Fantasy is not a plot element
I have a bone to pick with my buddy Harry Connolly's post here.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what he means by "What unifies the books in the fantasy genre? A plot element." At first blush I read that as "Fantasy is a story with a maguffin," but I know Harry's not that dumb (not least because his fab new fantasy series The Great Way isn't about a maguffin).
(He's trying to explain it to me now on Twitter, and it makes no sense to me. We may be having cross-connected vocabulary.)
There are the two things that define the fantasy genre:
1. Story does not take place in the "real world." [1]
2. This created setting is integral to the readers' enjoyment. They want the details of this setting to be shown through their use in the story. [5]
Now it's certainly true that you can tell the same story in many different settings (hello, modernized Shakespeare), and true that non-fantasy stories often make the setting an integral part of the tale.
But it is only in genre fantasy [6] where the created setting is why the readers came here. Worldbuilding is essential. Not any particular worldbuilding--the readers want each fantasy book (or series) to have its own all-new setting. Exciting plots and heartwrenching character development are needed because that is important for ANY good story; but it must happen in a created setting that the readers find exciting, interesting, and compelling.[7] The magic system (if there is magic; usually there is but not always) shouldn't be like what we've seen a million times before. The readers want to discover a new world, and to see how things happen there.
If the worldbuilding is half-assed or trite, then the story, if positioned as a genre-fantasy story, will be considered half-assed and trite.
This is why "fantasy romance" (which is NOT genre fantasy) can get away with thin worldbuilding. [2] The readers are there for the romance, not the fantasy. They came for the relationship between the lead characters and the HEA. The fantasy elements are colorful set dressing.
Note: this worldbuilding doesn't have to be super well constructed. The Harry Potter worldbuilding is a crazy quilt of whatever neat-o thing Rowling wanted at that moment, full of holes and inconsistencies.[3] But the individual bits and pieces are cool, and she makes use of them in varied ways, from fun window dressing to integral plot elements, that the books are undeniably genre fantasy. (They're also very strongly mystery novels. But the series overall is fantasy.)
"A mixed bag of guys on a mission to stop a powerful world leader by destroying something of great strategic importance to him. They must make their way into enemy territory, though often opposed by agents of the enemy even among allies. They have arguments amongst themselves. The band has to split up, and in the very end one group creates a diversion while two make the last leg of the journey. They succeed, but not entirely in the way we were expecting."
Obviously that's the plot of LOTR. It is also the plot of Force 10 from Navarone.[4]
What makes LOTR fantasy and F10fN not-fantasy is the world it's set in. The plot is of course affected by the world, particularly down in the page-by-page details, but as we can see, the first few layers of plot aren't related to the worldbuilding.
(Again, I think this may be where Harry is saying fantasy is defined by plot elements, that the details of the plot are determined by the details of the worldbuilding. But I don't think that's specific to fantasy. Again again, allow as how I really don't understand what Harry was saying. It was one sentence fragment in a blog post otherwise about something else entirely.)
1. Yes, I know that technically anything with a fictional corporation or made-up characters doesn't take place in the real world. But non-fantasy stories take place in a world so similar to ours as to make no difference, and specifically in a world purporting to be ours, without any wink-wink of "let's pretend this is our world" like some forms of urban fantasy or magical realism.
2. It doesn't have to, and the better stuff doesn't, but thin worldbuilding will not ruin a fantasy romance any more than lack of romance will ruin a fantasy novel.
3. That fucking time-turner. Grrr.
4. Seriously, I didn't realize how much those two stories are the same plot until just this moment. Harrison Gamgee and Frodo Shaw?
5. I think this might be what Harry means by "a plot element." But if so, this is some meaning of those words in that order that I have never encountered before. Sorry, Harry.
6. "Genre fantasy" is defined as books that would be classified in the genre of fantasy. It's a broad genre with lots of subgenres, and lines get blurry of course. But let's say it has mostly to do with how a bookstore will organize their shelves so as to maximize the chances of a reader finding a book that will appeal to the particular itch they're looking to scratch. Yes, these same things apply to SF, too, which is why they're shelved together. Shut up.
7. Redundant, redundant, redundant. Yes. That's how important it is.