Nature of the Beast

Going into my third year of writing Sword & Sorcery stories, and I am brought back again to try and ruminate on exactly what it is that makes this genre what it is, and what makes me like it so much. I mean, I am not questioning, I am just more carefully considering things from within, from a technician’s standpoint rather than an observer’s. After all, I am not just reading, I am creating, and that leads to all sorts of questions that a reader does not have to consider.

I started thinking about this back when I began New Iron Age, and I don’t think any of my essential thoughts have changed radically, but they have been refined, and I have come to consider aspects and facets that I didn’t initially think of. After all, since I started this site I have written almost 60 Sword & Sorcery stories, and I have gained perspective on things that I didn’t have before. I have a more solid, craftsman’s grasp on what works and what maybe doesn’t, on what the genre does when it is working, and how it can go astray.

So I am going to spend the next few articles going over a lot of the trappings and conventions of the Sword & Sorcery genre and trying to parse out which ones are really essential. What needs to be here, and what doesn’t. After all, a lot of things are thought of as requirements for S&S, but are they really? Are there further picky subgenres to be teased out of this one, and does that matter? Should it?

I also want to think about the future. Not just the future of this site, but the future of the genre itself. Should Sword & Sorcery fiction evolve? Does it have to? And if it does change to fit the modern world, what should change, and perhaps more importantly, what should not change? At what point is a story no longer within the S&S mold? And at that point, what is it?

Sword & Sorcery was born almost a century ago, and the world is a very different place than it was then. Once a dominant, vibrant genre of fantasy fiction, S&S has declined into a niche market, a backward-looking genre more devoted to revisiting old works than welcoming new ones. It has too often become a kind of parody of itself, and I think that is a terrible waste. There is still power to be found in this genre, and I want to see if I can figure out what has to change to bring it to life. Come with me as I dig through the blood and guts.