Is your novel fantasy?
Apr. 27th, 2006 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhienellethIf you can answer any of these questions with 'yes', you fail the test and should abandon your 'original' fantasy novel at once.
What's especially funny is that most of the bestselling epic fantasy novelists would have to answer most of these questions with 'yes'. *cough*Jordan*cough*
Go. Read. LYAO.
Sample questions:
Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
What's especially funny is that most of the bestselling epic fantasy novelists would have to answer most of these questions with 'yes'. *cough*Jordan*cough*
Go. Read. LYAO.
Sample questions:
Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 12:03 am (UTC)I think it gets a little carried away, going from cliches to "don't know about the important details" to "we hate Dungeons and Dragons".
The thing is, and even though I know some of it is tongue-in-cheek I have to analyze it anyway, that many of the cliches are actually what the majority readership eats up, even if the writership hates them. Remember what Anna G said at the workshop? "They see a dragon on the cover and say 'ooohhhh' and by it." Yeah, like that. New and original is hot for writers, but comfortable, guaranteed entertainment is what the masses want.
Me means me, and many others I know, are screwed. LoL
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 12:04 am (UTC)Editing just made things worse ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 05:35 am (UTC)Basically they took questions directly from every main popular fantasy (Including LoTR) and turned it into a question. It actually kind of irritates me, while "Top 101 things I'd do if I was an evil overlord" makes me laugh hysterically.
And while Robert Jordan gets a lot of flack (I bitch about it too, and I like them) I think he did quite a good job with the world, the setting and the personal characters.
*shrug* I'd like to see their fantasy novel (& Film).
(Maybe I'm just getting cranky from grandstanding "published authors and SF Critics" who are self published and do their criticisms through the open channels of Amazon and B&N. *snort*)