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[Cotes]

Ugh... Eragon. There was absolutely nothing original in that book. You'll have much more luck trying to find things that aren't noticeable clichés, though you still have to look.
It does not help that the characters are slightly above eels in levels of personality - in fact the only character I found to have any real personality at all was Saphira. Not that it is a praise, since it seems Paolin didn't really know what kind of personality she should have, so it jumps between multiple incompatible ones.

It's Wheel of Time without any of the redeeming parts and shitload more clichés.

[Lord Dakoth]

It's Wheel of Time Star Wars without any of the redeeming parts and shitload more clichés, and in a fantasy setting.

Fixed.

[Cotes]

It's Wheel of Time Star Wars without any of the redeeming parts and shitload more clichés, and in a fantasy setting.

Fixed.

Star Wars is fantasy. Not high fantasy (or as I like to call it, "Another-Goddamn-LoTR-Rip-Off Fantasy"), but definitely more fantasy than sci-fi. Or maybe rather fantasy in sci-fi setting.

But anyway, a lot of fantasy (especially high fantasy) is pretty darn susceptible to being a big formulaic ball of nothing original. You can can draw direct comparisons with a bunch of works.

[Acanthus117]

I want to become a writer, and I want to write fantasy, so the above post made me a bit scared...

Is writing fantasy that hard nowadays?

[Jackrabbit]

I want to become a writer, and I want to write fantasy, so the above post made me a bit scared...

Is writing fantasy that hard nowadays?

No. I think that's the problem he was implying.

[Acanthus117]

I meant to say is writing original fantasy hard these days.

Back on topic...

I have to admit, anything with a hint of prophecy makes me want to hurl. IMHO, it's too easy to shoehorn your hero into doing shit just by having an old dude wiggle his fingers and mumble "prooopheccyyyyy" in a spooky voice.

[Josephus]

Bro, prophecy is the whole point. Merlin in particular was hilarious.

"Aright, so I'mma advise you until you become king."

"Okay."

"And thanks to my sage wisdom an shit, your kingdom will be the best ever."

"Okay."

"And then I'm gonna be imprisoned in a cave by some chick."

"Oka- WHAT."

[RedKing]

I want to become a writer, and I want to write fantasy, so the above post made me a bit scared...

Is writing fantasy that hard nowadays?

I think the problem is that fantasy has gotten synonymous with "elves and magic and shit" in the popular mind. When at its core, fantasy is just taking the normal and tweaking it. I took a course years ago on "genre fiction" (read: fantasy/horror/sci-fi) with a fantastic prof who's a prolific author, including some stuff in the Lovecraft mythos.

As he put it (paraphrasing here): Fantasy is simply an irruption of the abnormal into the normal. If that change is wondrous, it's fantasy. If it's negative, it's horror. So fantasy doesn't have to be set in these complex, imaginary worlds. In fact it's often more effective if it has a connection to Earth somehow, because it's more relateable. Couple of decades ago, the trend was to write fantasy which drew heavily from a particular cultural mythology: Celtic fantasy, Germanic fantasy, Slavic fantasy, etc. Some good examples are C.J. Cherryh's Rusalka trilogy, Lloyd Alexander's Black Cauldron series, and Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising (which incidentally, is an example of fiction aimed at a young audience that kicks ass nonetheless).

Even Tolkien's work wasn't totally divorced from the real world: Middle-Earth was supposed to be a sort of prehistory of *our* world. We live in the Fourth Age.


The problem is that Tolkien really should be the exception rather than the rule. Dude put in *decades* of work building up Middle Earth before those books ever came out. And he still didn't flesh in most of the world, just the northwestern portion of it. But you have a lot of authors who want to create a splash and build their own worlds with a Big Foozle and a plucky young hero who rises from humble origins to defeat it, with the help of his motley crew of companions from all over said world. And do so on a timeline dictated by the publisher. It's like trying to recreate the Sistine Chapel with a paint-by-number set, in one day.


My advice? Find a mythological tale that fascinates you and retell it in an original way. Originality doesn't have to be in the subject matter, but rather in how you tell it and what aspects you focus on. Good example is Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon, which does the whole Arthurian legend thing, but from the POV of the female characters, particularly Morgan Le Fay and Guinevere, and looks at the conflict between paganism and Christianity. Stephen Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle dealt with the exact same subject matter--the Arthurian legend--but looked more at the various cultures (Roman, Pictish, Celtic, and Saxon) that were intertwined in Britain during the period.

[scriver]

If anyone want an example or fantasy done right, go read Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel (I had to mention it now that Neil Gaiman has been brought up, as the author is heavily inspired by him) by Susanna Clark. The best read I ever had. The end was completely orgasmic. This is even despite the premise of the story being fairly.. recognisable, I believe I should call it, as the book is about the two last magicians trying to bring magic back to England during the early 19th century.
And yes, there is a prophecy. But hey, tropes are not necessarily bad, are they?

[Armok]

By redkings criteria, Homestuck is the best example of fantasy since LotR.

[Cotes]

I meant to say is writing original fantasy hard these days.

Back on topic...

I have to admit, anything with a hint of prophecy makes me want to hurl. IMHO, it's too easy to shoehorn your hero into doing shit just by having an old dude wiggle his fingers and mumble "prooopheccyyyyy" in a spooky voice.

Depends on how you understand "fantasy". If your story already involves dwarves, elves and wizards (and orcs that are not called orcs, because you don't want to be unoriginal), then I would tell you to start over.

The next question would be whether the story takes place in some version of Middle Ages. Not that you can't choose that timeline for inspiration and write a good book (The Song Of Ice and Fire for one is pretty darn awesome) nor expect that choosing a different setting makes you original, but immediately going for Middle Ages without even weighting other options would be a pretty good sign you are drawing too much from generic high fantasy...

Also, what really irritates me, and this is something even the most popular and recognized authors do, is using fantasy as crutch. Just because you can make the rules doesn't mean you should use the genre as your instant-plot-device machine. I mean yes, of course your plot devices are extraordinary when you write fantasy, that's the whole point, but it should be more about establishing new rules (at least to yourself, if you want to keep the reader wondering) not churning out deus ex machina every time you write yourself into a corner.

[scriver]

Also, what really irritates me, and this is something even the most popular and recognized authors do, is using fantasy as crutch. Just because you can make the rules doesn't mean you should use the genre as your instant-plot-device machine. I mean yes, of course your plot devices are extraordinary when you write fantasy, that's the whole point, but it should be more about establishing new rules (at least to yourself, if you want to keep the reader wondering) not churning out deus ex machina every time you write yourself into a corner.

This annoys me as well. What's worse though, in my opinion, is when people who don't read fantasy use this as an argument as of why fantasy sucks (or is just plain bad), since this is common among not-so-good authors everywhere on the genre-spectrum.

speed-edit: The use of deus ex machina's (machinae?), that is. Not using the setting as an excuse for it.

[Akura]

Bro, prophecy is the whole point. Merlin in particular was hilarious.

"Aright, so I'mma advise you until you become king."

"Okay."

"And thanks to my sage wisdom an shit, your kingdom will be the best ever."

"Okay."

"And then I'm gonna be imprisoned in a cave by some chick."

"Oka- WHAT."

Did he mention to him the part about getting raped by his sister, and that him and the offspring of that kill each other? Because, that probably would have been an important piece of information to have handy.

[Acanthus117]

I was not planning to put in dwarves/elves/wizards, thank god.

[ECrownofFire]

I was not planning to put in dwarves/elves/wizards, thank god.

Is there magic of some kind though?


I agree elves and dwarves are overused, orcs too.

Not as much as humans though