Writing Fantasy is hard as hell...

[ReservoirAngel]

Exactly what it says in the title. Writing fantasy is hard as hell. All the best ideas for it have already been taken. Everything's just become so cliche now that it's so hard to get any originality into your story.

For example:
Thanks to Tolkein and people emulating him, there's no a commonly-set standard for what Elves and Dwarves pretty much have to be like
Talking animals are too stupid, or if they're not then Narnia already did it
Ordinary people stumbling across this magical other world...again, Narnia.

It's really, really hard to come up with decent original ideas for fantasy worlds nowadays. And even if you do, making a realistic fantasy world is hard as hell too.

Does anyone here have any tips for a struggling fantasy writer? Or the ability to direct me to where said tips might be found?

 

[D Moness]

Why not write what you want without really worrying about being original or not.
There has been written so much that if you think you haven't read it before in a book maybe someone else that reads your story has read it before.
I would just focus on what kind of story you want to bring across. At least that is how i do/did it.

Maybe not much help but that is how i look at it.

 

[TomCorf]

I always find it hard to make authentic fantasy names, just mash a few buttons on the keyboard, thats my tactic.
you could always try to create your own version of creatures, but your story would have to be really epic for them to catch on.
or just create your own species, and draw aspects from 'existing' ones

 

[SturmDolch]

The trick is to take the cliches, add to them in some way, and turn them into archetypes. Have goblins in your story? Good. But that's not very unique, now is it? No, these goblins adopted Marxist doctrine in the early 1900s and are getting ready to lead the world into revolution when the Hellgate next opens.

Dwarves don't have to be like Tolkien's. Check out what Eoin Colfer did. Dwarves there are dirt eating/pooping, tunneling thieves. As for elves, check out Dragon Age: Origins. Instead of the fair folk, they're the oppressed lower class.

But it looks like you're more worried about the initial plot point. Ordinary people stumbling across a magical world might at first seem like you're copying Narnia or something. But many books and movies have done the same. If you dilute the idea to its core, the basic premise is "the character stumbles into a new world". This happened in the Matrix, Star Wars, Harry Potter, even Lord of the Rings for the Hobbits. But these are all very different. As long as your story is unique in some way, it is original.

And you're also having trouble with world building, right? You should get most of it figured out first, because it's easier to start with a world ready than to go back and change it. Plus, if the books become a series, devoted fans that know the books more than you do will rage hard if you mess up the world.

Decide on what the world looks like. Is there a magic system? Is it based on Earth? What is the political system? Economics? Technology level? If it's not Earth, what about the climate and terrain? Is there more than one faction? What threats are there?

 

[default]

If you want to be forgotten and thrown in the bucket with thousands of other writers, then keep doing what you are doing. Abstract fantasy is where it's at. Focus on concepts and tone.

That's all I can really say, it can't really be taught, it kind of has to be learned...

 

[Amnestic]

There's a trope for everything and nothing will be totally original simply by virtue of it being fantasy literature. Adhering to some isn't a bad thing, and can be encouraged in cases when it's done well. Sturmdolch's point on switching the commonly accepted understandings is a decent one.

Going by the fact that you're asking on a forum for tips, I'm going to assume you're not doing this professionally. If you're just trying to write, write what you like. If the tropes bug you, work around them but don't do so for other people. If you think elves are cool write about elves but don't write about Eladrin because they're stupid. Try to find a trusted friend who will tell it to you straight to read stuff over though. A good editor is your strongest tool.

Also, talking animals aren't stupid and the ones in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series were awesome

 

[ReservoirAngel]

Also, talking animals aren't stupid and the ones in Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series were awesome

I'm sorry.

Also thanks for all the advice so far guys. I'm just so irritatingly fucking paranoid of what people I know like to call the "Simpsons did it" effect. Even though I'm never actually intending to get published in any way whatsoever, I'm just always insane over the fact that no matter WHAT I put in any of the stuff I try to start writing, every idea will already be out there and well-known by now.

 

[BelmontClan]

I second and third what others have said. If this is just for your own personal amusement, go ahead and write what you want.

Characters don't have to follow archetypes. I recommend reading a book called Orcs which is three stories and then another follow up book called Orcs: Bad Blood. It puts the typical orc grunt as the hero of the series.

It would be helpful for you to plot out and build up whatever world you're creating. It will definitely help you write easier.

 

[quiet_samurai]

Just be like Martin and have everyone die off at random intervals... after they get done fucking each other of course.

But in all honesty, I think it is probably the easiest genre to write because you can do almost anything with it and not worry about conforming to the parameters of reality, and it's so well known and popular now days that you really can just roll with it and not have to explain the details about everything to everyone.

 

[Dr_Komeil]

There are really two ways to approach fantasy nowadays:
1) Create a new mythology. Take elements from other mythologies that are less common, make something new, or at least obscure that breaks away from the Tolkienian Fantasy tropes.

2) Embrace the fantasy cliches, draw them close, and them beat the crap out of them. Like Sturmdolch said, take the cliched, overused groups and races, and use them as a jumping off point to do something new; alter them to fit your needs, or to fit your fancy. Then go from there.

 

[CounterAttack]

If I ever do anything involving fantasy, I usually focus on the magical aspects of it. Who can use magic - humans, humanoids, non-humans, animals? How do mages perform their spells; rituals, on-the-fly, specific materials, arcane tools? How can people abuse magic, and thus become the antagonists of my writing? Are there any divine entities involved, focusing on either the whole world or just certain domains?

Alternatively, create fantastical species that venture away from the clichéd elves, goblins, orcs and dwarves. For example, a race I once invented, named the arlahin, were red-skinned creatures twice the size of a human being, with multiple differences from humans, but also characteristics that made them easily accepted into society. These traits included a natural affinity for magic, high intelligence and an inbred sense of honour and duty. Many arlahin were soldiers or magicians, serving in the primary city's military or Council of Magi. I even wrote a language for the species, although it had to use a Latin alphabet.

If all else fails, go to the local library and read a few books. I recommend the work of Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory.

 

[Axzarious]

If you look farther into it, most other fantasy writers missed the points that Tolkien had. Another example would be what people did with works based off of Frankenstein. the original novel's concept was something like this- Man creates another intelligent being, teaches it stuff, loses interest, then neglects it. Basically it was to drive a parallel gods creation of man in some way.... Then people interperated it as "SCIENCE USED TO CREATE LIFE IS TEH EVILZ!"

Also, if you read Lotr, Mordor was quite fertile due to the volcanic ash.... Not Grimdark Doomland.

 

[Jekken6]

You could maybe try to write something with a similar style to the game Arcanum. If you don't know what that is, it's a fantasy RPG with your typical races, magic, so forth, but set in an industrial england-type period. Damn, i want a 3D reimagining of that game.

 

[PurplePlatypus]

I?ve never actually done much writing myself but I do come up with fantasies and worlds. Start right at the base of it all. What are the major principals of the world that can never be broken, what can and can?t happen? You could start out with that or you could start out with a character and meld the two together.

And I wouldn?t worry too much about being original, some of the best story telling ideas have been around longer than we could imagine. If anything you should definitely be drawing ideas from them. You aren?t a genius; you aren?t a special little snowflake and you aren?t blind to the world around you. You?re a human and you have grown up in a particular society, with particular norms, ideas and stories. Experience and environment is king. So get out into the world, experience thing, look at science, look at how the world works and look at other people?s stories and worlds. Then you bring it all together in a mixing pot and make something ?new?.

Also if I were to recommend you someone else?s story and world it would be ?Beanworld? by Larry Marder?s. The genre can only be describes as an ecological fantasy. He has taken the whole idea of ecosystems and done something very interesting and a little bit weird with it. If you?re worried about stealing other people?s ideas it?s because you don?t have a big enough pool of them to draw from.

 

[D Moness]

Also thanks for all the advice so far guys. I'm just so irritatingly fucking paranoid of what people I know like to call the "Simpsons did it" effect. Even though I'm never actually intending to get published in any way whatsoever, I'm just always insane over the fact that no matter WHAT I put in any of the stuff I try to start writing, every idea will already be out there and well-known by now.

Could be worse when i am writing something I am like: This was used there, that looks a bit like that scene etc. Most of the time it is so obscure (the material you think it looks like(or even the reference itself) that others will hardly notice(if the even do notice it).
The "biggest" problem is that you yourself (for most of the time) are the biggest critique of your own work.

 

[darth.pixie]

You could always try to find new dual aspects of things. The most cliched example I can think of is the Black and White thing. The most recent and unique idea that I found would be Oblivion's concept of Dementia and Mania. It's strange and new (and the only quest line I loved in the game).

There is also the idea of just looking out the window and think of different situations for it. If magic were real, where would we be? If there were other races other than humans, which would those be?

There are more to myths than orcs and dwarves. Take the filipino mythology where albinos were believed to be children of Engkantos (who were thought to be angels that fell on earth, not in hell). What I found to be best is to just keep an idea simple and easy to keep track of and go from there.

It seems hard to start now, but once the idea hits you, you won't be able to stop writing,

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Also thanks for all the advice so far guys. I'm just so irritatingly fucking paranoid of what people I know like to call the "Simpsons did it" effect. Even though I'm never actually intending to get published in any way whatsoever, I'm just always insane over the fact that no matter WHAT I put in any of the stuff I try to start writing, every idea will already be out there and well-known by now.

This is actually a good lesson for you, and others. Don't be so quick to judge things simply on the basis of originality. You now have a first-hand look at how rare a truly original idea is. Just write whatever you want and don't worry about how original it is. You always have time to edit it, or change things if you get a new idea, or even start over.

The hardest part is just getting the words on paper. It sounds to me like you already have ideas you like, so just go ahead and write them. Let everyone else worry about how original it is. Also, remember, some of the world's most successful stories and franchises are completely, and totally, unoriginal.

 

[EmilShmiengura]

Exactly what it says in the title.
Does anyone here have any tips for a struggling fantasy writer? Or the ability to direct me to where said tips might be found?

Take a look at China Mieville did with his Bas Lag trilogy. Also some fragments of the Void novels by Peter Hamilton(but he just doesn;t go the distance and hase elvish-like creatures). That is for sources of inspiration.
If I were you I would consider the fact that SF and Fantasy give you absolute freedom to experiment, to put your characters in unique situations and pretty much go all the way to exercise your creativity. As others have said above, create the world, imagine it beeing in a way possible, imagine living in it, as just a guy on the background, not a main character. If you imagine something ask yourself "Why is that there?" and make sure there;s a valid answer to that question. You readers will question you constantly and so should you.
And whatever you do don't i mean DO NOT have elves or dwarfs or all that nonsesnse in it. It's only okay in games these days, no matter how good you would make it. It would all be just fan fiction in the end. Remember, you create not emulate.

 

[The Stonker]

Exactly what it says in the title. Writing fantasy is hard as hell. All the best ideas for it have already been taken. Everything's just become so cliche now that it's so hard to get any originality into your story.

For example:
Thanks to Tolkein and people emulating him, there's no a commonly-set standard for what Elves and Dwarves pretty much have to be like
Talking animals are too stupid, or if they're not then Narnia already did it
Ordinary people stumbling across this magical other world...again, Narnia.

It's really, really hard to come up with decent original ideas for fantasy worlds nowadays. And even if you do, making a realistic fantasy world is hard as hell too.

Does anyone here have any tips for a struggling fantasy writer? Or the ability to direct me to where said tips might be found?

Well I always like create a completely new universe which is well, hell.
For one everything sucks, the people are dying, the crops are going in flames and they need to fight for the last rations, the last bit of food to survive.
Because 100 years prior to that time then a rift from that dimension to a another dimension appeared and all sorts of bad stuff happened.
Now we have monsters such as a giant disfigured clowns that are obsessed with your dry cleaning.
Japanophiles, that are literally made out of things from Japan.
A giant rat who is stuffed in a teddy bear. who is stuffed in a book which is stuffed in a glass of water.
Giant skeletons that are actually pretty friendly and the last hope of this dimension.
And Satan is a kick ass super hero who is just, awesome.
Plus, ducks are evil masterminds that want to eat humans, because they ate their kin!

So we pretty much got your standard human.
A race of obsessed violin players.
Nightmares (yes literally nightmares).
Giant skeleton people.
A race of armadillos, wanting to contain all the worlds knowledge.
Evil ducks.
Dwarves that know how to fly.
And last but not least mongs ( a race of idiots)

Then the thing which is causing all of this trouble is Dread, a giant overlord who only wants to hug them all, but unfortunetly his hugs are poisonous and his breath is cyanide.
So he's determined to conquer this world to hug everyone, but the reason why he went over there is unknown....or how.

So, what do you guys think?
Original? No?

 

[kikon9]

If you realize that elves and dwarves are always Tolkien-esq then just think of new ways to make them. You could make elves more like their classical roots of the Fae-folk. You don't have to do tolkien elves. Besides, I'm making a surreal-fantasy and it's pretty damn easy to think of stuff for it.