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How little "fantasy" can be in a story and it still be recognizably fantasy, and not mainstream fiction? The "recognizable fantasy" question is one I struggle with all the time. Fantasy exists on...
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-12T20:05:57Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/3317 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T01:45:56Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/3317 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
How little "fantasy" can be in a story and it still be recognizably fantasy, and not mainstream fiction? The "recognizable fantasy" question is one I struggle with all the time. Fantasy exists on a continuum of clearly fantastic material (supernatural beings, magic spells, etc.), to stuff that might not be fantasy at all, like Henry James' ["The Turn of the Screw"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_of_the_Screw) or the more gentle sorts of magical realism. I've occasionally failed to interest editors in stories because they didn't feel the fantasy element was strong enough. Do you remember a Karen Joy Fowler story from a few years back, ["What I Didn't See"](http://web.archive.org/web/20020806171430/http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/originals/originals_archive/fowler/fowler1.html)? There was a pretty big dust up because it was published in a science fiction venue, but many people didn't think it had any kind of science fictional element. Sometimes I think I'm pulling a Karen Joy Fowler with some of my fantasy, like this latest piece. _ **Note:** This question was contributed by [James Van Pelt](http://jimvanpelt.livejournal.com/)._
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2011-07-11T08:47:36Z (over 13 years ago)
Original score: 11