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75 questions for fantasy writers
- Thread starter beer good
- Start date
If BAR had a Post of the Week, this would get my nomination. Thanks for posting this.
saliotthomas
New Member
Very good,
Terribly true,but can't think of a single fantasy book thatwould survive the test.
I could be easely done with thrillers and mystery.
Does One of you charactere has a probleme with drink?
Does one of your characteres a retired cop turned private investigator because of shoot someone by accident?
Did he loose his wife?
Does women go 'in fire' at first site of him,but he does not give a shite?
Ect...
Terribly true,but can't think of a single fantasy book thatwould survive the test.
I could be easely done with thrillers and mystery.
Does One of you charactere has a probleme with drink?
Does one of your characteres a retired cop turned private investigator because of shoot someone by accident?
Did he loose his wife?
Does women go 'in fire' at first site of him,but he does not give a shite?
Ect...
Question #33 was my favorite
I don't understand the "lied like a dog" reference.
That list is pretty unreasonable. I was ok for the first 20 or so, but after they started complaining about the length of the book, or whether or not it was meant to be in series, I lost interest.
Mathius
Heteronym
New Member
No, that makes a lot of sense. Fantasy novels have become pathetic excuses for long, rambling novels in long, rambling, never-ending series. Robert Jordan died of old age before he could complete his saga! No book, no series should be so long that a writer dies of old age before completion. One of his novels was longer than The Lord of the Rings combined. That's worrying. That's pathethic. That's worthy of contempt, spite, and mockery. Most modern fantasy is, in fact.
Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind are the exception, not the rule.
There are a lot of authors such as Weis and Hickman or Raymond E. Feist that will use the same characters over 10-20 books, but the books themselves don't continue the same story. IMHO, that is not the same as a series.
I see nothing wrong with a long novel, or a trilogy. There is often no time in a short novel to really expand your characters and make them real. People don't fall in love with characters from 200 page books, they fall in love with characters that they have been reading about over time.
When I think about Terry Brooks, I don't think about Shea Ohmsford, or Morgan Leah, each of whom pretty much only showed up in one book. I think of Allanon and Walker Boh, who spanned several books and really built up a character.
13 books is definitely excessive, but how many authors can you name besides those two that have actually run a SERIES that long?
Mathius
LinRobinson
New Member
Writers take the liberties that readers permit. If there is a market for long rambling books about medieval shires and rustic drag people will publish them.
Taidaishar
New Member
Not to be a stickler, but this comment bugs me. Robert Jordan did not die of old age. He died of Amyloidosis. It's probably not appropriate to use his death as the punchline for a joke either.
Fantasy novels ARE usually long, but rightly so. The whole point of a fantasy novel is to take you INTO a fantasy world. I've read fantasy novels that were only one book long and thought "What the crap?!" I'm not necessarily advocating that a 13 book series should be the standard, but you need multiple books to get a full picture of what the world is like. There were things you didn't learn about the world of The Wheel of Time until 6 or 7 books down the road.
Writing a fantasy novel is not like writing a novel based on real events and based in our world. Based in our world, I can talk about "The UN" and you'd know what I meant. I could talk about police brutality and you'd know what I meant. I could talk about the gunk you find under a table at a fast food restaurant and you'd know what I'm talking about. For someone who knew NOTHING about our culture/world, it would probably take them a good long time to understand it all... and all the intricacies. It's the same concept when being introduced to a fantasy novel/series. It's all with the purpose of immersing you in the story.
Okay, okay... I'm a Robert Jordan Fanboi.
brookiedawn
Member
I second that notion. ^^^ I'd read a ten book long series if it was worth it, and I completely got lost in the story. I mean, hello, I've read Harry Potter (and I do know that some people do not consider that to be a great work of fantasy literature, but I love it) at least four times from Book 1 to Book 7. I'd read more if it were available. I think that the author should take as long as they need to finish a story of fantasy.
Funny. The only things about the list I didn't like were a) the Robert Jordan bashing (there was no need for this) and b) the two items about the length of the book and c) if it were part of a series or not. The Robert Jordan thing can be cut but the other two, after reading the reactions (perhaps overreactions?) here I think I understand the point the list maker was trying to make. You shouldn't write a long book just to write a long book, which is how a lot of fantasy feels. And you shouldn't write a series unless your story requires multiple volumes.
But I think all three of these points are pretty small considering how the rest of the list is pretty dead on. If you are writing fantasy, it would definitely behoove you to follow everything on this list.
A few other things that I'd add:
1) Is there a mystical/unexplained pregnancy in your novel?
2) Do any of your characters come back from the dead?
3) Do you conveniently imply that someone has died without showing it so you can surprise your reader with their return later?
4) Do your character names have anything to do with their chosen profession? Like someone who owns and operates a book shop and is called Herman Bookfellow?
But I think all three of these points are pretty small considering how the rest of the list is pretty dead on. If you are writing fantasy, it would definitely behoove you to follow everything on this list.
A few other things that I'd add:
1) Is there a mystical/unexplained pregnancy in your novel?
2) Do any of your characters come back from the dead?
3) Do you conveniently imply that someone has died without showing it so you can surprise your reader with their return later?
4) Do your character names have anything to do with their chosen profession? Like someone who owns and operates a book shop and is called Herman Bookfellow?
It seems that at times the person who made that list was making it to be snide rather than helpful. The following 60 items are (what I think to be) the parts of the list that you should focus on as a writer. Meaning, if your story has any of these things, I'd seriously consider reworking it to... NOT include them.
1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme bad guy?
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
6. How about one that will destroy it?
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
10. Is the evil supreme bad guy secretly the father of your main character?
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
25. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
26. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
27. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
28. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
29. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
30. Do your character names work or are there dashes and apostrophes and misspellings just to be different?
31. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
32. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
33. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
34. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
35. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
36. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
37. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
38. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
39. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
40. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
41. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
42. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
43. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
44. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
45. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
46. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
47. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
48. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
49. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
50. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
51. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
52. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
53. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
54. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
55. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
56. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
57. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
58. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
59. Is "common" the official language of your world?
60. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
Number 40 will literally make or break a book for me. If it happens more than once I usually stop reading the book.
A few other things that I'd add:
1) Is there a mystical/unexplained pregnancy in your novel?
2) Do any of your characters come back from the dead?
3) Do you conveniently imply that someone has died without showing it so you can surprise your reader with their return later?
4) Do your character names have anything to do with their chosen profession? Like someone who owns and operates a book shop and is called Herman Bookfellow?
5) Do your characters ever do something illogical just to move the plot line along?
6) Could the conflict of the story be easily resolved if the characters weren't acting rashly?
1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme bad guy?
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
6. How about one that will destroy it?
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
10. Is the evil supreme bad guy secretly the father of your main character?
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
25. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
26. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
27. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
28. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
29. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
30. Do your character names work or are there dashes and apostrophes and misspellings just to be different?
31. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
32. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
33. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
34. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
35. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
36. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
37. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
38. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
39. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
40. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
41. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
42. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
43. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
44. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
45. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
46. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
47. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
48. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
49. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
50. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
51. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
52. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
53. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
54. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
55. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
56. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
57. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
58. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
59. Is "common" the official language of your world?
60. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
Number 40 will literally make or break a book for me. If it happens more than once I usually stop reading the book.
A few other things that I'd add:
1) Is there a mystical/unexplained pregnancy in your novel?
2) Do any of your characters come back from the dead?
3) Do you conveniently imply that someone has died without showing it so you can surprise your reader with their return later?
4) Do your character names have anything to do with their chosen profession? Like someone who owns and operates a book shop and is called Herman Bookfellow?
5) Do your characters ever do something illogical just to move the plot line along?
6) Could the conflict of the story be easily resolved if the characters weren't acting rashly?
Again, I'm going to completely disagree. The perception I have from this list(the original) is it's coming from a guy who has an agenda, and clearly has issues with the fantasy genre.
If we look at the list you provided (this thread is very old and I have not refreshed my memory of the original list):
It's called establishing characters and setting. It's a basis for all good novels, fantasy or otherwise. Not every book begins this way, but the alternative is usually some kind of shocking opening that is followed by a section just like this.
The idea of the underdog. A classic position for a literary character. Eddings, Brooks, Tolkien, Jordan, Goodkind, etc. have all used this because it works. Because its what people want to relate to. The idea that the common man can make a difference.
Again, the idea that a common individual can overcome their lineage and rise above. This completely ties in with the same point of #2.
See #2 and #3. These are all part of the same basic concept. Quit beating it to death.
If we assume that people WANT to read about the underdog, then we have to provide a way for the underdog to prevail. The underdog is already lacking whether it is physically, mentally, experience-based, or otherwise. The idea is that his great obstacle is supposed to be beyond someone of his stature to be able to surpass. Therefore, we have to create a means beyond the normal which will allow the underdog to prevail.
I could go on and on and address each of these points individually, but I don't see the point. The main theme of the list seems to be to criticize ideas and themes that are continually used in fantasy novels. These are continually used for good reasons. Some of them are specific parts of a fantasy world, some of them are general ideas, but the major point is: THEY WORK. They have continued to work over and over again, because they are habits and themes of GOOD fantasy novels.
There is nothing wrong with trying to create something unique, but there's also something to be said for the phrase, "Give the people what they want."
Mathius
If we look at the list you provided (this thread is very old and I have not refreshed my memory of the original list):
It's called establishing characters and setting. It's a basis for all good novels, fantasy or otherwise. Not every book begins this way, but the alternative is usually some kind of shocking opening that is followed by a section just like this.
The idea of the underdog. A classic position for a literary character. Eddings, Brooks, Tolkien, Jordan, Goodkind, etc. have all used this because it works. Because its what people want to relate to. The idea that the common man can make a difference.
Again, the idea that a common individual can overcome their lineage and rise above. This completely ties in with the same point of #2.
See #2 and #3. These are all part of the same basic concept. Quit beating it to death.
If we assume that people WANT to read about the underdog, then we have to provide a way for the underdog to prevail. The underdog is already lacking whether it is physically, mentally, experience-based, or otherwise. The idea is that his great obstacle is supposed to be beyond someone of his stature to be able to surpass. Therefore, we have to create a means beyond the normal which will allow the underdog to prevail.
I could go on and on and address each of these points individually, but I don't see the point. The main theme of the list seems to be to criticize ideas and themes that are continually used in fantasy novels. These are continually used for good reasons. Some of them are specific parts of a fantasy world, some of them are general ideas, but the major point is: THEY WORK. They have continued to work over and over again, because they are habits and themes of GOOD fantasy novels.
There is nothing wrong with trying to create something unique, but there's also something to be said for the phrase, "Give the people what they want."
Mathius
Taidaishar
New Member
There are a few of these, aside from the couple that I mentioned earlier, that are a little ridiculous. Specifically, these:
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme bad guy?
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
6. How about one that will destroy it?
I would agree with these if there was a qualifier that said something like:
"Does your fantasy novel contain 2 of any of these 5?"
Seriously, 99% of the time there is a supreme bad guy and 99% of the time there is a hero that is very powerful who defeats the bad guy, so if you just happen to make your hero a young man, then you've pretty much already violated #4.
And this one:
41. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
So the magic users can't throw fire at any point? Or lightning? If they did, that could be "easily identifiable as a 'fireball' or a 'lightning bolt'...". That's a little ridiculous. How about this, in a detective novel, the characters can't use any kind of gun that could be easily identifiable as a pistol. That would be equally ridiculous.
This list does a lot of things like this that I've mentioned. It takes random ideas that aren't necessarily even prevalent in most fantasy literature and decides that they're bad ideas.... why? I don't know. It also seems like it just picks different ideas from different series' and forbids them (e.g. Wheel of time & farmboy with mysterious parentage, Wheel of time & young hero coming of age, Lord of the Rings & "elf" "dwarf" "orc", Sword of Truth & bad guy=hero's father, Lord of the Rings & shortcut through dwarven mines).
I mean, some of the things on the list are fantasy staples and the creator just decides that they're no longer acceptable. Does J.R.R Tolkien have exclusive rights to use the words "dwarf", "elf" or "orc"? Why isn't "goblin" on that list? Nobody can include a magical powerful object that could mean the salvation or destruction of the world?
This one just explains it all:
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
He already said that using "elves" or "dwarves" was forbidden, but he just wanted to go further. By saying this one, it seems like he's just LOOKING for reasons for novels to suck.... "Oh, let me guess, you used elves and dwarves and they're feuding, that's a terrible idea... oh... oh, they're not feuding... well..... uhhhh..... hmmmmm.... what I meant was.... uhhh, that's stupid too."
Look, the only thing this list is actually good for is to tell someone who CAN'T write well, what not to do. If you CAN write well, you can take any of these ideas and implement them well to create a great story.
Taidaishar
New Member
Ummm, if you don't really get what I was saying, just reread Mathius' post again. He said it way better than I did and I completely agree with him.
Basically this is a list of fantasy clichés and clichés should not be used in writing. You both have legitimate points, but the point of this thread, it seems to me, is to expand a writer’s creative horizons. Having much experience with fantasy writers, I know that a vast majority of them are not good enough to write a decent book if they don’t follow this list (or one like it). Basically, the items on this list are enablers for bad writing habits and should be avoided.
I don't perceive the authors intentions to be as pure as yours as to be wanting to help someone write a better fantasy novel.
If you look at his opening statement:
It is both degrading and derisive of the current fantasy authors who have published stories. The whole tone of the paragraph is insulting.
There's nothing wrong with trying to be unique, and were I to write a fantasy novel, I would try to do so, but I find it absurd to think that a fantasy novel is automatically bad if it includes any of the elements from this list. Particularly since this list carries as many as 75 points.
Certainly the more unique the story, the more interesting, but once the characters are established and I become drawn to them or find them appealing, I'm more interested in what's happening to them than to try and draw comparison to a previous story.
Every story has been told before. It's up to the author to tell it in a way that still captures the reader's imagination.
Mathius
beer good
Well-Known Member
I think you're taking it much too seriously, to be honest. I'm tempted to quote Ambrose Bierce's definition of satire, but that's a bit too harsh. Google it if you want. Suffice to say I think hawkedup is spot on: the purpose isn't to advocate the jailing of anyone who writes a story that uses a certain writing trope, but to point out in a pithy way that these particular plot devices are overused and used much too often as a lazy way to develop the plot.
I agree with you that the person who wrote that list originally was not out to be helpful. But a list LIKE this could be very helpful to new and experienced writers alike. And you are right in that sometimes (very rarely, though) the story just calls for a genre cliche. They should still be avoided if at all possible, though. Especially since there were things on my quickly revised 60 item list that imply, simply, poor writing (such as having a character whose purpose is to explain the plot or having conflict that could easily be resolved by the characters sharing information). Perhaps we should make a new list altogether?
