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Lately when I go to Barnes & Noble to scope out new books all I ever see in the teen and young adult section is fantasy. Everything is fantasy. I swear I didn't pick up one book on the new arrivals shelves that didn't have to do with fairies, witches, magicians, magical powers, magical lands reached through magic portals, and various and sundry miscellaneous fantasy related material.
Does no one write anything besides fantasy anymore? (And no, I don't mean the crappy modern teen romances aimed at stupid girls that take up the rest of the room on teen fiction shelves.) Ever since Harry Potter, fantasy books have been an epidemic in young adult fiction. This wouldn't be a bad thing if any of it were actually good, but it's all so generic and useless. You might as well actually read Harry Potter (or the Chronicles of Narnia, or the Lord of the Rings) and save yourself the trouble. Whatever happened to other genres? There's almost no historical fiction anymore, or at least no good stuff. It's very depressing.
So, geuss what? I've started writing a new story. It's a fantasy.
In my defense, I did come up with the idea for it about eight years ago, and I'm not currently in the mood to do more in-depth research for my historical novels, so this was an ideal alternative. And it doesn't have anything to do with the usual sort of fantasy on the young adult shelves. No fairies, no magicians, not even a lot of magic, no bad guys to fight, no magical worlds to save. It's just whimsical. It's a flight of fancy, and that's really all there is to it. Hopefully that'll prevent it from ending up too generic.
Anyway, this has been me trying to convince myself that I'm not giving in to the dark-side of trendy young adult fantasy by writing this story. Sorry to have taken up your time.
Does no one write anything besides fantasy anymore? (And no, I don't mean the crappy modern teen romances aimed at stupid girls that take up the rest of the room on teen fiction shelves.) Ever since Harry Potter, fantasy books have been an epidemic in young adult fiction. This wouldn't be a bad thing if any of it were actually good, but it's all so generic and useless. You might as well actually read Harry Potter (or the Chronicles of Narnia, or the Lord of the Rings) and save yourself the trouble. Whatever happened to other genres? There's almost no historical fiction anymore, or at least no good stuff. It's very depressing.
So, geuss what? I've started writing a new story. It's a fantasy.
In my defense, I did come up with the idea for it about eight years ago, and I'm not currently in the mood to do more in-depth research for my historical novels, so this was an ideal alternative. And it doesn't have anything to do with the usual sort of fantasy on the young adult shelves. No fairies, no magicians, not even a lot of magic, no bad guys to fight, no magical worlds to save. It's just whimsical. It's a flight of fancy, and that's really all there is to it. Hopefully that'll prevent it from ending up too generic.
Anyway, this has been me trying to convince myself that I'm not giving in to the dark-side of trendy young adult fantasy by writing this story. Sorry to have taken up your time.
