In achieving sensual truth, the most essential ingredients often come in the form of details. I am grateful for the fact that, long before I ever tried my hand at fantasy, I was a nature writer. This background makes me acutely aware of the power of a single, well-chosen detail. For example, Tolkien introduces us to hobbits by showing us where they live, how they speak, what they celebrate and fear, how and when they eat-and even the fact that they have hairy toes. We know them-right down to their toes.
Emotional truth goes beyond the senses, engaging our hearts.
In compelling tales of fantasy, we believe the emotional elements as fully as if they had happened during our own lives. It doesn't matter at all that the terrain, and the characters themselves, are wholly imaginary. In Time, Meg's love for her younger brother feels completely genuine, even if it finds expression in a highly unusual way on a distant planet. Similarly, while most of us probably have not encountered a magical harp, we feel real sorrow when Fflewddur Fflam, Lloyd Alexander's quirky bard in The Book of Three and other tales, offers to sacrifice his own magical instrument to help his friends. Often in fantasy, humor opens the door to emotional truth-since humor nudges us to see things from a different angle, or to acknowledge the intermingling of joy and grief, pride and shame, or hope and despair.