Finding Common Ground Between Nature Writing and Fantasy Fiction
Author Jarod K. Anderson discusses finding the common ground between nature writing and fantasy fiction, including how each feeds the other.
Fantasy writers and nature writers both may benefit from an exploration of where the two genres overlap. As a longtime nature lover and speculative fiction nerd, these interests have shaped my creative life. Nature and fantasy have sat side-by-side on my mental bookshelf for so long, I think of them as inextricably linked; publishing in both genres, I’ve found that link to be a useful one. A close study of nature is an endless wellspring of inspiration for fantasy fiction, and the lens of fantasy is incredibly useful for reframing science and imbuing our very real world with an enticing sense of mystery and wonder.
If your goal is to create fantastical settings and characters, it’s worth remembering that your own world is bonkers. You’re reading this while sharing a planet with immortal jellyfish and town-sized subterranean fungi. Somewhere, right now, there are squids the length of a city bus swimming at a depth that would crush you like a plummeting meteor, like a kaiju’s squeezing fist. Each of our breaths is a wordless testimony to the generosity of oxygen-producing phytoplankton and plant life. And even our own bodies are like vast citadels housing diverse, unseen species, from our gut biome to nocturnal eyelash mites. When I think of such things, I get the sense that we already live our lives on the doorstep of fantasy and the door is invitingly ajar.
Take a deeper interest in nature and you’ll start to see the way such knowledge shapes many of our favorite speculative stories, from the parasitoid wasp inspiration behind Alien’s xenomorph to the harsh realities of Dune’s arid ecology. We can easily benefit from such sources of inspiration in our own work. Developing a naturalist’s curiosity enriches our writers’ toolsets.
Need an interesting way for a fantasy species to communicate? Well, bees gesture directions to one another near the entrance to their hives, creating maps through movement in a behavior known as the “waggle dance.” Need an unexpected method of metamorphosis? Look beyond caterpillars and chrysalises. The adult form of a starfish erupts from the body of its free-swimming larval phase, literally leaving its old shape behind. How about a natural weapon? I think we can find something more unexpected than talons or venom. The forceful vibrations of a full-throated song from a sperm whale could well be fatal to a nearby scuba diver. Perhaps you know that there are ants that can spray formic acid? But did you know that there are ants who develop into living doors with disc-shaped heads to close-off colony entrances and keep out would-be invaders? I could go on. Nature is endlessly fascinating.
Reaching for novel fantasy concepts may seem to call for stretching our thoughts toward some nebulous “out there,” beyond the scope of our reality. That impulse makes a kind of sense, but it ignores how much real and grounded magic is hiding just beneath the surface of our world; it just takes a little interest, intent, and effort to access.
In my novel Strange Animals, I play with this proximity I sense between imaginative fantasy and the hidden wonders of our planet. Green, the novel’s protagonist, begins to see new and unsettling aspects of nature, leading him on a journey into the cryptid-rich woods of the Appalachian Mountains. There, beneath the trees, he finds a mentor named Valentina to guide his journey, yet she is quick to point out that what Green considers “standard nature” is just as miraculous as the otherworldly creatures roaming the mountainside.
Alongside her lessons on mind-bendingly weird wildlife, Valentina teaches Green that many seemingly straightforward aspects of nature are actually rich in mystery, like the question of how nearby populations of red oaks communicate to synchronize their bumper crops of acorns. In a story about invisible awe lurking in the woods, I love reminding readers that my book’s central premise is not so out-of-step with their real and accessible world. A close examination of the nature we see in our daily lives absolutely will reveal new wonders. As a reader, I find fantasy stories pack the biggest punch when they feel rooted in places and people that carry a background hum of plausibility. I suppose this is why I’ve always been drawn to contemporary or “urban” fantasy, though my own fantasy writing is decidedly “rural.”
When considering my nonfiction and poetry celebrating nature, I approach this advice from the opposite direction. When nature writing feels dry, I sometimes sense a writer who knows and loves the science, but could benefit from a dash of fantasy. For me, the trick to powerful nature writing hinges on an understanding that bare data does not connect with readers the way narrative can. I often feel an instinctual tingle of magic when turning my attention to nature; my goal is to make my reader feel it too.
In my memoir Something in the Woods Loves You, I write, “truth and fact are sisters, not twins.” It’s an idea that often encapsulates our challenge as nature writers. When I visit my favorite shagbark hickory tree on a hiking trail near my home, I sense a spark of kinship. I feel an invitation to wonder and sometimes even a touch of the sacred. But how can I attempt to awaken similar feelings in my readers? Probably not with a list of facts or physical measurements of this specific tree.
Instead, I reach for the tools of speculative fiction. Now, as I stand at the foot of that familiar tree, breathing the oxygen it produces, I’m a small creature who lives off the sighs of ancient giants. I could reach for a sci-fi framework. Now the tree is a solar-powered, self-replicating, carbon-capturing machine, a technology far beyond the level of human craft and ingenuity. Perhaps I pause to consider a splotch of lichen on the bark. I could describe the symbiosis of the alga and fungi within as a tiny community of shepherds with their flocks living slow, spreading lives on a vertical pastureland.
These ideas are fantastical, but they aren’t really departures from reality. This sort of metaphor brings the facts of nature home to a personal, human context. The idea that we are separate from nature in any meaningful way is pure illusion, but weaving non-human-centered stories with our own in a resonant way can take a bit of artistry. I don’t think of it as creating wonder so much as transforming the existent wonder of our world into a more accessible form. Part of the fun of being a writer is in lending our own perspective, our whimsy and imagination, to the folks who could benefit from them.
We understand our identities and our place in the world through story. When I want to tell the story of nature in a vital way that connects with readers, I season my metaphors with fantasy. When I want to make my fantasy writing feel alive with connection to our real world, I reach for surprising truths in nature. In both cases, my days and craft are enriched through an actively cultivated appreciation for the strange beauty of our world.
Check out Jarod K. Anderson's Strange Animals here:
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