So you filled your hands

Earlier this week, in a daily entertainment post she runs, neenie asked people to define the difference between fantasy and science fiction.

I have this idea nagging at me, and I want it to clarify, just a little, so I can grasp it and write it up. My first instinct was to answer with the standard "fantasy creates the impossible through magic, sci-fi creates the impossible with science and technology." But I began thinking more about what the moving parts are in my favorite fantasy stories, and I realized that most of them share the element of a story itself, or the act of storytelling, somehow being vital to the plot as its own thing. That the act of storytelling becomes a device that determines how a character will act or define him or herself. It's not allegory; it's something else. I just can't put my finger on it yet.

But I'm chasing.