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8.
AOTW: There's an existing stereotype of fantasy writers and readers that depicts them as a bit "off the bubble" --- people who play video games and Dungeons and Dragons all day long. Is there any truth to that? What one stereotype about fantasy writers is absolutely false? What one stereotype is right on?
Teresa Edgerton: The obvious answer is that we could hardly spend the whole day playing games and still have time for reading and writing.
But speaking for myself, I have never, to the best of my recollection, played a video game in my entire life. I have occasionally played computer games. And the last time that I played a fantasy role-playing game was about twenty-five years ago. When I realized that I could put my world-building skills to work writing books
instead, I lost interest in D&D.
As for other stereotypes about fantasy readers and writers, I don't think any of them are true. We are a pretty diverse lot of people, and we come from all walks of life, and we are drawn to the genre for all sorts of reasons.
I wouldn't even say that we are more imaginative than most. People who don't read science fiction and fantasy sometimes have plenty of imagination, they just channel it in different ways. Sometimes rather frightening ways. They would be a lot less scary if they dressed up as Jedi warriors and chased each other around hotel lobbies with light sabers, which, when all is said and done, is a relatively harmless outlet for a rampant imagination.
Elizabeth Haydon: No, though it is fair to say that the people who DO play video games and Dungeons and Dragons all day long are probably predisposed to read fantasy. That would not be a fair description of the typical fantasy reader, however.
A stereotype: that we are all impractical, left-leaning, whole-grain and indian cotton types who smell like incense and believe in the reality of what we are writing. Fantasy writers area varied bunch --- we come from all different backgrounds, political leanings, attitudes. Several well-established fantasy writers are former commodities brokers or financial types. The profile doesn’t always fit. (Which is not to say there isn’t frequently a scent of incense and the rustle of Indian cotton at a gathering of us.)
That we are a dramatic lot. While fantasy writers are familiar with the concept of "calm" and can even utilize it reasonably well, they are generally passionate people who are also well acquainted with high dudgeon, rage, ecstasy, despair, joy, belly-laughter and other extreme emotions. I have met very few blasé science fiction and fantasy writers.
Oh, and a great many of them really DO own cats.
Lynn Flewelling: I'm sure there are people like that, but my writer friends and I don't seem to fall into that category. Well, we're off the bubble, but not in that way. I hate video games (OK, except for Tetris, Lemmings, and the Sims) and I haven't played Dungeons and Dragons since college. In fact, the majority of writers I know are a pretty normal looking bunch, not nearly as exciting as our characters. As for fans, sure, there are people who fit that description, but there are also others who don't. Just going by my mail, my readers fall into every age, gender, preference, and walk of life.
A false stereotype? That we are wifty, mystical folk who believe that what we write is "reality." Right on? Hmmm. A lot of writers I know have pets and like shiny things.
Robin Hobb: Oops. My neighbors think I'm the most boring, mundane person in the world. They wish I would mow my lawn more often; I think that's about as close as I come to being weird. When I look at myself, my life is so ordinary that I could get depressed about it. Or I could go write a book about someone who isn't as boring as I am. That's what I usually do.
Stereotype about writers in general that I hate is that we all drink, smoke and do drugs and live wild and crazy lives, in luxurious houses, with stables of horses and go to parties late at night. Or that we are starving in garrets. I'm none of the above. I live in a middle-class neighborhood, and kids play baseball in the street outside my house. For that reason, a lot of people think that I can't be a 'real' writer. So much of the mail I get from readers starts out, "Well, I know Robin Hobb will never read this' or 'Could whoever opens this email please, please ask Robin to read just this one?' Fact is, the only ones who open the email are me and Pi the Cat, and I'm the only one who types answers to all the letters. So I think the ivory-tower stereotype is generally wrong, too.
I think a stereotype that is generally true of writers is that we come across as misfits, hanging back from mainstream society and watching. But we are fascinated, and we're so busy watching and taking notes that sometimes we forget to have lives of our own. It's all research, you know. D&D. Yes, I love it, but there's not much time for it when you write every day. Video games? My reflexes are too slow, and I always want to make choices that aren't allowed. Now, I may be wrong on this, but I think that people who play a LOT of D&D and video games are too busy doing that to read much. We often go to the same cons and there is some overlap, but not as much, perhaps, as people think. And I'd be perfectly happy to be proven wrong about this.
L.E. Modesitt: Probably the stereotype that all fantasy writers are all alike is the most false, and at the same time, the most true. Fantasy writers range from right-wing conservative, former "establishment" pillars of society to left-wing "off-the-bubble" types, with all shades and combinations in between. At the same time, they all do possess a gift of looking at life, and asking, "What if the impossible were possible? Then what?"
Juliet McKenna: I'd say there are about the same percentage of the stereotypical weirdo in SF&F circles as there are those who go into mourning and send wreaths when a character dies among people who watch soap operas. In other words, it's true of a very, very few and a consequence of that individual's character rather than the genre. As far as writers go, the least accurate stereotype is the unworldly artist, drifting in a haze of imagination, waiting for our muse to hand us the next inspiration. On the other hand, it's true in just about every case I know that we can't not write and that everyone we meet, everything we see or do is somehow, some time grist to the creative mill.
Sean Russell: To be honest, I don't come into contact with that many readers (which I regret). I spend most of my day in a small room staring at a computer screen. Most of the fantasy writers I know are quite sophisticated people. They travel, read extensively, have wide ranging interests and do things like ski and study martial arts.
Michael Stackpole: What's really funny about fantasy writers, in my experience, is that there really is no stereotype. Some game, some don't. Some are self-taught, many have doctorates in history and other areas of study. Some are extroverted, some are spiritual, some are withdrawn. By and large, though, if there was one thing that was true, is that they all can see the wonder in the world. I recall, last summer, being out for a walk early in the morning through Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix, and not 30 feet in front of me a coyote trotted across my path. Now, I know it's an animal, but it was easy to see, as it looked at me, then loped away, how native peoples could see it as a trickster, a god. For that moment, the whole realm of the supernatural opened up for me, and opening that realm to readers is what all fantasy writers do their best to do.
Lois McMaster Bujold: If I played video games all day long, I wouldn't have time to read and write! The Internet and e-mail are too much of a time-sink already. I'm not actually sure I know what the commonly held stereotypes are. It is absolutely NOT the case for any writer I know that inspiration is to be found in drink or drugs. The mind is supported first of all by the body; writers have to be more like athletes, eating right, sleeping right, living right, to keep our minds working at top form.
Martha Wells: I don't believe any stereotype is absolutely true or absolutely false because I don't believe in confining people to those kind of tiny little narrow categories. I also don't know of any working writers who have time to play video or role-playing games anymore at all, let alone all day. When you go to a SF convention of course you see people who appear to fit the typical stereotype, but you also see far more people who don't fit any stereotype in particular. They're often ignored, because it's more fun to point at the minority and talk about how all fans fit that stereotype. I think a lot of fans do share certain characteristics: a lot of them are avid readers, a lot of them also like SF and fantasy TV and movies, a lot of them are well educated. In my experience most SF and fantasy readers also read mysteries too. I think the idea of the sf fan who is totally immersed in SF media and doesn't have any other interests is more myth than reality. Most of the SF fans I've met tend to be intelligent people who have a variety of interests and activities.
Terri Windling: Video games and Dungeons and Dragons? Where on earth did that one come from? I've worked with a lot of different writers in the fantasy field, and it seems to me that most of them are educated, professional, creative, well-traveled people with backgrounds in areas like folklore, folk music, archaeology, medieval and Renaissance history, etc. If the crowd I know are any indication, they'd rather sit in cafes in New York or London or Paris having a good conversation about life and art than then sit in front of a video game. As for similarities between them...well, a lot of them (myself included) seem to like world music, and a lot of them have cats. Make of that what you will.
Margaret Weis: Having met fantasy readers who are now fighting in Afghanistan, I'd said this is false.
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