The joy of personal stories

 In the last couple of weeks I've written two new short stories.  Both of them were fantasy tales, and they were the kind of thing I've rarely done before.

I've been out of fantasy for a while because of the large number of high fantasy stories around.  I've never been a fan of sweeping stories of kings and queens of ancient realms rousing huge armies to slaughter their neighbours.  

I did read the first Game of Thrones book, but had totally lost interest in the story well before its end.  Part of that was Martin's insistence on killing off multiple characters.  The more creative he could make the method of death, the better.  I could not care for cold people who revelled in such things and and cared for nothing except attaining absolute power.

As a complete contrast, I do love the Lord of the Rings.  Why, you might ask.  Isn't that a sprawling fantasy with people intent on gaining power over everyone?  Yes, it is, but the focus is on the ordinary people working to stop that.  It's about the "little folk" achieving great things.  Frodo and Sam manage to reach Mount Doom because they're not princes or kings.  They get there because they're nobodies, and it's the stories of those humble hobbits which carried me through the story.  The way Sam supports Frodo when Frodo is on the point of giving up the quest is some of the most powerful storytelling I've read.

The two new stories I wrote were both for submission to magazines I've just discovered.  They're both 'cosy fantasy' magazines.  They want the stories of ordinary folk engaged in changing the world in quiet or peaceful ways.  That's just up my street.  One was about a human woman who acts as an unofficial counsellor.  I wanted to upend regular fantasy tropes by featuring gay dwarves and asexual unicorns.

The other story involved a pair of lesbian dwarves who sailed a trade ship.  They were battling sex discrimination which barred them from being professional guild members.

These are the sort of personal stories I enjoy telling, stories of characters determined to right some injustice.  Working on these tales, and figuring out how things will change in the end, is a really fulfilling creative process.