Are You Writing Serious Fantasy?

[Naaramare]

I feel almost as if I've missed the bus, but better late than never, except in sky diving, so I'll answer the original question of the thread.

Are any of you writing serious fantasy? If so, how have you dealt with the temptation to be imitative of Tolkien? How long have you been working on your story, and why? What pitfalls have you faced and how have you overcome them - or not?

I suppose it depends on what you mean by serious, but I shall assume our ideas meet.

Tolkien, of course, inspires and permeates my work, to a point that I mock myself for it within the story itself. However, I don't think I'm imitative of him, simply because I can't hold the linguistic style that long. It drives me mad to try and write in it, so I eventually give up and become a good deal more colloquial (for me, at least).

So far as plot and form go, my serious fantasies still tend to be more character driven than history driven, so I avoid imitation there. But that's also how I think, so . . .

Drat. I'm being forced of the computer. Oh well, that's my small contribution.