Hodge

Don't be absurd. Women in middle age settings did not have the benefit of bathtubs, doctors, hairdressers, or nice clothes. They did not have shit to clean out their pores and keep them from getting pimples, they did not smell nice, they did not brush and pamper their hair every day, and they most certainly didn't have soft skin (try calloused, hardened skin).

When it's clean. Get some sap, food, grease, oil, and other nasties stuck in the hair and see how long she keeps it. Long hair is impractical—especially for fighter babes.

Which would take surface shit off of you. It certainly wouldn't make you smell nice—and soap was a very rare commodity back then. I'm not even sure Europeans had it.

Most people did not bathe at all back then. Period. No ducking into a stream and having a sexy wash.


Sex goddesses are detrimental to a work of fantasy and do not fit in any way (unless she's a princess, queen, or otherwise wealthy person).

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Science

Gozer

There's a lot of good advice in this thread. Fantasy is about the fantastical, hence its name. It's about going nuts with your imagination. There's no need for a retread of LOTR. We've had enough of elves and dragons. Try to come up with something different. You can have anything you want in your story, just as long as it's all self-consistant. No matter how bizarre your plot, characters, or setting, it all has to fit together in a smooth manner. Things have to be logical and make sense, given the context.

Before you sit down and write, it might be a good idea to develop the characters and world/setting. With characters, you want to flesh out their traits, flaws, likes, dislikes, fears, goals, hopes etc. With setting, you want to flesh out the laws of your world, such as magic, flora/fauna, geography, history, who's who and what's what. Once you have these written down, the plot pretty much presents itself. The plot is just a series of events that logically follow your premise. If you've got the characters and setting nailed down, you'll automatically see which scenarios and events will play out. This applies for all fiction, not just fantasy.

Apart from avoiding the LOTR stuff, another thing you should avoid is the whole "Fire/Water/Earth/Air" element system for magic. It's played out, and is also a little too "video gamey". That is, of course, if you even have magic. Fantasy doesn't necessarily mean magic, mind you. Again, you can do whatever you want, as long as...well, you know what I mean.

chaos

oh bloody hell, I looked on the grand fantasy cliche list someone suggested, and even in the plotting stage had already commited several unforgivable crimes.


Also, I happen to agree that I'm sick of protagonists always being stunningply beautiful/handsome as well as intelligent and courageous. Especially the girls. For god's sake, would it kill a writer to have a main girl character who wasn't described like she just stepped off a runway somewhere?

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blademasterzzz

Amen to you and Hodge especially in terms of non-breathtaking women. I'm sick of beautiful princesses!

bobothegoat

Avoid monolithic evil. I am tired of people trying to stop the "source of all evil" or the "dark lord."

I also agree that the earth/wind/fire/water (and, if you trust Captian Planet, Heart) is overdone.

I third or fourth (whatever) on Hodge's statement too.

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Bobo the Goat

bobothegoat

I hate to repeat what's been said already, but please stop referring constantly to your work for examples. We know your work fits your preferences in the fantasy genre.

Another thing having to do with female protagonists... Don't have them wear skimpy clothing. This is more of a video-game cliche though, so maybe it doesn't apply to this thread so much.

edit: re edit

*sigh* No, Light/dark and life/death magic is also trite, in my opinion.

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Bobo the Goat

Isis

Maybe something sensible? I don't know about you, but I find it's a lot easier to run in pants than it is in a mini skirt. Try it out sometime if you don't want to take my word for it. Of course, if it's a very floaty mini-skirt and you don't mind people seeing your underwear, it might be reasonably easy to run. But then whilst you're tearing through the forest or the feilds branches will whip at your legs...that leaves a mark, even in jeans, so I'd imagine it would be even less fun bare-legged. And tights/stockings are unrealistic for most fantasy, and even if they weren't, they are even less practical. Tights aren't all that great when you're sitting in an office or walking around school; I would hate to fight in them.

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Montclair: Half a million francs?
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bobothegoat

I'd expect something practical. The only time I'd expect the adventuress to be wearing skimpy clothing is if the men also were wearing "skimpy" clothing due to 95% humidity and 120 degree fahrenheit weather. But generally, especially in the typical Northern Europe influenced fantasy world, it would make more sense to wear a full set of clothing to withstand the elements.

But, if it's a story set in a Siberian-like tundra-- or even in the high mountains-- I'd expect the character to go eskimo-style so they don't freeze to death.

Yeah, I know... "Tehy uze fire Majik 2 keep warm!!!!1eleven"

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Bobo the Goat

Hodge

So sex-goddess = love? No love for the ugly ladies? What a good message to be sending to people! It doesn't fit at all because it's completely unrealistic. Fantasy deals with the fantastic through magic. Beautiful women are not all magic (and it would be lame to make them all so).

Mushy? That's something out of Victoria's Secret... It's not mushy. It's horny.

A waterfall does not substitute for a shower. Again, lack of soap. And no, there is no oil that can substitute for soap unless it's unique to your story.

I don't know if you've ever tried just washing with water, but it does not take the grime or caked on grease off of your body. And your hair gets all tangly if it's long.

Because women are people too? Because women shouldn't be portrayed as "wish fulfillment"? Because literature reflects a society's values and can change it? Because it's very sexist?

You watch too many Bowflex commercials. A woman fighter would have a lot more muscle in her upper body than most women. Very minute breasts as well. She'd also be gunky from sweating all the time, smelly, and would have elevated testosterone levels (and we know what that means).

You are thinking of a toned woman. Same muscles, better tone. Mmm, six-pack.

What you eat doesn't affect your pores. That is a myth. And magical herbs to keep clear skin seems a bit retarded to me and would only work in high-magic stories.

Instead it's just sex and a lesbian fantasy with a thinly veiled excuse to include it.

Actually, that is just sex... A very exaggerated view of "romance" that mankind has demonstrated in literature for millenia.

You missed the point of what I said.




Actually, I read a pretty good short story a month or so ago involving a spoiled prince and an ugly woman he fell in love with.

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Science

Isis

Do you remember where? Is there a book or a website you can send us stumbling in the general direction of?

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The Jackal: Half a million. In cash. Half in advance, and half on completion.
Montclair: Half a million francs?
The Jackal: Dollars.
Montclair: Are you mad?
The Jackal: Considering you expect to get France in return, I'd have thought it a reasonable price

Hodge

It's in Orson Scott Card's anthology, Dragons of Darkness.

Isis

Thanks.

__________________

The Jackal: Half a million. In cash. Half in advance, and half on completion.
Montclair: Half a million francs?
The Jackal: Dollars.
Montclair: Are you mad?
The Jackal: Considering you expect to get France in return, I'd have thought it a reasonable price

Kane

Fantasy doesn't require magic in any form.

Sure, ugly ladies get the love, but we read/write to escape from reality, to live in a world that isn't real. I don't necessarily have a desire to read about average people using average means to overcome average circumstances. I don't need to read for this.

I'm a man, and I resent a society that tries to make me feel ashamed for that. Not all fiction needs to try and change society. It is perfectly acceptable to read a book simply to get one's mind off of the real world. Most guys do wish for that beautiful fantasy girl, and most guys never get to have her. Are you saying that the fantasy girl is off limits, even in their fantasies? As a man, I am inherently sexist in one way or another. Your wish is not to eliminate sexism, but to sway masculine sexism to feminine sexism. I enjoy the fact that there are two sides to the spectrum, that we don't all see things alike.

I like women just the way they are, and women who like men just the way they are.

Novels, whatever the genre, are written about specific people or events in a certain time period. There is no law that states only certain types of people will be written about, or that all types of people will be written about. A story follows the characters, and if the author wants only to address certain character types, that is his perogative. I tend to shy away from stereotypes, because I don't want my stories to be like everyone else's. But the day that one group of people get to decide what should and shouldn't be written about is not only the day I stop writing, but the day I stop reading.

Even now I am formulating an idea for a new story with a female protaganist. Guess what, she's absolutely gorgeous. Her name is Violet, and we will enter the story with her "liberating" herself from her master. You see, poor Violet has been a slave since before she was a teenager. She has been used and abused for the last 10 years and now she is free. Who knows what will happen to her after she frees herself, what adventures might arise. Even though she is hot, I will still approach her as I do all my characters in that I try to write them from a realistic perspective, have them react and think like real people would.

Anarkos

Having just got home from five hours at a fashion show's dress rehearsal where my Kung Fu club is performing, and...yes, everything is wrong with the idea. Unless you'd like girls talking at amazing length about hair care products and so on....but that's hardly gripping.

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mswietek

Kane,

I agree with much of what you say. I would still say, however, that having all of the major female characters as dazzling beauties is still a fantasy cliche. It's the author's choice whether to embrace it or reject it.

Not necessarily to Kane, but the thread in general,

There are middle grounds between Beauty Queen and Hideous Mongrel. Just having normal characters would be fine. People who are generally attractive, but who have flaws, or who are insecure about themselves because they really do have flaws.

Many fantasy novels have scenes where a female character of one type or another tries to woo away a guard and/or baddie with sex. Instead of it working (which it always seems to do) it would be amusing if the guard said, "No, not my type."

Michael

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