I just want a dragon. Is that too much to ask for?
Not some genetically engineered drake and not some magic-born wyvern either. They lack the right feeling. Too scientific on the one hand and too magical on the other, and not very draconic in either case. I want something modest as well: no brimstone-breathing bellies, no hurricane-hailing wings, no reality-devouring mouths.
I want a plain, simple dragon, and when I cannot find one, I write one of my own.
In this, I feel akin to the Wizard of Oz (the character, not the movie): as I am designing a truly fantastic beast, someone tears down the curtain, points a knobby finger at my chest, and accuses me of writing fantasy.
Yes, I do, and I am darn proud of it.
Each person defines fantasy – or sci-fi or speculative fiction – in his or her own way, and each person has their own biases about it. I have tried to show my dragons to those who dislike fantasy, but their reaction was condescending at best. These readers do not insult me; they merely do not wish to read what I write. The readers who demand I conform to their notion of fantasy do draw my ire, for they insist that fantasy needs to have a reason.
My dragons do not have reasons: They have hearts and scales and a very annoying habit of hiding my socks. Forcing my dragons to have reasons would be cruel. It would make them mere ornaments to my tales, little cardboard cut-outs hanging off the end of sentences.
But as much as I love my dragons, they must do what dragons do. They are wild beasts (even the ones I have tamed) and like to return to the shadows of my subconscious, feasting on whatever half-formed ideas come floating by. I still write when they are gone, of course, because I have quite a zoo to work through. Some days I bring out the gryphons and write of flying high over a vast desert. Some days I bring out the wolves and go stomping about the taiga. Some days I pack the whole menagerie up and send them back into my subconscious; I have no need for them that day.
Stories are stories, after all, whether fantastic or not. When I write, I answer questions posed by art, by other books I have read, by articles I found in the newspaper: questions which are asked in the language of story and so can only be answered in the language of story. Questions inspired by fantastic ideas almost always have fantastic answers, so I must pull out my menagerie again and find the proper companion to help me respond, but when the question has no fantastic elements, I have no need of such a companion at all. There are times when my dragons are perfectly at home in my tales, and others when they are as out of place as a pig in a skyscraper.
So every time one of those fingers jabs me in the chest and demands reality, I will say no, because fantasy is fiction and fiction is by definition not reality. And when the fingers press further and demand an explanation, I demand in return they ask nicely. I am insistent and at last they ask me, please, to give my dragons a reason.
Well, so long as it is not forced, I do not mind giving my dragons a reason to exist every now and again. Ah, and I have met some wonderfully reasoned dragons before, those gengineered drakes and magic wyverns; and I have met some wonderfully reasonless dragons, jabberwockies complete with fire-belching and knight-eating. They are all critical to their story’s existence. Where would “The Hobbit” be without Smaug? Or “Beowulf” without the wyrm? How would “Dealing with Dragons” have ever been written without dragons themselves?
So, dear reader, if a dog walks up to you tomorrow and wants to know directions to the train station, do not demand he explain himself, do not demand he give a reason for his speech. Be nice and give him directions. You never know where he might lead you.
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What do dragons need to do to earn a little respect?
Daily Emerald
November 14, 2007
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