Cover by Alison Hunt

Dragons are to fantasy what aliens are to science fiction and collateral damage is to superheroes. Not entirely necessary, but people tend to assume they are going to make an appearance. Being such a high-profile creature, they come under a lot of scrutiny these days and sometimes are flat out ridiculed. In reality, a dragon won’t make much sense because of its size and power. Can you imagine living in a world where these behemoths are roaming around and needing food? It requires an immense amount of disbelief suspension. You have people writing essays and making videos on why dragons make no logical sense as well, which adds to the difficulty of using them. People call them cliché and roll their eyes when you even mention that they exist in your world. It’s a level of disdain and borderline hate that can make a new author avoid them completely. This is why it’s easy to say that you do not have to have dragons in your world.

Yet, these beasts continue to show up and draw out excitement from the audience at a level very few other monsters can do in this genre. They’ve been around since mythological times and repeatedly appear in stories with no sign of disappearing. This happens regardless of the criticism dragons earn. A reason for this is because many people LOVE dragons even if they have seen them a thousand times. These are the monsters that are the epitome of heroic quest in either slaying or finding. They are symbols of power and magic while at the same time showing grace when flying. Enormous size with a strange amount of agility makes them amazing to imagine. Main character dragons are depicted as having wisdom and intelligence as well, which turns them into a noble sage or a cunning enemy. This combination is why they continue to be popular in the face of criticism, which tends to be more about questioning how they would exist than why they are used. An author can easily handle this by providing answers as to how a dragon gets enough food, water, and manages to stay out of sight.

That’s another reason why dragons continue to be popular. New versions are routinely being created by rising authors. This keeps the concept fresh and familiar, which appeals to long-standing fans of fantasy and those new to the genre. You don’t have to worry about being called out either because dragons have been varied since ancient times. If you look at various mythologies across the world, you will see that dragons are a common monster with different faces. Most authors stick to the reptilian fire-breather that soars through the air because that’s what fantasy has used for decades. Yet, there are also wingless versions that still fly, those that use lightning instead of fire, aquatic dragons, and the list keeps going. Now, they aren’t all called dragons, but they fall into the similar vein since they tend to have reptilian traits. That seems to be the most common trait, which is why some think they were created in response to finding dinosaur bones. Not sure why that would mean reptile since the bones don’t have scales, but that’s a theory. It also means you have numerous examples of dragon variations to use as inspiration.

Make Fizzle happy by checking out Do I Need to Use a Dragon? on Amazon Kindle.