Let me admit to one of my mistakes: I wrongly categorized my books as epic fantasy when I first started publishing. I thought, well, the books move toward massive, world-changing consequences, they have big stakes, they have larger-than-life characters.

Wrong! Not epic fantasy, as I will explain. But there’s a reason I didn’t want to call it literary fantasy.

Because literary fantasy sounds pretentious as hell, and I am not a pretentious person. Someone thinks “literary” and they immediately think boring, meandering, solipsistic prose that doesn’t do anything and doesn’t go anywhere. Which is a fair assumption in many instances, but not always true.

It’s also hard to define and harder to market. Very hard to market.

Literary fantasy appeals to a much smaller demographic than mainstream epic fantasy.

Beloved as it is to me, literary fantasy is the worst of both worlds, at least in terms of marketing. “Literary” gives it the patina of pretention and snobbery, while “fantasy” gives it the childish pulpiness of generic fiction.

People genuinely do not think fantasy can be high art or have deep themes, which is laughable given the existence of Urusula K. Le Guin, who is basically the mother of literary fantasy. But the myth prevails.

So we turn off two entirely different groups of people at the same time just based on the genre name. It’s a little sad, really.

But I haven’t answered the main question yet. Before I do, let me say that I have nothing against epic fantasy; I read a lot of it myself. If anything I say here seems like a slam, I truly do not mean it to be.

Also, there is overlap between the subgenres, as there are overlap between every subgenre in any genre. Not everything I say here applies to every book in either subgenre. Consider this a general sketch of the differences, not a hard and fast rule.

Epic fantasy prose is typically fast-paced and simple; literary fantasy is dense and erudite.

The first key to whether you’re dealing with epic fantasy or literary fantasy sits in the prose. Because epic fantasy is for an exciting romp in another world, it doesn’t try too hard with the prose; the point is to reduce friction and continue pulling the reader forward.

Take these two examples. Here’s Brandon Sanderson, the most successful epic fantasy author alive, from Mistborn:

Ash fell from the sky.
Vin watched the downy flakes drift through the air. Leisurely. Careless. Free. The puffs of soot fell like black snowflakes, descending upon the dark city of Luthadel. They drifted in corners, blowing in the breeze and curling in tiny whirlwinds over the cobblestones. They seemed so uncaring. What would that be like?

Vin sat quietly in one of the crew’s watch-holes—a hidden alcove built into the bricks on the side of the safehouse. From within it, a crewmember could watch the street for signs of danger. Vin wasn’t on duty—the watch-hole was simply one of the few places where she could find solitude.

And Vin liked solitude. When you’re alone, no one can betray you. Reen’s words. Her brother had taught her so many things, then had reinforced them by doing what he’d always promised he would—by betraying her himself. It’s the only way you’ll learn. Anyone will betray you, Vin. Anyone.

People often razz Sanderson’s style for being too simplistic and childish, but he is so successful for a reason: his prose does exactly what it’s intended to. The quick, choppy sentences and simple descriptions keep readers turning the pages, lulled along because they don’t have to think too hard. It’s entertaining and easy to read.

Now let’s look at Ursula K Le Guin, from Voices:

His voice made no echo off the rock walls. Silence snuffed it out utterly. There was no sound but the faint trickle of the spring, and my breathing, and his. It was absolutely dark. My eyes fooled me again and again, making faint lights flash, and colors blur and vanish in the black in front of me, that sometimes seemed to be right up against my eyes like a blindfold, and then deep and far as a starless sky, so that I feared to fall as if standing on a cliff’s edge. Once I thought I saw a glimmer taking form, the shape of a letter, but it went out suddenly, utterly, as a spark goes out. We stood a long time, long enough that I began to feel the rock pressing through my thin shoe soles and the ache in my back from not moving. I was dizzy because there was nothing in the world, no thing at all, only blackness and the sound of water and the pressure of the rock under my feet. No air moved. It was cold. It was still.

There are some choppy sentences here, but the descriptions are deeply layered and take time to decode. This paragraph is much longer and varies the sentence structure frequently while borrowing from poetic techniques like comma splices.

You’ll see more varied syntax, more lush descriptions, and frequent blending between internal and external description. Slowing down is the point in literary fantasy, whereas epic fantasy wants to speed things up.

This is why people hopping over to literary fantasy often complain about the books being “slow;” they’re not used to the sentence density and heavier pacing.

Epic fantasy is for entertainment; literary fantasy is for examination.

And there is nothing wrong with reading a book for pure enjoyment. That’s how most of us became writers; we found ourselves whisked away to a magical world and wanted to recreate the feeling.

Writing an entertaining and high-stakes book is a craft in its own right because it requires very careful pacing management and highly charismatic characters we want to root for.

So, epic fantasy is about sending you on a grand adventure where your main character fights dragons or chases down mysterious orbs or woos a lady. This is, of course, very entertaining, and it’s also soothing. We know the characters will likely prevail (as I will say later), which offers catharsis at the close. It’s a time to sink into an interesting world, assured that we’re likely to get our good ending.

Literary fantasy does not offer the same catharsis because its primary focus is examining real-world challenges through a fantastic lens. These books unflinchingly cover difficult subjects and sit with discomfort in a way that some people might not be ready to handle at the moment. One has to be in a certain mindset and possess a certain tolerance for ambiguity to read (or write) literary fantasy.

Symbolism is key in epic fantasy; literary fantasy prioritizes themes.

When I say symbolism, I am usually talking about totemic objects: something to be acquired and manipulated. Think the One Ring, or Cinderella’s glass slippers, or magic wands. There may be a fight over the object, or it might have been lost to the mists of time; someone may need to return it to the rightful heir (a la King Arthur’s sword) or wrest it away from a bad guy.

Literary fantasy also has its own objects and trinkets, but these are often emblematic rather than powerful. For example, Orrinir Relickim’s little felt horse introduced in Funeral of Hopes is not powerful and has no transubstantial purpose. It’s a toy that says something about him as a person rather than the world at large.

Instead, literary fantasy prioritizes themes: sacrifice, longing, loyalty, loss, intergenerational trauma, decolonization. Themes can be present in epic fantasy, too (Brandon Sanderson uses them often), but they aren’t as prioritized.

All my books start with a main theme. For example, my upcoming book, Absent All Light (coming very soon!), is all about tribalism and the helplessness of political structures. Orrinir is captured by the Sinans, and we see how he copes when many of the beliefs he so tightly held are destroyed. Uileac betrays the Bremish Army to save Orrinir, and we see the consequences of his actions when reprocessed through an uncaring government.

Epic fantasy characters are aspirational; literary fantasy characters are realistic.

Characters like Wei Wuxian, Aragorn, or Martin the Warrior (shoutout Redwall) are larger-than-life. They are brave, noble, and bold. While they have human traits, they are also types of superhumans, who do things most of us could never fathom doing. Many of their foibles or pitfalls are due to being oppressed or misunderstood by those around them.

If they are magic users, they are the best magic users. They have the best gear and the best tactics and the best of all stuff. Which is great because we want them to. We’re rooting for them.

In contrast, literary fantasy characters have all the petty meanness and flaws of real human beings.

One of the greatest literary fantasy authors of our time, China Mieville, has frankly awful main characters. They’re assholes. In Perdido Street Station, one of them is literally a rapist. The Scar has total cowards and cold-hearted sociopaths. Rat King‘s MC eats trash and enjoys it. Certainly not something you would see in epic fantasy unless those characters were the villains.

I follow this standard, too. Cerie is kind of a bitch. Uileac is arrogant. Orrinir is codependent. Mordrek is the sneakiest bastard alive. A reader can see themselves in my characters – and they may not like what they see, to be honest.

That is, again, because literary fantasy is often meant to explore real-world conditions through a magical lens. The diagetic elements – weird physics, odd objects, unusual settings – provide enough distance that it’s not confronting or a simple political screed. Still, one cannot explore real consequences and challenges without real characters, which is why literary fantasy characters are often so flawed.

Epic fantasy trends toward good vs. evil; literary fantasy is morally gray.

Going along with the above point, epic fantasy plots tend toward Very Good Protagonist and Very Bad Antagonist. Someone is wrong, and they’re extremely wrong in extremely unfair ways. We get to see the Very Good Protagonist prevail against the Very Bad Antagonist in the end, even if it costs the Protagonist something precious.

Because literary fantasy characters are realistic, they are also flawed. These flaws are highlighted, not swept under the rug or minimized for the sake of maintaining their purity patina.

Epic fantasy characters can, genuinely, do evil things. It’s the way the story lingers on these consequences that changes how they are perceived. Think of superhero stories, which are like epic fantasy set in a world very close to our own.

The superhero is good. Point blank period. If their actions have collateral damage, this is carefully written around or even misattributed to the antagonist. We’re discouraged from lingering on misdeeds or thinking deeper about the morality of super-strong people fighting in the streets.

In contrast, literary fantasy is all about the lingering. Characters don’t get away with bad things just because they are the protagonist or a protagonist’s associate.

Because literary fantasy MCs are often morally gray, the antagonists are too. They are simply different shades of that – or perhaps the same shade but the book frames them differently so we don’t realize it.

Literary fantasy is about making people uncomfortable and challenging their expectations, which is why it doesn’t accept dichotomies.

Epic fantasy seeks neat resolutions; literary fantasy leaves things unexplained.

With a Good vs. Evil plot, we know good prevails. People get their happy ending or their sorta-happy ending. Things are wrapped up; everything is explained in a way that reveals that our good protagonists were doing the right thing all along. Maybe they get married or move to a happy little place or regain the throne. Whatever it is, we feel it is deserved and valuable.

In literary fantasy, there is no good vs. evil. There’s sorta better versus sorta worse. The reader is left holding the bag with a bunch of intentionally unanswered questions, a lingering sense that not everything was explained or not everything was warranted.

My fourth book, What Is Cannot Be Unwritten, shows this perfectly.

He moved to his bookshelves, where the wish bug squatted, and picked it up with his free hand. After a pause, he grabbed a small chapbook of Bremish poetry he’d captured in a seedy bookshop on the way home.

The words blurred before him as he slumped on the couch. He turned every page between the burning liquor sips, searching for anything that made sense.

Love poems, loss poems, flowery votives to Poesy: he almost gave up. But finally, he stopped and ran his fingers over the handwritten script.

“I am the first to find every exit.

Snuff every candle
for fear of fire.

First to fight any danger
whether by sword or teeth.

Perk my ears up, crack my knuckles,
and plunge into blood again.

Overcalculation

is my treasure. Cultivated
like an art form, offered
as a prayer.

Sniff guts like one would flowers.
But yet still

I cannot break my fate.”

Such an urge to throw this book into the fire, too. But instead, he stroked the cover for a few seconds, then laid it on the table.

The wish bug’s dark eyes loomed up from his lap; Mordrek took another sip of the cardamom liqueur and regarded its silent face. Gods, this alcohol was much stronger than he had expected. The damned thing seemed about to speak.

“Aren’t we all doomed by the narrative, anyway?” he asked the wish bug as the flames shaded its hood. “I mean, that’s what the Bremish believe.”

Here, with only the spitting fire for light, he was sure he saw some intelligence in the clay. Like an emissary for someone trying to call him back.

Just the alcohol, he decided, and poured himself another glass.

Mordrek literally asks himself (and us) whether we’re all doomed by the narrative and whether the highly fatalistic Bremish concepts are true. Then he starts binge-drinking again.

We don’t know the answer in the narrative, and we don’t know the answer in real life either. This leaves us pondering how far away Mordrek’s experiences are from our own, again reflecting the idea that literary fantasy explores real-world consequences.

Bad epic fantasy reads like bad writing; bad literary fantasy reads like subpar epic fantasy.

Now the spicy part.

I am not saying that epic fantasy is for dumb people. I am also not saying that literary fantasy is automatically better than epic fantasy, so bad literary fanasy is just epic fantasy with big words. Not at all.

Any book that fails to satisfy its premise is bad, but one of the reasons that bad literary fantasy is so frustrating is because it violates the norms of the subgenre in a way that bad epic fantasy doesn’t. Instead, bad literary fantasy borrows too liberally from epic fantasy without committing to what makes epic fantasy enjoyable.

Case in point, one of my least favorite “literary fantasy” books again: The Atlas Six. The premise was that six magic users from different places and with different skills have to kill one of their fellows while attempting to complete challenges. Not a standard epic-fantasy quest, no magical objects, no larger-than-life characters (they all kind of suck tbh), no good versus evil.

But it doesn’t make good on the promise of someone dying because the author wanted to milk another book out of it. There’s a stupid plot twist at the end that makes the whole thing pointless. Not a lack of resolution in that we’re left with unanswered questions: a lack of resolution in that we do not get what we were told would happen.

Bad literary fantasy is notorious for this. It will tell us something is going to happen and then refuse to deliver, or deliver in some stupid contrived way that makes no sense. The Poet Empress (another literary fantasy book I hate) not only insists on using YA style, but it doesn’t provide any magic poems.

I will just spoil it for you because I don’t think the book is worth reading – sorry if you wanted to. Essentially the MC, whose name I have already forgotten because she’s that boring, is an illiterate farmer who abruptly becomes a prince consort for no discernable reason and is going to marry the evil bad guy prince. She teaches herself to read so she can create a magical killing poem – which we never get to see, by the way! – and then her prince guy fights a dragon and she changes her mind and uses the magical killing poem to revive him instead.

And then she stabs him anyway. What the actual fuck. It made zero sense to change her mind on the cool killing poem only to kill him regardless. That’s the kind of plot twist that might work in epic fantasy but does not work in literary fantasy. It’s not what anyone came for.

That is another problem with literary fantasy, as evidenced by these two disparate books: it tells you the premise upfront, then refuses to deliver. It spoils something that doesn’t even happen. The point of the book then isn’t “how does this happen?” (interesting) but “how is the author going to fuck this up?” (frustrating).

Bad epic fantasy doesn’t do this. It doesn’t suddenly pick up literary fantasy principles and try to play with them before giving up. It’s just bad writing.

I, of course, do love my literary fantasy. I wouldn’t be about to release my fifth book in a ten-part series if I did not. However, I also understand why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

Literary fantasy is not necessarily deeper, more complex, or more sophisticated than epic fantasy. The Hobbit is epic fantasy, literally told as a children’s story, but it still has depth, complexity, and sophistication. But, as I said, The Hobbit is there to entertain, while someone like China Mieville is ready to confront you. He wants you to be uncomfortable and unsettled in a way that Brandon Sanderson does not.

Neither subgenre is superior, regardless of what pretentious snobs may say about the “literary” label. And at its heart, both are about taking us to different lands and making us dream bigger than real-world fiction dares.