I’ve been a bit of a broken record on the topic of myth vs fiction vs fantasy lately. To most, my issues with the word “Fantasy” may seem completely inconsequential. However, the more I write on it the more important I find the distinctions. I think that understanding this distinction clearly is the key to seeing better mythic literature written in the future.
Today, I want to forget about fantasy and fiction and focus on writing myth.
For the sake of definitions, I’ll link this article where I laid out which types of stories can fall under the umbrella of mythic literature or “Faerie Story”. The relevant point here is that since “Fantasy” is a word sometimes used to describe myth and sometimes used to describe fiction, I think it is an unhelpful and confusing term.
Once the distinction is understood, and an author wants to write something truly mythic, where should he start?
Well, he should learn the art of “Mythopoeia”.
He should master the art of copying.
Specifically, he should copy the master of this craft- J.R.R. Tolkien
You’ll commonly hear it said that “fantasy” authors need to avoid copying Tolkien, that they need to get all of his characters and archetypes out of their system to create something “original”. And of course this is true in some ways- you don’t want to write something like The Sword of Shannara that blatantly ripped off the actual storyline of Lord of the Rings.
But this observation is too simple. Obviously you shouldn’t rip off Tolkien’s story, but neither should you rip off anyone else’s. This is just common sense.
So what is meant when people say that “fantasy” authors should specifically avoid copying Tolkien?
They mean that Tolkien’s world, his “races”, his mythology, his aesthetics have become so famous that they are now stereotypical and unimaginative when found in modern authors.
So critics, probably well intentioned, advise aspiring “fantasy” authors to avoid these tropes and come up with their own “original” thing.
If you’ve been paying attention lately, you may see the glaring issue with this.
The issue is that essentially all the famous pieces of Tolkien’s world were not invented by Tolkien. All of these so called “tropes” are core parts of European myth that he simply knew how to use, and by avoiding Tolkien, these modern authors (especially English or Germanic ones) are cutting themselves off from the material they need to write a successful myth.
This avoidance has directly led to my issue with modern fantasy. As the Lord of the Rings exploded in popularity, other fantasy authors began avoiding Tolkien’s tropes out of fear of being called unoriginal. Because Tolkien’s work so fully embodied European myth, this led to a world of fantasy that was totally divorced from mythology and had more in common with science fiction, just with a coat of sword and sorcery paint.
This in turn led to the year 2023, where I would be driven to write an unhinged series of articles beating this subject to death, to the point that my followers wish they had never even heard Tolkien’s name.
Basically, the idea that “copying” Tolkien’s tropes is something to avoid as an English fantasy author is like saying that someone writing a Norse myth should avoid taking inspiration from the Eddas.
If you want to write a myth, a true fantasy, you should absolutely copy Tolkien. Not his literal story or his characters. What you need to copy is how he practiced the art of myth-making, known as Mythopoeia.
And Mythopoeia is not “world-building”.
“Mythopoeia” is the name given to creating a mythology- a mythology in the true sense of the word. It is not the same as the “world-building” done by modern fantasy authors, which is the creation of totally fictional lands for their stories. Mythopoeia is the art of creating something that is conceived as “real”.
I am not claiming that works of Mythopoeia are exactly the same as real world mythologies. They are created by authors, obviously. But they are created with the intent of capturing something real about the mythos of a people and putting it on paper. They are “sub-creative”, not fictional.
This is the art of using existing material to create something, adding your own contribution to the broader body of myth- it is not creating fluff out of thin air. It is a sort of curating. It is less about “inventing” a myth, and more about discovering it, putting a new spin on it.
Writing Mythopoeia requires you understand an ethnic history, language, and mythos at such a deep level that you write something that is “true” in the soul of a particular culture. This is not a genre for amateurs.
So, now that we’ve identified Mythopoeia as the art of writing a true fantasy, an author will want to know specifically how to do this. This is where we get to the point of copying Tolkien. As he was the absolute master of this craft, there is nowhere better to look.
Tolkien’s intent was to write a mythology for the English. It is undeniable that he succeeded in this. Yes, he was also a great writer in the purely literary sense. But his work has continued to captivate the Western world because of how it captured a particular spirit. Tolkien became English mythology, his Mythopoeia almost reaching the level of naturally occurring world mythologies.
The Rohirrim are the Anglo-Saxons in every sense except the purely literal. Aragorn and Frodo are as real to the Anglo people now as any other myth. This is the result of a perfect work of Mythopoeia.
So, how can you specifically follow Tolkien’s footsteps? What makes Tolkien’s work Mythopoeia?
We’ll go down the list.
Myth: You have to learn the mythos of whatever culture is is you’re writing a myth for. You need to known their gods, their folklore, their archetypes, their symbolism. This is how Tolkien “created” a world like Middle-Earth. He did not invent it, rather he understood what “Midgard” was in the Germanic mythic sense so well that he was able to re-create it. His world is our own.
Historical legends: You need to know your history. You need to know kings, heroes, founding myths, wars, villains. You have to be able to frame your story as if it really happened, as if you believe in it. Like Tolkien, you have to be able to say that it is a story from deep in our forgotten history (Tolkien meant this much more literally than most think). You have to be able to make the peoples of your world feel real.
Language: You also must understand language. You have to know how certain words must be used, you have to know what words are to be avoided, and you have to know how the tongues of different people must differ from one another. The languages in Tolkien’s books don’t work because he just made them up randomly, they are anything but random. A real language can only come from a real history.
If you known Tolkien, you’ll know he was a master of all of these things. But what you’ll find today is that most modern fantasy authors that use “world-building” are not doing this. They may take occasional inspiration from real world folklore, but their intent is not to create anything “real”. True works of Mythopoeia are rare.
But this path is open to those that wish to take it. Aspiring authors of European Mythopoeia should copy Tolkien, just as they should copy the Eddas, or Arthurian legend, or the Germanic Sagas. An author from another culture should still copy him in practice.
Myth-making is the art of copying, and an author of myth must view himself less as an inventor and more of a conduit for something that already exists. It is not the art of creating something out of thin air, rather it is the art of making your own small addition to the mythos of your people. It is adding to something that has always existed.
I hope this writeup has helped clear up some of my views on fantasy and myth, as well as provided a sufficient explanation for what exactly made Tolkien’s writing so special.
More than anything, I hope that we will see a return to this sort of mythic sub-creation as a reaction against a world of rootless, meaningless “original” fantasy.
Mythopoeia indeed - from the Greek verb ποιέω (poieó) : to (a) make, manufacture, construct, (b) to do, act, cause to happen. I suggest one author who adopted your suggested approach is Stephen Lawhead, especially The Song of Albion trilogy, and most recently The Eirlandia trilogy. He also did well with other works such as in the historical fiction genre like The Pendragon series and the Celtic Crusades.
As an aspiring fantasy author, I am happy to see someone recognize the consequences of this remarkable Tolkien aversion. John Ronald Reuel was not merely a classic writer to pay lip service to and then ignore. He is the Snorri Sturluson of the modern era. Fantasy writers dismiss him at their own peril.