It’s Karter’s Big Episode! Inspired by Farah Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy, the Genre Hustle crew discusses how elements of the fantastic function for us as writers, the challenges and opportunities of each, and the perspective each can offer the reader.

We explore the four modes of speculative fiction: portal, immersive, intrusion, and liminal. In portal fiction, a character from the mundane world launches into the fantastic, with such examples as The Magicians and The Chronicles of Narnia. Immersive fantasy includes classic high fantasy and science fiction set in worlds completely separate from ours, such as A Game of Thrones and Dune. In intrusive fiction, the speculative trespasses in the real world, as in urban fantasy and horror. Finally, like the fantastic elements it contains, liminal fantasy is harder to put your finger on. The magic lies at the periphery of the experience.

Learning to recognize, work with, and balance these ideas can be a valuable exercise for the writer in discovering what to write, whom to write for, and potentially distill new combinations of genre for truly unique story experiences.