“And then there was something.  A small and white something racing through the air.  A dot.  A comet.  Pero strained his eyes but refused to believe what he was seeing.  A winged, weightless horse ran gracefully on the ether.  Thin, wispy currents of cloudy air appeared beneath its hooves as it went.” – Excerpt from my book, ‘The Crystal Crux-Betrayal’
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Fantasy is defined as a play of the mind, imagination, caprice, whim, wild and strange.

A fantasy can seem real to the person experiencing the event, the sights, sounds and smells.  I work in the mental health field and I have spent a great deal of time with people who others would call delirious.  They have what is termed, schizophrenia.  They often listen, watch, whisper, and sometimes yell and converse with people none of us can see.  These perceive people and places and objects we can’t see.  Is it their imagination or are they perhaps really seeing things and can’t make us understand?

The novelist creates a world of fantasy chiefly as a temptation.  We conjure up things we have never seen and know don’t exist.  I’ve never seen an elf, a dragon or a winged horse but there is a part of me that wants to believe they are possible, that they can be real.  I want to write in a way that those who read my stories start to believe in that possibility as well.

When I read a good fantasy novel, I’m drawn in and disappear.  The characters on the page become real as do their joys and fears, their triumphs and failures.  I start to believe Camelot is real.  There is a war raging for the Iron Throne.  And Cair Paravel was built sometime before the golden age of Narnia.

Consider yourself an explorer today.  Open a fantasy book and dare yourself to be swept up by it.  Hear the voices trapped between pages, frozen in the ink.  Release them.  Allow them the freedom to roam inside your mind and take you into the heart of possibilities.

“You must learn to know me by that name.  This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.” – Aslan speaking from C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia.

“The dwarves were inclined to grumble at this, but the wizard told them they were fools.” – From J.R.R. Tolkiens, The Hobbit

“Beleth wouldn’t play around.  Demon princes never did.  The minute he caught up with Brimstone, Brimstone was dead meat.” – From Herbie Brennan’s, Faerie Wars

“Before them the gold lay in piles on the stump of a huge tree.  There were rubies, bits of jewelry, and single, strange artifact that Midnight bent low to examine.  She cried out in joy, picked up the magical item, and grinned at Kelemvor.” – From Shadowdale by Richard Awlinson