Mystery

They just take a monster or myth and perverse it a bit then give it a funky name. :/

__________________
Imagine what you could do if you didn't require sleep... Now calculate all the hours you've lost so far with sleep, Insomnia ain't seeming so bad now is it?

SecretSam

yep. recycled.

ClancyBoy

You'll forgive me for saying this (actually, maybe you won't.)

There are nerd writers the same way there are nerd artists.
Nerd artists are very competent technically. They are the people who can lay a grid over a photograph and duplicate it square for square perfectly. They have great powers of concentration to be able to do this, and can sit and paint one tiny boring area of grey sky for hours on end.

Nerd artists, however, are very short on imagination. This is why they almost always choose fantasy or science fiction themes. These themes, while they can be imaginative, 99% of the time are not. That's why you see the same elves, orcs, character classes, magic systems, plots, and stereotypes across all of fantasy art and literature.
That's why other sci-fi authors use Heinlein's timeline of the future, and Asimov's rules for robots, and technologies originally invented for Star Trek.

Fantasy is a substitute for imagination. A surrogate. It looks like someone is being creative without them having to put in any effort into actually creating.

If you're going to be in a creative medium, create goddammit. Get that two-cycle weed whacker brain of yours fired up and try to think of something that is your own.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

ClancyBoy

Not all of them though!



You're right, bad example.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

Anna

Taken from a certain type of mythology but alot of them are very...er..unknown of I think. e.g. Fin Folk>>Churn Milk Peg, Ghillie Dhu/Dryad's, Glaistig's etc.

__________________
‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’
Samuel Beckett
~~~
'There is absolutely no point in sitting down to write a book unless you feel that you must write that book, or else go mad, or die.'
Robertson Davies
~~~
'The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you.'
Somerset Maugham
~~~
'Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.'
Ernest Hemingway

Kyrie

Just write, write, write and write!

There'll always be someone who like what you write.

__________________

ClancyBoy

I suppose that's one position to take. Or you could take the position of someone who is constantly trying to improve themselves.

There is such a thing as better and worse. It's not all subjective.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

Hobbes

I agree with this.

lin

Your bookstore tour reminds me of a friend of mind with a used paperback store inviting me to peruse his romance collection...which covered an entire wall.

And he was right...every damn book had three of four elements: an old house, a rampant horse, a ship driven by storm, and a guy with no shirt on.