Thread: Fantasy cliches to avoid?

So I'm in the process of brainstorming ideas for a fantasy world that I may write about sometime down the road, after I've finished the Sci-Fi book I'm working on (these different books are completely unrelated to each other). My fantasy is in a medieval setting, and right now I'm just focusing on world-building, creatures, races, societies, and especially the rules of magic.

I was curious to know what cliches people can think of that I should try avoiding. I'll start the list with one of my personal favorites :
The seemingly-insignificant farm boy who turns out to be the subject of a prophecy in which he is destined to bring down the dark lord and become the great hero of the world. This is probably the greatest of all fantasy cliches, hahaha.

So anyway, what other cliches can you guys come up with that I should avoid as much as possible?

By the way, Peter's Evil Overlord List is a great resource for people looking to make smarter and less cliche villains. It's helped me out a ton with my own antagonists.

in my opinion if you are looking to avoid cliches you should avoid writing about anything you heard somewhere else.

The idea generally in creating a world isn't to exclude things. It's tough to not-think of pink elephants. I mean it's sort of like saying what ingredients should I leave out when making brownies instead of asking for a good brownie recipe.

Originally Posted by RM Americano

in my opinion if you are looking to avoid cliches you should avoid writing about anything you heard somewhere else.

Okay, so I should avoid putting anything like characters, settings, and plot elements in my book. Got it.

Originally Posted by astroannie

The idea generally in creating a world isn't to exclude things. It's tough to not-think of pink elephants. I mean it's sort of like saying what ingredients should I leave out when making brownies instead of asking for a good brownie recipe.

I'm not saying that my focus is to avoid certain things when I'm writing. I've been brainstorming quite a bit about what "ingredients" to put in my book. I just wanted to get some opinions on overused cliches that other people have seen, and then decide if there are any that I should definitely avoid, or if I could use them and try to put a different twist on them. I guess I should rephrase the original question, since just because I see a cliche listed on here doesn't necessarily mean I won't use it, but I was just curious to see people's thoughts on the subject. Doesn't mean I'm going to make my decisions based off of what I see here.

It's really a simple question, but so far no one seems to have bothered giving me a solid answer.

If you think about it, there's scarcely any way you can avoid cliches in writing fantasy, right? Sure, the "farm boy who turns out to be the subject of a prophecy" thing is a well-worn fantasy cliche, but how does the fantasy tale begin, if not with the main character's dawning realization that he/she is not ordinary, or that he/she has fallen into most un-ordinary circumstance?

Every situation in a story--fantasy or otherwise--runs the risk of cliche-ism. I feel strongly that it's the choice of words the writer uses, and not his choice of situations and characters, that determine whether the writing is cliched or not.

For example, that your fantasy hero has some sort of animal, or non-human, companion of great understanding and wisdom (and/or great physical prowess) is pretty much a cliche in fantasy. Try to avoid that altogether, however, and you start to run into problems; without the help of the non-human companion and its great wisdom and/or strength, the hero himself has to be unusually wise and/or strong, and that will make him somewhat boring. I mean, who wants to read a story about a guy who never loses a fight and always makes the right decision?

For another example, in fantasy the bad guy is almost always a gearhead, i.e., he will always have tech stuff and machines; he's also almost always quick-tempered, arrogant, and vain. The good guy is usually a "salt of the earth", mellow, reluctant-fighter-type who eschews urbanity & mechanization. These are pretty much fantasy cliches you can count on. Can things be turned around so that hero and villain don't have to be such predictable cliches...? Probably not, if you want to keep the story along fantasy lines. The hero is pretty much going to HAVE to be a tree-hugging semi-wimp in order to be believable, mainly because people like that are the ones who notice small things that the Type A personalities don't, help others in need (and therefore more likely to receive help when needed), and generally work in harmony with the natural part of your fantasy world. Your hero can't be the type of guy who goes out 4-wheeling every weekend, shooting rabbits for fun and leaving the bodies to rot, and alienating the elves by cutting down trees to build a pier for his giant yacht. He can't be that kind of guy--he has to be, therefore, sort of a cliche. Even if he starts out as a beer-chugging frat boy type, he will have to become more sensitive in some regard as the story progresses or your readers will get bored or irritated.

I don't think you should worry too much about cliches in your writing, and in fact I think you should embrace them. With enough talent & dedication, you should be able to take the most cliched situation or conversation ever and make it fresh and readable with good writing.

But since you asked:

• The villain stopping to make a gloating speech when he has the hero in his clutches. Who does that? No self-respecting villain does that.
• Constant references to "lore" or "magic" with no further explanation. Like your reader is just supposed to know already how magic works. Also creating the impression that the magic works just fine via recitation of formulae or use of a tool already endowed with magic power, without the characters having to learn anything or have any discipline to use it.
• Stereotypes. You know what those are already. "The corrupt clergyman." "The blowhard politician." "The sinister old crone." "The giggling, mischievous fairies." "The cute and unnaturally perceptive urchin." (etc)
• As noted above, the invincible hero who wins every battle. Boring!
• Having a lot of the action take place in dreams. Too easy. That's why it's a cliche.
• Exhaustive descriptions of arms and armor. Role-playing games, si; fantasy tales, no.
• Descriptions of battles without any semblance of strategy; long, drawn-out fight scenes between two antagonists when there's supposed to be a battle going on, like they are the only two combatants on an empty field. That will make me close a book right there, even if I'm halfway through it.
• Going on and on about who the hero's parents REALLY are & why they are so special. That's for little kids. If your hero is a self-made man, he's gonna be tons more interesting.

Ok, well time for bed. I hope this was helpful.

Well, there's evil dark elves, benevolent and wise wood elves, regal high elves, dwarves living in mountians, and also the peasant who happens to meet and get the princess to fall in love with him, or the peasant who becomes a knight and rescues the princess stuff.

But then again I love a good princess-saving story. So if you're creating your characters and world and happen to realize that you're following a cliche, no matter which one, I would just forget about it and keep going. Think about Disney and Shakespeare. None of their stories were purely original at their core. It's putting that fresh twist on the story that's going to keep reader's interest and make it your own that you really need to be focused on.

Originally Posted by Scarlett_156

But since you asked:

• The villain stopping to make a gloating speech when he has the hero in his clutches. Who does that? No self-respecting villain does that.
• Constant references to "lore" or "magic" with no further explanation. Like your reader is just supposed to know already how magic works. Also creating the impression that the magic works just fine via recitation of formulae or use of a tool already endowed with magic power, without the characters having to learn anything or have any discipline to use it.
• Stereotypes. You know what those are already. "The corrupt clergyman." "The blowhard politician." "The sinister old crone." "The giggling, mischievous fairies." "The cute and unnaturally perceptive urchin." (etc)
• As noted above, the invincible hero who wins every battle. Boring!
• Having a lot of the action take place in dreams. Too easy. That's why it's a cliche.
• Exhaustive descriptions of arms and armor. Role-playing games, si; fantasy tales, no.
• Descriptions of battles without any semblance of strategy; long, drawn-out fight scenes between two antagonists when there's supposed to be a battle going on, like they are the only two combatants on an empty field. That will make me close a book right there, even if I'm halfway through it.
• Going on and on about who the hero's parents REALLY are & why they are so special. That's for little kids. If your hero is a self-made man, he's gonna be tons more interesting.

Ok, well time for bed. I hope this was helpful.

Good list

#1: The incredibles call this monologing, and do a good job of laughing at this cliche. Its a cheap ploy to explain everything away in one fell swoop. Motive, intent, opportunity, and long term goals all dumped into one monolog.

#2: Most of my characters are new or there is one new one so I can explain maguc. If everyone in the story is use to magic, how do you explain it?

#3more: the man in shiny armor riding in to save the Damsel in distress. (later becomes the cavalry.) Arriving just in the nick of time, or the reverse, the cavalry arrives just after the heros finish the fight.

#4:characters must be human, if they fight alot, the reader must know the MC can bleed or take a beating.

#5: My biggest turn off to a book. Dream sequence, basically how ever long the dream takes place has nothing to do with the reality of the story. If the whole book was a dream then it was a waste of time reading.

#6:I hesitate on this one, teaching people something about arms and armor of old, can be interesting. But info dump about everything the author found during research is boring.

#7:Large battles are a mass of confusion and insanity, people killing people around them as quick as they can to avoid being killed. There was no honor on the battle field, backstabbing, killing the opponent of a fellow comrade was expected. Prolonged battles brings fatigue, fatigue will get you killed. The man in front charging through hacking everything in sight will be fatigued, while the man waiting for his turn to fight is not fatigued. Who will win? The tired expert swordsman that hacked his way through the enemy fighting for over twenty minutes, or the lightly trained but fresh warrior? Eventually the tired warrior will fail.

#8 I am your father, give me a hug and lets end the battle.
The helpless damsel in distress waiting for the mc to save her is about the biggest cliche there is.
Although my favorite character cliche in this one was the damsel in distress in "City Heat" the heros come to save her and her first words?
"Well it's about time." as she finishes filing her nails.

In a different thread, a person wrote that "a dark and stormy night" is cliche, it is, those words are, having the beginning scene open after the sun goes down and it happens to be raining is not cliche. Half of a day is in darkness, and in some climates it rains more then it is clear.

Cliche's are a big part of fantasy, but weaving the tale so the cliches are minimized is the goal of the modern writer.
You can take cliche childrens stories and make them intetesting. Red riding hood, Swan princess, Repunzel have been made into movies, but the movies were not typical cliche movies.

Its all about how you write the cliche as to how well it works.

Don't try to avoid cliches just because they have been used very often.

As already been posted; it's how you use them.

Try reading Diana Wynne Jones' Tough Guide to Fantasyland - it's very funny and sends up loads of fantaasy clichés you already know and quite a lot of the ones you hadn't realised existed but recognise once they're pointed out.

Now you're starting to sound innovative.

Originally Posted by SeverinR

#2: Most of my characters are new or there is one new one so I can explain maguc. If everyone in the story is use to magic, how do you explain it?

Why do you have to? The Lord of the Rings didn't bother explaining any of its magic, and it did alright. In fact, it was implied that "magic" is just something some races and beings can innately do. They might not even realize it's considered magical because it's so natural to them (example: hobbits' stealth).


As far as cliches go, if you really want to avoid them, then just do it. Think of all the fantasy stories you've read, and think of the things that happen in all of them. Then make the opposite happen.

I say this because that's what I've built my current novel around. It's a science fiction, battle-oriented story. So who's the best fighter? It's not the main character, not by a long shot. There are at least two men and two women who are all better than him in various ways. Does anyone have "plot armor"? Nope; by the end of the story, almost all of the main characters have died or been otherwise ejected from the story. Well, the protagonist at least gets the girl, right? Actually, it turns out that she doesn't actually return the feelings he has for her, and he doesn't realize it until it's too late.

If you really want to avoid cliches, just think, "How would people in real life handle this situation? Does it make logical sense for this character to be doing this thing?" That's why the "gloating villain" cliche is so stupid. If someone got in a position where the villain has a chance to kill them, the villain should kill them. Period. If they need to stay alive, then you shouldn't write them into situations like that.

Also, I've found that there's a good deal of truth in this quote from C. S. Lewis: "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

Just write from your heart. Tell the story you want to tell. Everything else will fall into place.

Originally Posted by Gamer_2k4

Also, I've found that there's a good deal of truth in this quote from C. S. Lewis: "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

Just write from your heart. Tell the story you want to tell. Everything else will fall into place.

This is very true.

Every fantasy story I have ever read has been a "cliche" to one extent or another when you look at overall plot and specific elements. Any author who thinks that their work is ultra original is just deluding themselves. Don't worry about if something has been done before. Whatever you create will be unique to the best extent possible

Ok, so here's a couple questions:
In the sci-fi book I'm writing (not at all related to the fantasy one, as I mentioned in the first post) the main character is sort of "possessed" by an alien being that gives him special abilities, and also passes down all of the memories, DNA, and muscle memory/skill from its previous host (that's not exactly how it works, but it's the easiest way to explain it without giving away the whole plot).

A couple people said how it's stupid when the hero is ridiculously good at everything and wins almost every fight. My question is, does that count if there's an explained reason for that (as in, rather than just being totally good at everything for no reason, something actually made him that way)? Because compared against normal people, he is exceptionally skilled even before he actually receives any training, and he picks up on new skills really fast because, in a way, he has already learned those things through the alien's previous incarnation. As such, he wins most fights against normal humans. However, as soon as he encounters others like himself, he loses the first few battles (though he makes it out alive from each of these) and has to go through a lot before he is able to match their skill. So, as I asked before, does it count if he is inherently superior to humans because of an alien entity in him that enhances all of his attributes? (It should also be noted, the "previous incarnation" was one of the best of their kind, and all of those skills were passed down to him; he just has to sort of "relearn" them, but it's sort of like relearning a skill you used to be good at, but haven't used for years).

My second question is, since he is "possessed", some of the story takes place inside of his head. Some of you guys mentioned dreams as a bad cliche, so would I be walking into dangerous territory if the alien communicates to him through his dreams? (Note: he is not initially aware that he is "possessed") It is also through a number of dreams that he relives the memories of the alien's previous host. Would it perhaps be better to find some alternative rather than dreams?

I'd estimate that over 95% of books in bookstores today are exactly the same, except with a different title and different names. Sorry, but if you're interested in being published, the books in bookstores don't lie, cliché is vogue (sadly).

The reason for someone being great at everything doesn't matter, there is no suspense if the person can't be hurt, no threat of death or injury. The achilles heel exception is weak. Invinsible except for one super flaw that will kill the monster instantly. There is no rules, but remember superman, they had to give him the weakness of Kryptonite so he could stay interesting.

Dreams; the dreams I hate are the ones that rule out the main point of the story. If dreams have a purpose they are fine.
Its the hopeless scenerio ended by the person waking up and it was all a dream that I hate. The loved one comes back to life because the mc only dreamed she died.

Anything can be a dream and anything can be insanity, using either to explain the main part of the story makes the story a waste in my opinion, unless done in a way so as not to seem like a desperate way to end a book.