by Paula Berinstein Great fantasy is like a chimera, the
mythological beast that’s part lion, part goat, and part snake:
it’s based on familiar components, but something is just a
little off. Fantasy isn’t about making it all up. It’s about
taking the known and tweaking it a bit. That’s because the best
stories are the ones in which we can see ourselves–stories in
which the protagonist and his world serve as a proxy for us.
When that happens, we care. The more unfamiliar the world, the
characters, or their problems, the harder it is for us to follow
the story and empathize with the hero. In other words, our
engagement depends on our ability to find the familiar in the
story, whether it’s the setting, the problems facing the
society, the characters’ dilemmas, or even the names. The great
fantasy authors–J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Philip Pullman,
J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Joss Whedon—base their worlds on
places and people that are familiar to us: - They set their
stories in English towns and villages,