Spring Planting Moon
World enough, and time.
Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress
Just realized what an apt summary of fantasy this is. Fantasy creates new world, one which be enough to engage the reader and engage the reader over time. Just the author invests a lot of time in the development of a world and narratives set within that world, a reader who bothers to learn the intricacies of this alternative world typically wants more than one story, often many more than one story, set there.
It becomes a kind of contract between writer and reader. I will spend my time imagining this world and what goes on it and, if you like it enough to learn it, then I agree to write more. It can have a deadening effect, of course, always working in one fictional space, but so far, in the Tailte mythos, I’ve found it liberating and energizing. It grows bigger as I write, not smaller. In fact, I have to find ways to limit it so I can tell bounded stories.
