"A baby sleeps in all our bones / so scared to be alone"

[larryhammer]

15. Things That Are Delicate and Shimmery

• A spiderweb in moonlight on a dewy night.
  
• The Sarashina Diary. Anything that looks back on a life half spent in fantasy must, indeed, partake of this, if written with grace and the knowledge of how things must always pass from this world.
  
• The wings of a mayfly, or of a damselfly.
  
• A perfect poem / that captures the lost moment / before it is gone.
  
• Soft spring rain.

16. Things That Are Flashy

• Shonagon's Pillow Book.
  
• Dragonflies over a slow river at noon.
  
• The setting sun in Elfland near the equinox, the way it splits into ribbons of shifting colors that stream across the sky.

17. As for Urban Fantasy

As for urban fantasy, it is the contrast between tradition and modernity reified in contemporary Old Ones. The cities we live in force us to be contradictions -- and so how much more so for folklore to live there?

As for high fantasy, it is the land itself. It embodies deep time in its features, the abyss between then and now, and so pointing to those changes that are the future. Meeting some feature from an ancient realm gives a frisson of recognition that makes all the epic machinery worth wading through. Indeed, sometimes it seems the main plot exists only to provide the ground for figures of such artifacts. Or so it seems to me.

As for fairy tales, it is the wit. The tale's charm lies not in being original, but in the way familiar elements are deployed. The best fairy tales bring a smile to the lips, and the thought "Yes, that's the way of it."

As for domestic fantasy, it is the daily life -- the movements of hearts, the coming of peace.

18. Things That Are Bad Ideas

• Pet rhinos.
  
• A fantasy written as a journal a la The Pillow Book of a lady-in-waiting in an elven court, concerned with wit and charm and the Good People, sliced between recollections of affairs and the scoring of social points -- complete with anachronistic ordering of sections and barest hints of political turmoil limned in quotidian court life. Possibly with the underclasses being mortals.

---L.

Comments

[larryhammer]

In such a fantasy one would, of course, have to replace the Japanese esthetic of transience with one based on permenance, or perhaps of eternal set in contrast to mortal.

Belonging in a list of Distressing Things would be a maid with a grey hair -- not only for its being a sign of vulgar mortality, but because it means soon she will die and you will have to train another to your tastes.

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

fantasy written as a journal a la The Pillow Book of a lady-in-waiting in an elven court, concerned with wit and charm and the Good People, sliced between recollections of affairs and the scoring of social points -- complete with anachronistic ordering of sections and barest hints of political turmoil limned in quotidian court life. Possibly with the underclasses being mortals.

On the contrary, I think it sounds like a fantastic idea; why isn't it written already, and how long do I have to wait?

On my list of provoking things: writers who mention fantastic ideas and then make mortals--who are perishable, after all, and may even already have a gray hair or two --wait for the idea to reach fruition.

Now I'm going to haunt you like a banshee until you write that story.

Just warning you.

[larryhammer]

It would also require inventing a verse form the size but not the shape of a tanka (5-7-5-7-7) and then pwning it -- making it so completely one's own that it's live in like second skin.

And creating an actual story arc, landing somewhere.

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I'm with you until epic fantasy, but I guess it depends on which ones draw your eye. I am drawn to the ones that are about land and the people, as well as individual people.

Ditto fairy tales. I like them when they're witty, but so often the point depends on a paradigm that introduces too many problems between it and my agreement with it.

Pet rhinos, yep, sounds like a bad idea. Unless it's that one in Africa I saw a thing about, who came up so carefully to the house, lapped up food, then trotted away again. The rhino was not a caged pet.

Second idea...I can think of writers who could make it work, but not many. If Greer Gilman, say, wrote it, hoo boy.

[larryhammer]

I'm not sure repotting Greer from her North England garden bed would be a good idea.

---L.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I think she could do it. Susannah Clarke, too. Whether they would or not...

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

But it's lnhammer's idea, and a brilliantly witty one. He should write it.

Nine

[dbborroughs.livejournal.com]

whats wrong with a pet rhino?

[aberwyn.livejournal.com]

The food bill.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

Um, I wouldn't be too keen on cleaning its litter box.

[larryhammer]

Or taking it walkies. They don't like leashes.

---L.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

A fantasy written as a journal a la The Pillow Book of a lady-in-waiting in an elven court, concerned with wit and charm and the Good People, sliced between recollections of affairs and the scoring of social points -- complete with anachronistic ordering of sections and barest hints of political turmoil limned in quotidian court life. Possibly with the underclasses being mortals.

So, do you want us to talk you out of it? Or (better yet), into it? ;>

[larryhammer]

You're suggesting you want to enable me writing even more manneredly?

---L.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

lol -- I'm simply suggesting that I find the concept intriguing and am quite willing to be an enabler, if it results in writing. *g*

[oracne.livejournal.com]

This is a very pretty post.

[larryhammer]

I wear my influences on my sleeve, sometimes. And sometimes this is a good influence.

---L.

[atheilen.livejournal.com]

I don't know you, but I really want to read that las supposed Bad Idea. Like, now.

[larryhammer]

Heh. Thankee.

---L.

[sfmarty.livejournal.com]

When is the publish date?

(stamping foot)