the importance of using metaphor in fantasy

and also science fiction . . .

One of the ways that I can tell immediately (or in the first page, say) if I want to continue reading a fantasy is the proper use of fantasy metaphor. It is tricky. It is one of the reasons that I become annoyed easily by writers who suddenly think that fantasy is hot and so they are going to write some fantasy, because it can't be that hard, right? Just throw in some magic, people flying around, maybe a cool spell or two, and some magic rings, whatever.

To write proper fantasy, ONE of the elements is figuring out what kind of metaphors are appropriate for your fantasy. If you are not steeped in fantasy from childhood, you're really going to have to think about it and reread some great fantasy books to see how it is done. Almost everything you say in colloquial English is metaphorical in some way. You can't take it all out. You can't change it all or it will sound silly. But you want to change just a metaphor here and there with what really matters in the fantasy world.

What is different in the fantasy world? Because lots of stuff will be the same, you can leave that. But in order to get the point of view right (even with a third person point of view, even with omniscient), you have to figure out how people are going to see things differently, feel, smell, taste, and touch things differently. There might not be pens and paper. There might not be gravity (say, set in space). When little things change, everything changes, and one of those things is the very framework of language.

Robin McKinley, as I've said earlier this week, does this perfectly in her best books. I think Jim Butcher does it well. Garth Nix. Shannon Hale. The list isn't as long as I wish it was for me.

I won't start making a list of writers who do it badly. That would just be too painful.