comma127

1. Create a main character.
Most of the people who read your book will be unconfident males. So make your main character a Loser. Aimless, shy, cowardly, guilty, ill, lazy, rural - any of these will do.

2. Create a Quest.
Out of the blue, the Loser must be suddenly told that the fate of the whole world – or some other world - rests in his incompetent hands. To save the world he must perform some task, confront some nameless foe, learn some mysterious skill etc.

3. Create a Motley Bunch of Companions.
The Loser/Hero must have a Motley Bunch of Companions drawn from different human species e.g. dwarf, elf, Rotarian etc. Each of these companions will have one particular skill such as sword fighting, lasso twirling etc which will come in handy at a particular part of the story.

4. Create a Wise but Useless Guide.
The Guide is wise adviser who knows all about the Quest, but never fully reveals it. He also appears to have immense powers but will not use them when they are most required.
(See Part 7: "Make it Long.")

5. Create the Land
The first thing the Motley Bunch must do is travel some phenomenal distance through an assortment of vastly different terrains and climates. All Fantasy Lands have every conceivable form of climate and landform - mountains, deserts, swamps, glaciers, forests - arranged randomly across the landscape contrary to any known principles of geography or ecology.

Note: All fantasy worlds are roughly square. i.e. the shape of the double page of a paperback.

6. Create the Enemy
Every Fantasy Land has a Dark Enemy, an almost omnipotent ArchVillain who is trying to utterly destroy it. It is not clear how the ArchVillain benefits from this. This Villain always has access to vast armies which require no food, payment or other provisioning and can travel thousands of mile and lay siege to cities without any need for a catering corps. For all this, the Enemy is completely dependant on some insignificant object such as a ring or a piece of rock for his power.

7. Make it long.
The important thing about an epic fantasy novel is that the reader must be exhausted at the end of it. They must feel that they have overcome as many obstacles in getting through the book as the heroes have in fulfilling the quest. So the book must be as difficult to read as possible. To do this:

(a) Tell the story in incredible detail. Describe every day of the journey, how far they walked, what they ate, the weather, where they slept, especially days where nothing happens.

(b) Fill every dramatic situation with lengthy introspection. At every moment of crisis the hero must minutely examine his feelings, perceptions, identity, whether he left the gas on etc.

(c) Never take the easy way out of a crisis. For example, if the Wizard Guide holds great power, he will never use it to solve a situation. To illustrate.

WRONG

Groll turned his grisly head and raised the black shaft to strike. ‘Use the Gnarlstone" cried Stephen. "No worries" said Gordian and the venerable wizard raised the orb and muttered the Arnic words "Hastalavista". A bright flash flared and the Troll King slumped into a pile of grey-green mush.

RIGHT.

Groll turned his grisly head and raised the black shaft to strike. ‘Use the Gnarlstone" cried Stephen. "No" said the wizard sagely. "If we use the Gnarlstone for harm we will only increase the power of the Enemy." Then the shaft struck and Gimlet the Dwarf fell cloven."

8. Skip the hard parts.
Despite the need to keep the book long, some bits are just too hard to write. A thousand mile journey by foot is long, but easy to write. Battles on the other hand are hard because there’s a lot going on and you probably require some knowledge of military strategy. So if you’re writing a battle scene and it’s just getting too hard, simply have the hero suffer a wound and lapse into unconsciousness: e.g.

"… then suddenly his head exploded and a mist enveloped him and he felt himself falling down into an ethereal tangible blackness. Badcolds’s sword, still swinging through the air, seemed caught, imprisoned in time. The sound of the battle was suddenly a long way away but just as he closed his eyes and the black cloud engulfed him he thought he heard someone crying from the grassy knoll, "The Toasters are coming. The Toasters are coming."

Voile. Next thing our hero wakes on a white alabaster slab in the Healing Room where the Pure Maiden Warrior (see "Characters" below) tells him that the battle is over and, Guess what? They won! Result: you've saved 50 pages of intricate military description.

For other difficult plot points such as Impassable Mountain Ranges see "Caves" below.

9. Lead up to a cataclysmic battle.
Although the Enemy’s powers are magical, for some reason he must always try to defeat the good guys with good old fashioned hand to hand combat. No matter how much magic power a wizard, king or queen has, they will always end up charging around a battlefield slashing away with a sword.

10. Kill almost everybody.
The Loser/Hero must achieve his goal, gain the power, discover the secret word or whatever only at the last possible moment when all seems lost. To do this it will be necessary to make him fall down and twist his ankle, have an identity crisis, become enchanted etc continually on his way to the goal. Most of the Motley Bunch must die in terrible pain and degradation before the Loser/Hero gets his act together. This is to keep us mad at the Enemy, thought it is basically the Loser/Hero's fault for being so slow and incompetent.

Okay. Now let’s look at some other key points.

Bad Expendables.
It will be necessary to create Bad Expendables. These are the orcs, goblins, trolls, dragons, wights or any other creatures that we are happy to kill in their thousands. They are usually black, hairy, sweaty or in some other way unacceptable by middle class Caucasian standards. Often they are deformed, based on the traditional belief that an ugly body reflects an ugly soul. It is our way of doing a service to the sick and disabled by reminding readers that people who are disfigured look that way because they’re evil.

Note that in Fantasy Lands the concept of reform or rehabilitation is unknown. All allies, minions, vassals and instruments of the Enemy must be summarily killed even if they served their master primarily out of fear.

Tough Old Warriors
All fantasy novels must have an elite brotherhood of highly trained, pathologically loyal, hereditary fighters. These are invariably sturdy, sullen and have livid scars, one eye missing, only one arm etc. Contrary to reality, the more injuries they bear, the greater their fighting skills.

Pure Maiden Warriors.
Losers are scared of sexuality or dependency in women, so women in fantasy novels are so powerful and pure they make Joan of Arc look like Pamela Anderson. They are strong, noble, loyal, brave, high-bred and usually die in the end – well what else are we going to with them? They’re too scary to marry, and no one in Epic Fantasy Novels ever has sex.

Body Types.
Skinny people are wily and intelligent, big strong bear-like people are invariably dumb.

Character Names.
To make Character Names, just run some nonsense syllables together until it looks like a foreign language. If they are unpronounceable they will be seem even more authentic. "Y"s, "H"s and apostrophes add an exotic feeling. Words like "Dn’a’brht", "ynhazzmhn", "jbreheh’m" are all acceptable.

It is a good idea to throw in a few names which are just normal English words combined randomly: "Rusk Montana", "Heron Alibi" or "Ermine Dayglo".

Technology
Fantasy Worlds always have inexplicable gaps in their technology. They are ruled by councils of venerable sages who are the guardians of the accumulated learning of thousands of years and yet have never got around to inventing anything that might actually help them against wights, trolls and orcs - such as a .44 Magnum. Many Fantasy Worlds possess fine metal working, word-working and the ability to make crossbows, catapults and elaborate secret trapdoors but have no wheeled transport.

Note: Fantasy Worlds never have working economies. Very few people work, there is little agriculture and it is not clear where food comes from.

Magic
When wizards shoot blasts of magic at each other the Good Wizard's fire is always blue, and Bad Wizard' is always green or red.

Dwellings
There are three sorts of dwellings in fantasy novels – caves, huts and castles.

Caves are the fantasy writer’s best friend. They are the locations for hidden weapons, centres of wisdom, hide-outs of monsters etc. They require very little description and can be joined together to make a labyrinth. As in Hollywood, all caves have flat floors.

Caves are also useful if you find you have written yourself into a corner by creating an insuperable geographic obstacle such as an Impassable Mountain Range etc. This can be simply solved by taking the Motley Bunch of Companions underground. When they emerge from the tunnels- after days of walking in pitch darkness - they find themselves miraculously on the other side of the Impassable Mountains or whatever. The writer has also saved writing fifty pages of detailed description.

Huts are always in remote locations. Anyone who lives in a hut is simple and good.

Castles are always "hewn from the living rock" whatever that means. Rooms in castles are almost completely bare with a minimum of decoration.

The Enemy's Stronghold.
The Loser/Hero must eventually penetrate the Enemy's Stronghold. This is never particularly hard to do. Stronghold sentries are never alert and Loser/Heroes can always approach to within 20 feet of the most heavily guarded installation without being detected.

Even the most heavily fortified stronghold always has small unguarded side door where the garbage goes out. Once inside the Enemy's Castle there is only a smattering of people walking casually about. The Loser/Hero will be able to penetrate right into the Enemy's most inner sanctum without being detected.

Note: the Enemy's fatal flaw will always be that he is over-confident.

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JohnN

Haha, this is hilarious, yet so true. This is why I dont really like fantasy, too formulaic. However, there has to be some interesting stories out there, that are unique.

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Erik Buchanan

Brilliant.

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Amara-J

*chuckles* I posted that on the 'fantasy cliches' thread. It never gets old. Have you seen Ian McFayden (the original writer)'s other articles? They're brilliant satire.

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Ilasir Maroa

Yes, it's all quite amusing. And unless you are reading Dragonlance or Eragon, totally maliciously false. Fantasy is the highest genre of literature, employing the most talented of writers, and containing what invariably turn out to be the best stories ever told. You want a best-seller, set your normal story in a fantasy setting, and as long as it is the epitome of modern writing, you will automatically be awarded a contract for at least four trilogies. It is importnant to remember to have enough material for a trilogy, becuase all of the best fantasy stories contain at least three books, if not twenty times that many. it is quite true that all fantasy maps are rougly square and have randomly distributed terrain features and landmarks. Contray to popular belief, these lands are still incredibly accurate reflections of realistic geography. Any new language presented in fantasy literatrure is designed by someone with a great talent for language, and even the strangest phonological combinations are perfectly acceptable. Always be sure to note that apostraphes can be used up to four times in a row and still be perfectly acceptable, and the harder the consonants the more fantastic you the language. I greatly resent such ridiculous descriptions of fantasy as the one posted in the op. There are very humorous, but very untrue. How can you actually believe that fantasy is a giant rotting heap of cliches? Vile falsehoods. Fantasy is not unoriginal, you are just jealous because you have not the talent to write a good one.[-o<

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Amara-J

Speaking of which, are there any hardcore David Eddings fans (or at least former Mallorean readers) in this place? It's been years since I touched the series, but as I recall, the inevitable overly-long-and-ardous-journey-by-the-company-of-heroes almost manages to cover *every* section of the world map - mainly because, as I plotted their journey, they were traveling in big zig-zag patterns across the map page. It looks almost deliberate, a setup for more adventure and sidequests, like an attempt to generate more than enough filler... *cough*

Anyhow, can someone confirm this? I live miles away from the nearest library, and Googling fails to bring results.

~Amara-J

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Any moron can
write haiku. Just stop at the
seventeenth syllab

~ Reader's Digest, Nov. 2002 Joke

ClancyBoy

Do you need to defend the honor of fantasy in every thread that mentions it?

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Mike C

Yup. Some people are thin-skinned, and think that any criticism of their favourite genre is both a reflection on them personally, and a condemnation of the genre as a whole.

It's narrow-minded ninnyism; small-mindedness which does not allow for the fact that some fantasy novels are, in fact, utter shit. Just like a proportion of any other genre.

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ClancyBoy

Also known as "Sturgeon's Law."

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"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.

WriterDude

Haha, that was funny. Of course, the list only makes sense if you want to write a Lord Of The Blings story or something similar. I'm a major fan of Dragonlance and have well over a hundred books in my collection, and very few of them are even remotely similar to that list. Main hero? Now who would that be. Let's see... the Heroes of the Lance from the Chronicles? There's the wizard (powerful magic, very, very weak physically), his twin brother (the opposite, strong physically and almost stupid), a half-elf (not accepted as neither human nor elf), a dwarf (not exactly Gimli), a kender (the "funny sidekick" character, except he's crucial to the story and just as much a hero as the rest), a noble knight (follows the knightly code even if no one else does, and most hate knights in the first place) and so on. The characters are far from stereotypes and neither one of them is the hero. All of them are equally important, even the kender. As for the other books in the series, not many of them lead up to a cataclysmic event or even big battle. One is even so simple a wizard accidentaly summons a demon and tries to find a way to send it back. Another involve gnomes building a submarine and sets out to draw a map of the ocean floor. Another finds a princess stuck in an underwater city, and that's about it. And as for working economy, I have no idea what you're talking about. The food comes from farms, fishermen and hunters, the coin comes from selling their wares, selling their services as mercenaries and so on (even in LotR) and so on.

And for that matter, ever since Lord of the Rings? You do know the book was released almost sixty years ago and wasn't popular until long after Tolkien died? It wasn't until the recent-ish movies LotR got really popular. Sure, there were fans around before and even a movie back in the late 70's or early 80's, but fantasy in general exploded after the PJ movies. And last, mainly guys read fantasy? That's funny. What's next, only guys play videogames?

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WriterDude

And for that matter, how many best-selling fantasy novels have you written anyway, comma127?

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ClancyBoy

Who me?

Almost one.

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"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.

WriterDude

I meant the OP, but thanks for the information. I assume he have at least written a few, as he obviously knows how.

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dwellerofthedeep

I'm not sure how much I like this particular rant. It rings true to me, but I think it could be funnier.

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ClancyBoy

It has been done funner. Well... part of it.

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"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.