That much said, I have discovered that my definition of what classifies as "good" fantasy or "good" sci-fi has changed over the years, and the list of things that I consider "good" has rapidly shortened. Even some works that I used to consider good have been stricken from the list. As I have been researching and preparing to embark on my newest text, I have been taking stock of that which I dislike and have compiled a list of rules for fantasy stories. This is, of course, my own personal list of rules, based on cliches and stereotypes I've been seeing everywhere. No one is required to follow the entire list, or even any of it. It is simply based on my personal preferences and opinions. It is a list of notes that I gave myself, and I thought it might help others who feel as I do about fantasy.
I have gotten to a point where, when I am perusing my local book shop for something fantasmagorical in nature, I get very picky when I'm reading blurbs. The words "Dark Lord," "prophecy," "Chosen One," "elves," and "dwarves," stick out like sore thumbs, and have skyrocketed to the top of my list of words that make me immediately return a novel to the shelf. Perhaps it is because they've been popping up everywhere, but I have grown weary of them. It was the sight of these words that actually triggered my "list of no-nos" to begin with. And so, without further ado, here I go:
1. Never have prophecy!! It's like giving away spoilers. When I read a prophecy in a book, I think I might as well shut that book right now because I know how it ends. It's one thing to have little glimpses of a possible future (like a sketchbook where someone used to draw images he/she saw). But to just... give it all away... no no.
2. No Chosen One. It sets it up so that our hero/ine is the hero/ine not because he/she chooses but because he/she has a chore to do. It also makes it so the world revolves around the main character which can get pretty ugly.
3. No magical artifacts that do all the work for the heroes. Swords that shoot beams are not only kind of cheap, but also more than a little ridiculous.
4. Avoid cliche and tropes like the plague! That said, sometimes a cliche is necessary in order to make a story work. Sometimes the use of a cliche here and there can actually help your book to be amazing. However, it's when there are so many cliches that the work sounds like each word has been taken from some other text that it's a problem. So, really, avoid cliches wherever you can.
5. Avoid dialogue tags where possible (he said/she said, exclaimed, stammered, etc). Too often I see pages that are peppered with useless tags that can either bog down the reading, or make it seem like the writer is trying to make me feel a certain way. Over-the-top tags like "shouted" and "cried" should be limited as much as possible. It gives me an extra challenge to try and make it clear through the actual dialogue who is saying what; doing that also allows my characters to have personality of their own and take on more of a life of their own. Actions and dialogue should be the stuff that evinces emotion/personality, not tags.
6. Don't waste time on useless, flowery description of the next door neighbor's car. It bloats the text, tires the reader, stops the flow of action, and interrupts your story. The important information will come out through how things are done. Show, don't tell.
7. On that note, trust your readers! The reason that some writers (myself included) get so caught up in having the precise, five page long description of the rain storm that came down on June 5th of 1985 is because we want our readers to see exactly what we see! We want to guide their image, instead of letting them imagine for themselves what we're talking about. We can't control them, but we can tighten up descriptions so that we're not boring them to death and we can show that we trust they'll get what we're talking about.
8. Get to the action, and now! Once more, this has to do with description. Sometimes we want to set the scene so vividly and so well that we forget that the plot has to move. Talk about the coffee shop where it all begins, fine. But then move on.
9. Reiteration: SHOW PERSONALITY THROUGH DIALOGUE AND ACTIONS! Don't tell!
(Hehe, welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department)
10. If you must have a villain who is a "Dark Lord/Lady," make darn sure he has a realistic motive; something to let us know that he/she isn't doing this just for the sake of being evil. More often than not our real world villains don't believe that they are villainous at all - they think they are doing the right thing, or at the very least they don't think they're evil. Is someone is out for himself or herself, then fine. If someone is out for revenge, in search of justice, then fine. But if someone is just out to do something evil, that is weak. Give the Dark Lord a real motive - and perhaps he oughtn't like the term "Dark Lord," let alone use it for himself.
11. Again, ABOLISH THE CHOSEN ONE.
12. If your story has magic, establish a magic system with a concrete set of rules and limitations. For example, I have an entire notebook devoted to outlining and organizing the magic system of my series, as well as setting limitations.
13. If you can tell a story without using magic, then don't use magic at all. Plenty of good fantasies have nothing to do with magic. If you use magic, see if you can't find a way to make it unique and different, or even understated.
14. Deny archetypal characters entry into your world! They are evil! Eeeviiiiillll! Seriously, if I see another "complicated thief" type of character, I might throw the book across the room, and I say that having at one point written a book that involved a complicated thief.
15. (This is the tone of the note to myself that I wrote when I made this rule) "I swear to God, if you make the stereotypical girl next door/unattainable/token-love-interest-who-has-no-personality, I WILL CUT YOU!!"
16. No exotic, crazy names that are impossible to pronounce (D'kanigzyxstik, Kfnnnpah, Blaghahhhh, etc).
17. If what you're writing feels overdone, forced or clunky to you, it probably will to your readers.
18. Ditto for something that feels melodramatic.
19. Your main character(s) need(s) not to be Mary/Gary-Sues. Make them human and easy to relate to. if they are perfect, they will become pretty tough to like.
20. NO DAMSELS IN DISTRESS!
21. Avoid giving into your desire to be dramatic, exciting or thrilling - that will actually diminish the drama and will rush you into a potential plot hole situation. I have encountered stories where battle scenes where horribly boring while the scenes where characters sat around doing nothing were riveting. The reason? Trying too hard to be exciting and showing every blow of the battle scene, while not being interested in being dramatic or exciting in the sitting around scene.
22. Run all your new ideas by an honest friend or loved one before deciding to ink it into your plot.
23. Have an honest friend or loved one read your work.
In both cases 22 and 23, the friend/loved one
will ask you the hard questions and challenge
you. They may show you plot holes and other
such issues you may have missed.
24. If your main character starts as an orphan/farmer/impoverished/down-on-his-luck-nobody-who-then-finds-out-he's-royalty-or-special-or-a-chosen-one/ etc, then give up on writing. Period. Like, ever.
25. If your story is in a medieval setting, do some serious research on medieval times so you get a sense of how truly horrible and difficult they were. Poor villages were not the happy bustling lands they are portrayed as in too many fantasies. Also castles? They were pretty small. Definitely not the size of cities.
26. Horses are not inexhaustible cars. Don't portray them as such.
27. Your jerk characters (bullies, mini-villains, etc) need better explanations as to why they are the way they are than just "bad parenting." That's an easy way out that too many authors use, and it hold parents accountable rather than the bully. I was bullied in middle school, and my bully happened to just be a bad person. Some people have great parents and simply turn out to be self-involved, vain, users who take advantage of anyone they see as an easy target. It would be a better, more realistic, and less cliche character arc if the bully's parents turned out to be decent people and attentive, caring parents. No abuse.
28. Redemption arcs are good (rise to grace). But so are damnation arcs (fall from grace). Even more interesting would be an arc where the character falls from grace, and then rises back to it, or vice versa.
29. Just as is the case with Mary-Sues, it works that way with villains. The all-evil bastards who have no redeeming traits at all are fricken' boring. Even Hitler, for all of his heinous evilness, loved and cared for his dog.
30. Don't give the main characters an unhappy family life. It's done to death. There can be a character who has a bad family life, I'll grant that. The fact is there is a lot of that in this world and it deserves to be portrayed. But when every single main character and every single bully has mean parents or guardians, it gets to be too much.
31. No. Evil. Stepparent. Stepmothers and fathers are perfectly capable of being (and most of them are) loving, kind and deeply caring to their stepchildren. Not only does the stepparent get a bum rap from the way it is consistently portrayed in media, but the evil stepparent trope is annoying. It is my least favorite thing out there; it is archetypal, mean, and simply wrong.
32. No puns. Don't rely on weak puns for humor - it won't be funny. A character who likes to PUNtificate (hee hee) is one thing, but a narrative that is littered with it is not amusing. Find other sources of humor. It is also okay to just not have humor. Some people are not funny writers, me among them. I love puns, but I've been forced to acknowledge my weakness for humor in my writing.
33. Spotting a cliche and then intentionally reversing is not the opposite of a cliche. It is just another cliche. Don't try to invert, avert, revert or subvert existing cliches just to try and "keep things fresh." People will see what you're doing, and will not be impressed.
34. No obligatory "killing off of the master so the next generation can take over." Omg.
35. Just a reminder of something I said before: Some cliches may have to stick around in order to keep your work viable. It's okay to have some here and there - problems arise when your work becomes a cliche storm.
36. Reiteration on physical description: Don't waste time, pages or words getting overly descriptive of a person or place. Let dialogue (such as teasing someone for their big nose or frizzy hair) or actions aid in showing us what we're looking at. I hate reading paragraphs about the token love interest's honey colored hair.
37. On that note - no staring in the mirror just to describe onesself. Do we do that in real life? No. So don't in the book.
38. Token love interests should not exist. Love interests need to have their own lives, personalities, friends and events of their own. Otherwise they are boring, stale and useless. When a love interest is nothing more than a token female, we tend not to be sad or even realize when they are gone.
39. The world doesn't revolve around us. So, it shouldn't revolve around the main characters. It sends a message to readers that the writer is totally self-important. Now, a flaw where the main character believes that the world revolves around him or herself might be fascinating.
40. Not every female character ought to be falling in love with the hero. Same goes with male characters and heroines. Seriously. Come on. Does every single member of the opposite sex fall head over heels with you? Most likely not.
41. Know your monsters and demons. Know your magic, your history and your world. As I said, I have a notebook devoted to magic alone. My series will be developed in numerous notebooks.
42. Organize all your thoughts and ideas before you start writing. I understand the temptation to just dive in, but trust me when I say that planning ahead helps you avoid jumbled, plot-holey messes/
43. No. Elves. Dwarves. Avians. Leonids. Merfolk. Etc. No no no no no.
44. Avoid using existing mythical creatures if you can. Except Titans. Titans are cool.
45. If you must use existing creatures, see if there isn't some way to make them original - why not change them and make them your own?!
46. Dragons NO! Possible remnants of a time when dragons existed, cool. But no more dragons. So tired of dragons.
So that's all I have to say for now. As I have said, it is not necessary to follow every one of these rules to the letter to write a good fantasy. Not even for me. These rules are simply fuel for thought that I have as I go into my future projects. In the days to come, I am sure to have more thoughts on these matters.
I love all of these, but especially #16 and #26. Especially #16. :-D I'm just silly I guess. Love you bro, you are the Chosen One "destined" for success. ;-)
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