. For me, Mirrororrim, was not going to be a staid commentary on what our world lacks and ought to be. Hell, no! Mirrororrim is our world. To see it, though, we have to, like the Braves, go out of our world for a time. But all the while we’re there, we’re most emphatically ourselves.

Hell, no! Mirrororrim is our world. To see it, though, we have to, like the Braves, go out of our world for a time. But all the while we’re there, we’re most emphatically ourselves.

Who’s This Story For?

It’s for all of us. Because we all have felt like we have two feet in separate realms and are desperately making it up as we go, lest someone figure out we’re fakes. I’d like to think that the Braves in their random and ersatz winsomeness show us that the best way to navigate our own imposter syndrome in this world is to fake-it-till-we-make with bravado … and no apologies!

It’s for all of us. Because we all have felt like we have two feet in separate realms and are desperately making it up as we go, lest someone figure out we’re fakes.

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