The open door

After Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, it seems agents who once balked at fantasy have started reconsidering.

I once had an agent tell me she didn't take fantasy because she didn't understand it. But then when she learned my protagonist was fifteen years old and the story could be marketed as YA fantasy, she gave me her card.

I'm wondering how many people here were inspired to write in the YA Fantasy Genre due to these and other movies? (The princess bride...etc)

I'm also wondering if you already had a WIP that you altered to allow for this market. I chose a fifteen year old MC before the craze, simply because I wanted someone who would clearly be in over their heads from the beginning and wasn't going to resort to a Hobbit. lol

Soccer Mom said:

I moved to writing MG because of my kids. As my boys became interested in MG fantasty, I began reading a lot of it again. This inspired me to write MG fantasy with a male protagonist.

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That will happen. When my kids were in the YA age, I did the same, but that was before I even thought about publishing.

Toothpaste said:

I like reading MG, that's why I write it. And I always loved adventure stories when I was younger (still do) especially the Enid Blyton Adventure series. It's odd, because my book is considered fantasy because it has a few fantastical elements, a talking octopus for example, but it really doesn't involve a far away land or any magical elements. I think if something is anything other than real life, these days it's labeled fantasy. Which I totally don't mind, just felt like mentioning it!

To me JK Rowling opened the door more for writing for kids, making it an acceptable and lucrative kind of writing. It may have opened the door to fantasy as well, but I really think the whole genre of kids writing owes a lot to that woman.

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I'd say that really there were several movies that opened the door to what I'd call "The fantastical"- which is more than fantasy, and includes movies that simply have a fantasy element. Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Carribean, and Spider Man. Those movies raked in between 500 million to a Billion worldwide, and I think all of a sudden people were looking for the "Next" LOTR, POTTER...etc. Something fantastical that the whole family would go see.

I hope this theme continues to stay hot, as this covers my Genre.