If you were to look up fantasy in the American Heritgage Dictionary, you would find nine definitions of the word fantasy. Definition number 4 reads, “Fantasy – n- Fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements,” which doesn’t really do much to capture the genre.

Looking up fantasy as a genre, you can find that fantasy is separated into high fantasy and low fantasy. High fantasy contains the elements one “normally” associates with fantasy novels – heroes and villains, quests, action, magical beings (ogres, fairies, witches, dragons), and magic. Low fantasy deals with things that can’t really happen in the world as we know it but leaves out the dragons and such of high fantasy (think Freaky Friday or Tuck Everlasting).