there’s a certain fear i have about writing fiction which is like… ok so when tolkien wrote lotr he was working off of extensive knowledge of folklore, history, linguistics, plus his own experience in wwi. when lesser authors write fantasy they’re trying to sound like tolkien
i think probably all the best fiction is like one step removed from real stuff, either the author’s experiences or real history or folklore or mythology. but most of the obvious places to start writing fiction are pastiches of other fiction and i feel uneasy about this
like i’m uneasy about the layers of unreality building up over time, simulacra of simulacra of etc. massive difference between a battle scene written by someone evoking a real battle they saw vs. a battle scene written by a fanboy evoking other battle scenes
this is maybe premature optimization though. i maybe just need to write a bunch of garbage to get it out of my system
so like on the other hand it’s just true that if i want to “write what i know” then a huge % of my life was spent inhaling other works of fiction and *that* experience itself is potentially ripe for writing about… i do think i would enjoy writing obnoxiously meta shit
interestingly i reflexively categorize folklore and mythology as "real stuff" but not like, any fiction that was written in the last 20 years, say. i do think folklore and mythology has stood the test of time in a way that matters to me. hmm
related. interesting lives = contact with reality
helpful counterpoint!
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