Writing as Escapism:

“We read to know we’re not alone. We write to create places where we never have to be.”

Let’s be honest: most of us didn’t start writing because we thought we’d get rich or famous (though hey, I’m not saying no to a Netflix deal). We started because the real world was too much — or too little — and we needed somewhere else to go. Somewhere better. Somewhere we could control.

That’s the magic of fantasy writing: it’s escape, but with agency. It’s building the exit and the destination. It’s creating a place where we can make sense of the things that don’t make sense in the real world — grief, injustice, identity, power, love, loss.

✨ The Real World Isn’t Always Enough

Sometimes the real world just… doesn’t cut it. Maybe it’s too grey, too chaotic, too loud. Maybe it hurts. Maybe it doesn’t see you. Maybe it’s just boring.

I know I’ve found myself staring at the news or doomscrolling Twitter (sorry, X) and thinking, Yeah, I’m out. Give me dragons. Or monsters with moral compasses. Or magical forests that speak in riddles but at least listen when you cry.

Fantasy lets us play with extremes. If you’ve ever felt too much for the everyday world, you’ll understand the comfort of creating one where the stakes match the size of your heart.

We don’t escape to run away — we escape to run toward something better. Toward clarity. Toward hope.

🛡️ Control in the Chaos

Let’s talk about control. The real world is unpredictable, and that’s putting it politely. In our stories, we set the rules. We decide who has magic. Who gets justice. Who wins.

That’s powerful.

Writing gives us space to process chaos on our own terms. To create meaning from mess. To rewrite endings that, in real life, left us hollow. To hand the sword to someone who deserves it. To craft revenge arcs and redemptions that heal something raw inside us.

When everything feels out of our hands, writing reminds us we still have something. We have voice. We have vision. We have worlds waiting to be shaped.

And that’s more than enough.

🌍 Fantasy as Safe Space

Fantasy worlds aren’t just distractions. They’re sanctuaries. They’re places where you can be queer, angry, scared, brave, soft, powerful — all at once — and the world bends to fit you, not the other way around.

I know I’ve written whole kingdoms when I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere else. I’ve created goddesses who said the things I couldn’t. I’ve built cities made of grief and starlight just to put names to what I was feeling.

There’s something deeply healing about crafting a world that finally gets you. That validates your existence. That gives your pain a place to live that isn’t just inside your body.

It’s not about hiding from life. It’s about building a life — on the page — that makes sense when nothing else does.

💭 Imagination as Rebellion

Escapism has power. And imagination? That’s resistance.

When you dream up a better world, you’re saying the current one isn’t good enough. When you write a heroine who burns down a broken system, you’re not just playing pretend. You’re daring to hope.

And that hope? That’s subversive.

Every time someone calls fantasy “just escapism,” I want to hand them a stack of books that reshaped my heart. That gave me back my voice. That saved me, a little. Because stories are never just anything. They are futures, tucked between sentences.

Even the wildest, most glitter-drenched romantasy is a declaration: We deserve better.

✍️ My Take (a Writer Who’s Absolutely Escaping and Proud of It)

I’ve always been the kind of person who feels too much. The world hits hard, and I never learned how to shrug it off. So I write.

I write to grieve. To love. To process. To scream in beautiful metaphors. To imagine better endings for myself — and for people like me.

I write when I’m lost. I write when I’m overwhelmed. I write when the only way to breathe is through building someone else’s lungs.

Escapism isn’t weakness. It’s breath. It’s vision. It’s the soft, defiant act of saying: I get to choose where I go when everything else falls apart.

And if that place has glittering magic, found families, morally grey men with winged eyeliner, and a map made of memories? Even better.