For Fear of Fantasy

So I'm afraid of fantasy. Why would I be scared of this genre? Why not Horror or Suspense Thriller or Comedy or Young Adult or, dare I, Romance? Fantasy. Scares me because I know it best.

I know the worlds. I know what makes I High Fantasy high. I know it, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'm a fan of the good. I'm afraid I write the ugly. The cliche, seen this a thousand times before, fictions riddles with borrowings from other authors and hollow of significance.

Sometimes when I attempt fantasy (and not in short doses but in novel-riffic ideas) I get lost in the story, the difficult details, the magic, government, military, journey. . .Which sucks because my favorite part of any book is the characters. I love humanity--the awkwardness, the struggle, the emotion--and I love characters in my favorite books as if they were real people. I cry for them, I squee for them, and, sometimes, I long for their company. However, characters never quite come to full light in my fantasy. They blend in with the stereotypical fantasy characters. I can classify them on sight and sort them into groups. I hate that.

So. I have a plan. And if you know me, you know my love for plans. Here it goes: next time I go to pen a story idea, I'm going to pause. I'm going to do what I really love first. I'm going to set the cast and write through them, know their ends and outs before I ever drench their world in magic and dreams. And to know a person is to know their life, their world. Knowing them and the decisions they've made (or not made) will paint my fantasy dream for me.