Typical conversation a a homeschool convention while meeting a young writer:

Young Writer: Are you a writer? (After noticing that my booth has something to do with writing.)

ME: Yes, I am.

YM: What do you write?

ME: Well, primarily a regular column for a well-known Christian news magazine [which they may actually have heard of].* But I do a lot of writing on the web, and I’ve also published a few novels.

YM: I’m writing a novel right now.

ME: Really? Good for you. What’s it about?

YM: [Long answer 1] It’s about a colony of dragons who . . .  [Long answer 2] It’s about a Sorcerer’s apprentice who . . . [Long answer 3] It’s about a secret society of magical knights who . . .

            [Short answer] It’s a fantasy.

Okay, there are a few exceptions: mystery, sci-fi, even the occasional western. But almost every time I ask this question, “fantasy” is the answer I get. As an exercise in constructing scenes, building an imaginary world, and pulling together a plot, there’s nothing wrong with banging out a fantasy novel on your laptop. But you might want to consider these reasons to reconsider.

1. It’s harder than you think. My first novel took about eight years to write and still turned out crummy. It’s true I had other responsibilities then, like motherhood, so I had to work in the writing time between naps and diapers. Nor was it a waste of time, because I learned a lot in the process of writing a crummy novel. But I could have learned it all a lot faster if I hadn’t put the cart before the horse.
2. The best writing comes from close observation and personal experience. Even the most far-out fantasy is grounded in the real world: its people, its personalities, its sights and smells and sounds. It takes time to train yourself to observe and experience, because that means looking outside yourself to take in the world around you (not something that comes naturally to most of us!). 
3. So, give yourself time. Instead of plowing right into a multi-chapter novel, start like a painter does, with sketches and studies. Take your notebook to a public place, like the playground on a warm, sunny day or the food court at the local mall. (Do local malls still have food courts? And do locals still have malls?) Notice the people around you and the conversations you hear. Jot down your impressions and construct imaginary scenarios. Some of those people might end up in a novel someday.
4. Fantasy that’s not based on real life is likely to be derivative. That is, instead of telling an imaginative, original and magical story for your first-time fiction attempt, you’ll probably end up re-telling a paste-up of all the other fantasies you’ve read or seen. Real originality stems from real life.
5. Everybody else is doing fantasy. Don’t you want to be different?

Of course, if you’re dead-set on writing fantasy you likely won’t be unpersuaded. And that’s okay—it’s a legitimate genre with a proud ancestry that goes back to Homer. So go for it! But if you get stuck on a plot point or bamboozled by a block, you might want to back up a bit, grab your notebook and head for the mall. At least you can get Chinese there.

* WORLD Magazine, since 1991.