Fantasy is the most truly creative of the fiction genres.  In science fiction, there are physical rules, either based upon what is possible with advanced science or is possible with “created” science.  This, common in series like “Star Trek,” is that which was created when folks were more naive scientifically and has now trapped the science-fiction community into continuing to accept it or risk breaking the bubble entirely.
         Similarly, horror uses features and plots that are traditionally accepted.  Certain levels of violence produce certain wounds, certain threats produce an established level of fear, certain things are not, ever, going to be sources of horror, no matter the plot.  If a puppy is to be the antagonist in a horror tale, he must either produce harm to someone who is rendered helpless by some other plot-piece, or he is easily repelled.  Daphne du Maurier’s “The Birds” was scary in her day, now even the Hitchcock film version seems silly.
         Fantasy, in contrast with these and other genres, need not be constrained by rules.  If one wants to use existing fantasy venues and characters, of course the new story must not alter these change in any major way.  The Black Tower must not have fluorescent lights and rocket launchers.  Oberon must not become a Stallone.  Morgan le Fay must not set up a little dress shop in Camelot.
        Better for the writer and the reader is fantasy that sidesteps the rules of existing fantasies and plows smooth water.  Here the cut must be surgical, any suggestion, any suspicion that the classic characters or venues have been “borrowed” means the entire story must conform.  The writer must make it all if he chooses to make a part.
        New venues can be generic, such as castles, lakes, mountains, caves, etc. which exist in the classic fantasy world but the writer must guard vigilantly against adopting a phrase, even unintentionally, that transports the reader to a familiar spot.  A plain-vanilla tunnel is safe but a tunnel with a skeleton lying by a locked door instantly yanks some readers into the Paths of the Dead of Tolkien.

        The characters are a peril, also.  Any creature known or unknown is acceptable in a “new” story, but again, the slightest whiff of “me too” is fatal.  I wrote a long and, I thought, original story in which the heroine had powers that I had never heard of before, and a quest that seemed pretty original.  I worked hard and long to place it in a marvelous new landscape.  Then, seeking for a “perfect” description, I formed a mental picture of her and started to write the descriptions.
        I usually insert the descriptions piecemeal through the opening action so as to save the reader a long several paragraphs of “she wore” and “her long hair” and so on.  In this I trapped myself.  Had I written out a detailed description all in one piece I would have had no choice but to abandon it all and just name her, since what I had done was to set down my description of fair Titania.
        My immediate reaction, when my cousin pointed it out to me was to ignore it.  “After all.” I said to myself, “how many readers of small press fantasy ever read anything as heavy as Spencer?”
I was rather full of myself back then.
        Then reason returned.  I returned the dreadful Titanesse to her people and started anew.  The lesson?  It’s hard to get the after-images of well-done fiction out of one’s head.  If it has a lot of descriptive passages, I have learned to take a story apart to look at those descriptions separately.  Far better than readers writing to my favorite magazine to tell the world that I had “stolen” fair Carvilia, and, worse, had her behave as the haughty niece of Arthur never would have.
        How does the reader-writer, for that is what most of us are, avoid these traps of memory and tradition?  There is a sure way, although, like any good medicine, the taking is distasteful.  We often see features in a magazine entitled “Our Readers Write.”  Far better would it be that “Our Writers Read,” e.g., that we read first to learn our craft and read again to avoid poaching on those who have earned the right of place before us.  We owe that much, at least to those who have created what we remember.