Writing about facts is easy. Jot down notes, organize them, and write coherent sentences. I am not talking about how you go about collecting those facts. All I am concerned with is how you go about writing them. Much less brainwork is required in this case, isn’t it? 

Writing fiction is difficult still. You have to think about people – the characters and the story behind each of them. You have to think about the settings and the events – and how they progress towards the final goal. Sometimes fact and fiction are intertwined, when somebody weaves a fictional story about familiar, factual events. The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh is one such example, where the author has kept the setting honest – that of the British invading India and the neighboring countries. The characters of King Thebaw and his Queen are real too, but the rest of it is solely fictional. 

How do you go about writing fantasy then, where everything needs to be invented?

As many of my Facebook friends know, I recently completed completed reading books from the Harry Potter series. Yes, I took my time alright – I read them back to back, you see – but that is not what I want to talk about. All I want to say is that JK Rowling has got a brilliant mind. 

Harry Potter is not like a regular good versus evil stories where you just have to kill the bad man to end all the sin in the world, because killing Lord Voldemort in person will not help. He will still live, for he has ripped apart his soul in different pieces. 

The high point of the series is that seemingly simple incidents that happen in the beginning have a big roles to play towards the end. It comes as a surprise to the reader, and increases the interestingness of the story manifold. 

Speaking of the concepts JK Rowling has invented – they are splendid. Quidditch and the Flying Broomsticks, the Time Turner, the Invisibility Cloak, humans talking to snakes, horcruxes – the list goes on. She has spun an entire world – a parallel world alongside the normal. Everything is invented, and everything is entirely new. Heck, she has even written the Tales of Beedle the Bard – fairy tales for the wizard kids! Yet, it is not science fiction. Concepts described in the books will never bear out (although I heard about some scientists trying to make the cloak of invisibility). The genre is Fantasy, yet Fantasy has never seemed so real!

Harry Potter is one hell of a story. Though I expect most of you to have read it, those who haven’t – go for it!

Note: Don’t put me off for writing less and less. I know that I am updating after a long time. I was reading Harry Potter in the meantime, you see!