The World

The beauty of fantasy is that it can be enjoyed for many different reasons. It provides a blank slate where anything is possible. It can explore the depths of philosophy and emotion in ways that stories based in the real world cannot. It can provide a thought-provoking reflection of the real world. It can provide the same weight of character struggles as other genres. It can excite the imagination to dream of untold possibilities.

It is the last that primarily draws me to the genre. I treasure getting lost in worlds. Nothing makes me more interested than a consistent and captivating world that I can get lost in for hours and days. It is why I am so captivated by The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire. They have complex structures with deep histories. I can easily snuggle up for a day with a cup of tea just reading about all of the smaller stories that are mentioned and see how everything fits together like a puzzle. Tomes like the Silmarillion that are as much a history textbook as a novel fascinate me.

The idea of consistency is what resonates with me the most when I consider worlds that I love and worlds that didn’t quite do it for me. There is nothing that frustrated me more than seeing a world get a new chapter and have it contradict or nullify previous work. It brings me out of the world. It is no longer feels like something True that could really be out there somewhere that is worth my time learning about.

While these stories can still be greatly insightful and entertaining, they go from being something truly special that stays in my heart to just another story that I will go through and largely forget. Unfortunately I only have so much time in a day, so when I invest that time into a world that becomes relegated to a backdrop, my disappointment is palpable.

All that said, this is one of my primary goals with The Eastern Lands: create a living, breathing world that feels organic. All of the characters, races, and cultures share this world and craft it. Once something becomes established in a concrete manner (characters and in-world histories are fallible), it will only be expanded upon, never contradicted.

Happy reading!