If you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, it’s really hard to do if you don’t know a lot, at least in a basic way, about how the real world works.
I’m a sci-fi guy. But I like fantasy too.
I have a long love of fantasy and science-fiction.
I’m from New Orleans, and we have a Mardi Gras group called the Chewbacchus. It’s celebrating all things geeky: science fiction, fantasy, ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Doctor Who,’ ‘Men in Black,’ ‘Ghostbusters,’ everything.
I had the taste of the alcohol since I was 11. It allowed me to be clever, charming and to behave outrageously. Acting also allowed me not to be me. So I could indulge every fantasy in this paradise of America.
I write a kind of surreal fantasy, but they can’t put ‘surreal fantasy’ on a paperback.
Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it’s beginning to stretch its range as well.
I always wanted to grow up in a house full of books, English books, and I wanted the sort of fireplaces that worked, overstuffed chairs, that whole kind of fantasy of a bookish New England life. So the library gave me that; for the hours that I was there, I was surrounded by that atmosphere that I craved in my life.
When you talk about fantasy, the usual problem is that whilst you’ve got the world of imagination, there are no controlling forces.
I also had this mistaken dream, fantasy really – perhaps because I’m good at languages – of being able in both Italy and France to become someone else through my fluency in the language.
When doing a fantasy show – or a show with fantasy elements – the more you can anchor an effect to reality, the stronger the illusion is.
It was the baseball fantasy of a lifetime – to be able to sit on the bench with all those professional athletes. I got to take my son along because I wasn’t sure I would be able to play with them.
Whether ‘Avatar’ is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it’s undeniable that the film – like alien apartheid flick ‘District 9’, released earlier this year – is emphatically a fantasy about race.
One of my most persistent, long-term fantasy wishes is not that I could fly or become invisible, but that I could make sound recording be invented decades or even centuries earlier than it was, so I could hear what people in the 1830s or 1750s actually sounded like.
Fantasy is my genre and my home in the writing world. I consider it the biggest writing room in all literature, where there are literally no boundaries at all.
I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people’s writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people’s fiction. Just don’t.
‘Filk’ is the folk music of the science fiction and fantasy community – you get parodies, you get traditional music that’s had the words slightly modified, and you’ll also get just original works that have been written about science fiction and fantasy works, or with science fiction and fantasy themes.
I think a lot of writers spend years just getting up the courage to write because it seems like such a fantasy of a profession. My dad saved me all that time by making me think, ‘Oh, anyone can be a writer. It’s like being a firefighter or a lawyer.’
Wes Anderson grew up in Houston, and he and I talk about Manhattan in similar ways, as a kind of fantasy world.
The time for invisible boundaries that guard the ‘purity’ of gaming as a niche subculture is over. The violent macho power fantasy will no longer define what gaming is all about.
Teen problem novels? I can go through them like a box of chocolates. And there are fantasy books out now that need a lot more editing. Fantasy got to be so popular that people began to think ‘We don’t need to be as diligent with the razor blade,’ but they do.
The real world is the fantasy writer’s scrapbook. Real history, real geography, real customs and religions are all invaluable sources of guidance and inspiration.
I like America. I think it’s pretty cool. I got into acting to avoid politics of any sort so I could remain in a fantasy world.
I have never dreamed of being a princess. I have not longed for Prince Charming. I have and do long for something resembling a happily ever after. I am supposed to be above such flights of fantasy, but I am not. I am enamored of fairy tales.
As long as we depend on other women for self-esteem, using them as bad examples or fantasy versions – special, powerful – of ourselves, they remain stuck in a narcissistic version of themselves, too.
Men are literally lying in bed with their wives when the marriage is essentially over, thinking, ‘I’ve got to get the hell out of here’, and have a fantasy woman in mind. Then you get divorced, meet a woman, marry her, and by the time all that goes by, you’ve aged a few years and are ready to go back to your ex-wife.
Moments are incredible, but in my fantasy mind I see a Globe company which is renowned throughout the world for what it does with pure storytelling. So that people come and say: it’s not just the building, it’s the only place you can hear this kind of work.
I’ve always been into ‘fast-paced, don’t bore ’em, keep it moving along, stick with the story.’ You know: tell a story the way I want to hear a story. I find it more rewarding to write for kids, but I also find it a little easier, because you can just let loose a little bit more in terms of fantasy and stuff.
People ask me whether I see ‘Star Wars’ as a comedy or a tragedy, but it’s really neither – it’s partly a history, like ‘Henry V,’ and partly a fantasy, like ‘The Tempest.’
I really can’t write fantasy. I cannot invent a world which does not exist. And I can’t read fantasy either. As soon as I realise I’m reading a book that hasn’t got its roots in a reality I can comprehend, I switch off.
When I was either 7 or 8 years old, I did a sketch every day of my teacher and what she wore. At the end of the year, I gave her the sketchbook. For me, the sketching of dresses was about fantasy and dreams.
I was a big sci-fi fantasy geek when I was younger… secretly, in my room.
From the viewpoint of the writer, the most significant aspect of fantasy and science fiction is that stories of these kinds are either set in imaginary worlds or feature the appearance in the familiar world of some imaginary entity.
The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
I’ve never seen myself as a fantasy writer – ever.
Fantasy and science fiction are where my brain lives.
‘The Nice Guys’ fulfilled my 1970s fantasy.
‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,’ while not nearly the masterpiece proclaimed by many critics, is certainly a fascinating cross-species: a big-budget summer action fantasy with a sylvan, indie-film vibe, and a war movie that dares ask its audience to root for the peacemakers.
Out of the 72 kids that I went to high school with, I still talk to 25 of them on a fairly regular basis. Seven of my classmates live in L.A., and five of them are in the entertainment business, and we constantly talk and play fantasy football together.
Ever since the Beatles, the concept of lovable mop tops, it’s a bit of a fantasy, but it’s a lovely idea that people make wonderful music and live a wonderful life being friends together. Sadly, life isn’t quite like that.
The fantasy world, the ‘Game of Thrones’ world, the forgotten realms worlds – they’re the type of worlds I’ve always wanted to live in. Where vampires, dragons, dwarves and elves are real.
My parents divorced about the same time the movie ‘The Parent Trap’ came out, about two twins at camp who scheme to get their parents back together. I had that same fantasy.
In the fantasy, sci-fi world, the fans are so discerning and they’re so tough and they’re so intelligent, and they’re so critical.
I love acting, especially if it’s a fantasy of some kind, where it’s not just realistic, it’s not naturalism.
Despite all of our games, all of our success together – ‘Elder Scrolls,’ when we started, it was a very generic fantasy. It had its parts. We pushed it to have more of its own unique identify. We’re proud of the work everyone did there.
Drama is my sweet spot, but the thing about being an actor is that you want to do a variety of things. I definitely love fantasy and would want to be in a fantasy project.
I think it’s very much a men’s thing to be able to have that fantasy to kill the beast.
I did my homework and didn’t go out much, and had a very highly developed kitsch fantasy life where I dreamed of being a dancing girl.
Playing football and being a tight end scoring points, it’s awesome to see so many members throughout the United States join to play fantasy football, to expand the sport, to make the game more interesting while you’re watching.
I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn’t want to give up power.
When a writer is already stretching the bounds of reality by writing within a science fiction or fantasy setting, that writer must realize that excessive coincidence makes the fictional reality the writer is creating less ‘real.’
A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you clear and concise information in a way that you wanted it.
