> I get what you're saying. But I guess my point is that I disagree that setting a story in a familiar place makes it more accessible or easier to relate to.

Maybe this isn't the case for you, Sam, but for me when I see "fantasy setting" I am quite a bit turned off.

> What we identify with in stories are characters, not places. All I need to do to write a story you can relate to is create a character with feelings you also have. Even if my character is named Zonkadonk and lives in Port Hydrio in the land of Magicia and makes a living wargifying magic hootagumpers, all I have to do is say how [snip!]

Actually no. When I look at the back of the book and see that it's about a guy named Zonkadonk, I'm going to drop the book and back away slowly. (This is doubly true if your character name has a ton of apostrophes in it, e.g. Z'onk'a'do'nk)

For me, having to plow through a bunch of nonsense fantasy words and unpronounceable character names is a huge barrier. Even more so: having to deal with a bunch of stilted, pseudo-Elizabethean-lite fantasy speak.

> The same story easily could be transposed to New York City, but I wouldn't say this would make it easier to relate to, because it's not the city we're relating to in the first place. Besides, for me (and billions of others worldwide), NYC is as alien as Mythologiconia.

Setting aside the obvious point that I've been to NYC and it's not that alien, this isn't true for me either. If you set a story in Beijing, I at least have some historical and cultural context to relate to. I don't have to refer to the map at the start of the book or get through a lot of boring exposition about the world (and the ancient evil that must be slain or else the ancient prophecy will-- oh jeez, I'm boring myself now). I can just mostly enjoy the story, and if I am going to learn something about the setting, I hope it's time well spent because if it's a good book, I'm actually learning facts about reality.

I'm not trying to slam fantasy (well maybe a little), and if you dig reading about Z'ado'nk'a'donk's adventure to reclaim the ancient artifact of his forefathers, that's cool. I just want to point out that there are people such as myself who see a fantasy setting and will indeed hold it against the story. I'm much more likely to read a story set in the real world than I am one in a fantasy world.

Of course if there's magic and stuff then I'm less inclined to read than a story about the real world that doesn't have magic, but still. (Though if you happen to be writing a massive historical epic about how the Napoleonic era would have played out were England aided by magicians, then I'm in.)