From SRP author Taylen Carver:
For years now, I’ve had some odd experiences with fantasy novels.
I pick one up. The premise sounds promising. The writing is competent, sometimes even lovely. And yet, a few chapters in, I feel restless. Irritated. Occasionally faintly guilty.
Nothing is wrong with the book. But nothing is really happening, either. Or rather, plenty is happening; customs are being explained, meals described, rituals observed…but the story itself seems oddly stationary.
For a long time, I assumed this was a me problem. Maybe my attention span was shot. Maybe I was getting older and more impatient. Maybe modern fantasy just wasn’t for me anymore.
It turns out none of that is true. What’s actually happening is much simpler, and much more interesting.
Two kinds of fantasy, one genre label
Fantasy has quietly split into two different forms that are doing two different jobs, while still wearing the same genre name.
One kind of fantasy is story-first.
The other is immersion-first.
Neither is better. Neither is wrong. But they are not interchangeable, and pretending they are causes a lot of reader frustration. Some fantasy wants to tell you a story. Some fantasy wants you to live somewhere.
Problems arise when we don’t know which one we’ve picked up.
Story-first fantasy
Story-first fantasy is built around momentum.
Things happen. Those things cause other things to happen. Characters make decisions under pressure, and those decisions matter. The world exists to support the story, not to compete with it.
Worldbuilding is present, sometimes rich, but it’s selective. You’re not expected to memorize it. If you forget the name of a river three chapters later, the book doesn’t collapse.
The primary pleasure here is narrative:
- What happens next?
- How does this change them?
- What will it cost?
This is the kind of fantasy I gravitate toward, both as a reader and as a writer.
Immersion-first fantasy
Immersion-first fantasy is built around presence. The goal isn’t momentum so much as residency. You’re meant to settle in. To absorb how things are done. To learn how people eat, celebrate, bury their dead, structure their days.
Events may be episodic. Stakes may be low or diffuse. The plot may wander, double back, or pause entirely. The pleasure here is experiential:
- What does it feel like to live here?
- How does this world work?
- What’s it like to be this person, day after day?
This kind of fantasy has grown enormously in the last few decades, and not by accident.
Classic story-first fantasy
These books are remembered for what happens and who changes, not for how exhaustively the world is documented.
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
Yes, Tolkien again; but this one is almost pure story engine. Episodic, forward-moving, cause-and-effect. You can forget half the place names and still have a complete experience. It’s a quest that keeps going.
A Wizard of Earthsea – Ursula K. Le Guin
Sparse, mythic, and relentlessly focused on internal change. The world exists, but only insofar as it pressures Ged into becoming someone else. Almost nothing is explained that doesn’t serve the arc.
The Chronicles of Prydain – Lloyd Alexander
Classic Hero’s Journey fantasy. Characters grow up. Choices matter. The world is consistent but never indulgent. Readers remember Taran, not the trade routes.
The Black Company – Glen Cook
Milieu is hinted at, not mapped. The story barrels forward through voice and consequence. You’re dropped into motion and expected to keep up.
Mistborn: The Final Empire – Brandon Sanderson
Despite its famously defined magic system, this is still story-first. The rules exist to force plot, not pause it. Things happen because the system is constrained, not despite it.
Classic immersion-first fantasy
These books invite you to stay. Plot may exist, but it is not the primary pleasure.
The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Yes, it has a plot—but its lasting impact comes from depth of place, history, and continuity. Many readers reread it to return, not to be surprised.
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant – Stephen R. Donaldson
Deeply immersive, psychologically heavy, morally uncomfortable. Events matter, but the dominant experience is living inside Covenant’s alienation and the Land’s metaphysics.
The Riddle-Master of Hed – Patricia A. McKillip
Dreamlike, symbolic, slow. The world unfolds through mood and resonance rather than explanation or urgency. Readers who love it often can’t summarize it…and don’t want to.
Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn – Tad Williams
Famously patient. Immensely detailed. Readers either sink into it or bounce off early. This is a “live here for a while” experience.
The Goblin Emperor – Katherine Addison
A modern example, but already a classic of immersion-first fantasy. Court etiquette, language, emotional texture. The plot is gentle; the experience is rich.
The important thing to notice
None of these books are “better” than the others.
But:
- Story-first fantasy is remembered for arcs.
- Immersion-first fantasy is remembered for atmosphere.
And readers often assume that because they love one, they should love the other, until repeated frustration teaches them otherwise.
Where this split came from
A big part of the answer is games.
Open-world and roleplaying games have trained whole generations of readers to enjoy inhabiting a space without needing constant narrative payoff. If you’ve ever happily spent hours wandering around Skyrim or living a second life in Star Wars: The Old Republic, you already understand the appeal. Nothing much has to happen. Living there is the point.
Fantasy fiction absorbed that sensibility. Worlds became deeper, more detailed, more continuous. Story became only one possible activity inside the setting, rather than the spine holding everything together.
For readers who love immersion, this is a feature, not a bug. For story-first readers, it can feel like being asked to read an encyclopedia before the plot is allowed to begin.
“But Tolkien did it”
Yes. J. R. R. Tolkien built an entire mythology for Middle-earth, complete with languages, histories, and genealogies. And he opened The Lord of the Rings with a chapter about Hobbits, pipe-smoking, and birthday parties. By modern rules, this should have been fatal.
It wasn’t, because the Shire chapter isn’t a lore dump. It’s emotional groundwork. Tolkien isn’t asking you to learn the Shire; he’s asking you to care about it. He’s showing you what wholeness looks like before it’s broken.
In Hero’s Journey terms, this is the “ordinary world” setup. However, Tolkien understands that the ordinary world isn’t just a starting location. It’s the measuring stick. Frodo is given something to lose, something he fights to preserve, and ultimately something he cannot keep.
What’s telling is that you don’t fully grasp how much the hobbits have changed while they’re away. In Gondor, amid kings and ceremonies, the transformation feels abstract. It’s only when they return to the Shire, when the ordinary world is physically present again, that the change hits like a slap in the face. The Shire hasn’t changed. They have.
That’s why the ending lands. The front-loaded detail pays off late, not early. Tolkien is playing a very long emotional game, and the detail earns its place because it gives the story a scale for loss and transformation.
Many modern fantasies imitate the surface of Tolkien’s detail without understanding its function. Detail isn’t the problem. Detail without narrative purpose is.
So…which kind of fantasy reader are you?
Most of us aren’t purely one thing or the other. Think of this as a spectrum, not a diagnosis. See which questions make you nod along.
About pacing
- Do you get impatient when characters sit in an inn talking instead of doing something?
- Or do you enjoy those scenes because they let you settle into the world?
About detail
- Do you skim long descriptions of clothing, architecture, or food?
- Or do you slow down and savor them?
About momentum
- Do you read “just one more chapter” because you need to know what happens next?
- Or because you don’t want to leave the world yet, even if nothing dramatic is happening?
About maps and appendices
- Do you rarely look at the map unless you’re completely lost?
- Or do you keep flipping back to it?
- Do appendices feel optional, or essential?
About frustration
- Have you ever thought, “This is beautifully written, but I’m bored”?
- Or “I feel like I’m missing something important, even though the plot is moving”?
About other media
- Do open-world games where you can wander and exist for hours sound irresistible, or exhausting?
One final, entirely unscientific test
- Do you skip the Tom Bombadil chapters?
If yes, you’re almost certainly a story-first reader. If no, or if you secretly enjoy Bombadil, you probably lean toward immersion-first fantasy.
If you’re thinking, Wait, people skip him? … Well, that tells you something too.
Why this matters
Here’s the important part: there is nothing wrong with you if a book doesn’t work. And there’s nothing wrong with the book, either.
Fantasy doesn’t yet come with labels that say “story-first” or “immersion-first.” Publishing hasn’t caught up to the fact that these are now two different reader experiences sharing one genre name. So readers blame themselves. They think they’ve lost patience, lost focus, lost the ability to enjoy fantasy at all.
Often, they’ve just picked up the wrong kind of fantasy.
How to find what actually satisfies you
Once you recognize which side of the spectrum you lean toward, things get much easier.
Ask for recommendations based on authors you love, not tropes. When you find a writer who reliably works for you, follow them; newsletter, backlist, future releases. And pay attention to why a book works, not just whether it does.
If you enjoy my work, you’re probably a story-first reader. That isn’t accidental, and it isn’t universal. It’s just one way of doing fantasy.
But knowing that difference—really knowing it—can save you a lot of frustration, a lot of guilt, and a lot of abandoned books. And that seems like a bit of magic worth naming.
.
Taylen Carver
SRP Fantasy Author
Browse Taylen’s books here.
