Things to Avoid as a Writer

[Trizap]

I was looking at the threads where people were expressing their hate towards books for certain reasons, and then an idea occurred to me: why not make a list of things a writer should avoid doing?

I already got three reasons:

1. don't make trilogies

2. proofread for Mary Sue/Gary Stuness

3. don't have characters mentally recover too fast from bad experiences.

I also plan to become writer someday, so this list I believe would be beneficial to me, so please list all you can think of :smallsmile:

[Moff Chumley]

Don't do anything even aproaching Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett unless you have a deathwish or are really, really wierd and talented.

[Ozymandias]

Trilogies aren't always bad. It depends on the genre and the focus, and even the degree to which the books are related; loose trilogies like Beckett's "three novels" often share few or no elements, while some novels are basically serial; I'd avoid either extreme.

Other than that, read a lot, and write a lot. Also, read a lot. When you think you've read enough to start writing, continue to read.

Diversify Read academic high-literature and anti-high-literature and low-literature etc. Observe style and content and try to find themes that you think you could work with.

It's hard to say "don't do this" because good authors can take almost any subject and make it good. Irony, in particular, is an extremely powerful tool.

[doliest]

(This would be a rule for sequels)

Avoid hyping as it tends to lead to over expectations that cripple a book no matter how good it might be.

[streakster]

I feel this (http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/) is relevant to your interests.

[Haruki-kun]

How fast is recovering too fast? For the reader it may be faster than for the characters, considering some people can read War and Peace in one night, and others take a week to get through "The little engine that could".

Plus, the time issue is easily fixed by one simple sentence, which can be chosen out of the following:

"Several weeks later."
"Several months later."
"One year later."
"Some time later."
"Over nine thousand years later."

[Kaihaku]

1. When you look back on your older works, you should feel disgusted at how poorly written they were. If you aren't, then you probably aren't improving and need to work on that.

2. You need to learn to balance critiques in your head. Some are valid, some are not but as a writer you'll get a lot. You need to consider but not cater to them.

3. Unless you are very lucky, it's going to be difficult and take a long time to see any progress in a career in writing. You'll need patience.

4. Do not publish your own material. It's a cheap way out that's just going to seriously hurt your chances of establishing yourself.

5. Get established in the writing community. They have conventions and, if you can, get a writer to mentor you.

The Tech Supervisor at my University was a struggling science fiction author on the side but my senior year he managed to publish his first book. It took him over ten years to get that. He's now doing quite well (http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/). Writing is now his only source of income and it took a long time to get there.

Remember, getting established as an author is more about luck than skill. It's being at the right place at the right time with the right material. The best way to improve your chances is to be in as many places at as many times with as much material as possible.

Best of luck to you.

[Moff Chumley]

No! Bad Haruki! We agreed that we were going to have a three year moratorium on that one!

(First spammy post directed at Haruki, w00t.)

[Ozymandias]

I feel this (http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/) is relevant to your interests.

I really like that, especially the Robert Jordan question.


How fast is recovering too fast? For the reader it may be faster than for the characters, considering some people can read War and Peace in one night, and others take a week to get through "The little engine that could".

Plus, the time issue is easily fixed by one simple sentence, which can be chosen out of the following:

"Several weeks later."
"Several months later."
"One year later."
"Some time later."
"Over nine thousand years later."

It's not that simple, in my opinion. Characters shouldn't go through some closed process where they suddenly morph into a new character, or at least that device should be used sparingly and with import attached to it. The characters should cope with change along with the reader, where possible and where it doesn't distract from the narrative.

[warty goblin]

I really like that, especially the Robert Jordan question.



It's not that simple, in my opinion. Characters shouldn't go through some closed process where they suddenly morph into a new character, or at least that device should be used sparingly and with import attached to it. The characters should cope with change along with the reader, where possible and where it doesn't distract from the narrative.

Agreed here. In general it always feels like something of a copout to have stuff set much later on, particularly if the characters go through significant change during that time, since it tends to alienate me from them. I mean, I follow them for months/years, and then boom! a chapter later they've aged fifteen years and I've missed it all.

This isn't to say I'm against the occasional accelerated passage of time. If no major events occur for a while, then by all means, skip ahead, but make sure to keep me informed of the characters' emotional development during that time. I just finished reading Fevre Dream by George RR Martin and it has one of the best time lapse chapters I've ever read, even though it covers a lot of time and history, because it stays very connected to the central character and if anything, by the end, I understand him better than at the beginning of the chapter.

Also, on the character recovery thing, know what would really make my day? A main character who actually manages to suffer serious, lasting injury (if not permanent), not just assorted cuts and bruises that mystically heal by the next chapter.

Trust me, I've cut myself a lot of time to a variety of depths with a wide assortment of bladed impliments, and all them take way longer to heal than you'd think. I accidentally jumped on a sythe blade two years ago now, it cut through half an inch of rubber boot and took my big toe half off. Took about two weeks before I could walk normally again, and it still feels funny. Sure we get the occasional broken bone, but then most of the time the book flat out skips the convalensce period, apparently because it is boring. People, this is a first class chance for a bit of character development. Show how your character deals with being more or less helpless, and having to ask other people to do things for them that they can normally do themselves. Show how much it freaking hurts to have a broken bone- I distinctly remember after I broke my left collarbone I slipped and threw out my left arm to catch myself. This was followed by me sitting down and sobbing for about three minutes. This also occured in front of my best friend. Not my proudest moment, that. Would be a good chance to establish your character, and your characters's relationships with others.

[Trizap]

I feel this (http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/) is relevant to your interests.

now for long post on my answers:

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
I will make sure some fight or other breaks out
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
no.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No.
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
No.
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No, I hate that concept
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
NO!
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
the heck? no!
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
no.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No.
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No. "Crazy evil wizard" does.....for one the protagonists
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
no
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No.
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No.
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No.
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
..............OK OK! I admit I'm a sucker for Amazons!!
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No.
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
half elves are blasphemy
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
.......ummmm.....they are neutral towards each other, since answering it with "no they hate each other" would still be a cliche
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No.
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
whats a hay baler?
26. 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"?
No maps, they are blasphemy
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
Not to self: make a good prologue people can understand
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No. Trilogies are bad
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
They are bad.
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
NO!
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No.
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
Noes
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
No, thank you very much
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
what roleplaying group?
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
fantasy and real world should remain seperate
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
no, I'm fairly annoyed with those too
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Sel-en-dri-a......damnit
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
I see a lot of things wrong
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
me no think so.
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
no.
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
half stuff is blasphemy
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
what dwarven mines?
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No.
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No.
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
yes I know how feudalism works! won't go into it now though
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
.....maybe....
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
NO
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
whats wrong with that? can't I have destructive Pyromaniac/electromaniacs?
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
what is this mana you speak of?
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
whats this plate mail you speak of?
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
NOOO!!! you think me stupid?
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
yes, its heavy.
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No, they are animals
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
c'mon thats unrealistic.
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No, Wulfgar much?
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No, Drizzt much?
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
No, but they will knock them over so they can't get up then rip off their helmet and stab them in the head. or smash them open with a mace.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
Maybe.....
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No.
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No, people can be killed with one arrow
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
yes I do
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No. Icewind Dale much?
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
There is no mead
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No, they have multiple countries, each having multiple rulers, while religions are not bound by race.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
There is no thieves guild
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No, they are machiavellian and and say "hm you made a mistake, but people make mistakes and that is acceptable, just be sure to learn from your mistake in the future"
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No, any bards will be killed
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
........No....
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No. they were plundered eons ago
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
I hate LOTR
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
I hate LOTR

[GrassyGnoll]

It may seem painfully obvious but vary sentence structure. Case in point, the Eye of Argon (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Misc/Eye_Of_The_Argon).

Fanfiction is a cancer. Do not contribute to it. It is a horrible writing exercise.

This page (http://springhole.net/wiki/index.php/Showing_VS_Telling). Know the difference, it could save your life one day.

Flow before verbosity. I have a friend who believes heightened language determines the quality of a sentence. His papers look like a dictionary threw up.

Rap/hip-hop is a surprisingly helpful media to express meter and polish diction. Look up Danger Doom, Gnarls Barkley, and MC Frontalot.

There are 30-something laws governing the use of commas. Get an editor.

[Ozymandias]

(Ironically, as an aside, the most recent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel referenced "hit points" several times.)

[Trizap]

(Ironically, as an aside, the most recent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel referenced "hit points" several times.)

(if it wasn't Terry Pratchett, he doesn't deserve it)

[streakster]

now for long post on my answers:

<long post is long>


You'll do fine. I'm giving you a 93 on the exam.

PS - And you have a crazy evil wizard protagonist? Sold! I'll read it!

[Ozymandias]

(if it wasn't Terry Pratchett, he doesn't deserve it)

He most certainly did deserve it - it's a fantastic novel. I love Pratchett dearly, but he's more of a "lifetime achievement in satire and fiction" than "single defining work of genius" kind of guy.

[Haruki-kun]

Questions I responded to with "Yes":

7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
26. 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"?
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?

Not bad... but I'm not sure if number 65 should count. I mean, seriously, that's not ripping off Tolkien, that's just good use of Suspension of Disbelief.

....Everyone's a critic. :smalltongue:

[streakster]

Questions I responded to with "Yes":

<Summary!>

Oooh, 85. Still solid though.

And the stew thing will only bother those who have made stew. So its an iffy one.

[Trizap]

You'll do fine. I'm giving you a 93 on the exam.

PS - And you have a crazy evil wizard protagonist? Sold! I'll read it!

one of the protagonists, close friend of the central character, who is about as morally upright as ummmm...............a grey stick bent in half, at a ninety degree angle. basically all the characters would be morally grey or something, y'know, don't want black/white mentality thing catching, so someone who is downright evil (but smart evil, not cliched evil) would fit.

as the saying goes "there is no black or white; only different shades of grey"

[SmartAlec]

Do not be afraid of editing yourself, or of rewrites.

[doliest]

Actually I'm somewhat considering trying to write a book, since when I find a subject I like I can write large amounts on it. I once wrote a story in some fantasy setting where the main character's were a group of leprechan asassins sent after santa who was setting up a dictatorship, and was hoping for some advice on stretching things out longer than, say, ten pages?

[ForzaFiori]

I disagree with #58, "Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?". Contrary to popular belief, you CAN stab with a scimitar, its just harder than with a straight sword.

[Trizap]

I disagree with #58, "Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?". Contrary to popular belief, you CAN stab with a scimitar, its just harder than with a straight sword.

....hmm I thought that question had to do with Drizzt or something....

[streakster]

I disagree with #58, "Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?". Contrary to popular belief, you CAN stab with a scimitar, its just harder than with a straight sword.

You can, yes. You can also go into battle wielding a muffin tin. It is not recommended.

[ghost_warlock]

I feel this (http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/) is relevant to your interests.


Ever since J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created the worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia, it seems like every windbag off the street thinks he can write great, original fantasy, too. The problem is that most of this "great, original fantasy" is actually poor, derivative fantasy. Frankly, we're sick of it, so we've compiled a list of rip-off tip-offs in the form of an exam. We think anybody considering writing a fantasy novel should be required to take this exam first. Answering "yes" to any one question results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once.

Personally, I think this test is derivative and, therefore, should obviously be abandoned at once. :smalltongue:

For the 3% of the playground that isn't savvy, tvtropes.org (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitle6y3x5fn1bzst?from=Main.WritersToolbox) is also a good resource for writers.

[Hell Puppi]

You can, yes. You can also go into battle wielding a muffin tin. It is not recommended.

...and now, I want to write a character that does that.

[ghost_warlock]

You can, yes. You can also go into battle wielding a muffin tin. It is not recommended.

...and now, I want to write a character that does that.

Don't the Discworld dwarves already go one step further by using the muffins themselves as weapons? :smallconfused:

[Knaight]

I disagree with #58, "Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?". Contrary to popular belief, you CAN stab with a scimitar, its just harder than with a straight sword.

Considering that it works best as a cavalry weapon in the first place, I'm seeing issues here. Either your on the ground using a scimitar, which is not a good place to be anyways, or your trying to stab someone with a sword while riding by them, and presumably you want to keep the sword.

[Hell Puppi]

Damn you, Terry Pratchett! *shakes fist*

Seriously, I've only gotten through the first couple of Diskworld novels. It pains me to think that every funny idea has already been taken by him.

[Gavin Sage]

Personally, I think this test is derivative and, therefore, should obviously be abandoned at once. :smalltongue:

If one takes it seriously then certainly!

[Jayngfet]

No large inhabited underground area's. Ignoring everything wrong with the individual cultures you still need light for vitamin D. Drow should be breaking their legs just walking(though the levetation bit may help nobles).

Hmm, I wanted to make a story:

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
No.
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
Hell no.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Do I look stupid to you?
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No.
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
Who needs magic when a good weapon will do the job?
6. How about one that will destroy it?
No.
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No, any characters who know things are either there all the time or one shot antagonists.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
One, at the very end who shows up as a backround character a few times.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
Luke, I am you're cliche.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
Nien.
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
Only if you add the term doppleganger rapist baby.
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
Generic tripe.
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Does being a cosmic horror from an alternate universe slash catgirl count as personal and mysterious?
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Female apperances can be boiled down to the glowing albino, screw the rules I have green hair, and shapeshifter(s?)
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
One gets captured once near the beginning, that's it.
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Why take up the sword in the first place.
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
One, but replace sword with +9 chainsaw.
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
Does dour mean child molester?
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
Maybe, but I'm not sure what to do with that character.
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
My elves and dwarves are the same species(so are every other fantasy creature really).
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
Ships never come up.
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Wut?
26. 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"?
Once, for a DND world, which I immediately changed.
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
Still working on the proligue, which is in a way supposed to be like that.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No.
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
Two books tops and a spinoff series twenty minutes into the future as the most.
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
Wouldn't know, never seen one.
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
My writing style is to the point.
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
Maybe...
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
If any groups I've been in could hold intrest to get through anything longer than the rat lords layer I'll think about it.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
The reverse, I find the opposite opens way more idea's.
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
For comedic effect, since they based their names off bad fantasy novels.
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
One, arguably.
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Depends, are they at the border of countries? Did one come from far away? Did the latter's parents have a mental disease?
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Yes.
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Yes.
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
Not using half.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
Dwarves are psychic, can make diamond heard material with their brain, and can phase through walls, what do they need mines for?
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
I do it as a real fight.
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No.
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Brwals, no. To be leveled as a demonic mutant symbiote rampages? Yes.
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
A highschool class and wikipedia solved that.
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
What's holding them up?
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No.
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Not magic based but yes.
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
As a joke.
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
I find the postal system tedious.
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Can't a character play his XBox in peace?
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Who needs enough gold for it to matter?
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
If the horses are a cosmic horror and a shapeshifting creature made by a blasphamous god does it count?
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Do I look like salvatore?
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
One, but it's just some mook. The main character with the same power never thinks to do the same thing.
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
Scimitars don't work like that.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Plate armor? No. Shell made from demons? Hell yes.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
I don't do that much romance.
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
Can I substitute dagger for chainsaw?
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No, but it's best to play it safe.
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
I realize.
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No, nor do dwarves drink.
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
Do you think "rum" is a fancy name for "mead"? Do I look like I work for Wotc?
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
nO.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No thieves guild.
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
When you have so few people a light beating is better.
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
What if the bard can grow batwings and claws? Plus heal any wound?
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
No.
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No.
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
Never finished LOTOR.
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
You heard me.

I substituted novel with webcomic, sue me.

Would anyone even be interested in this?

[Hell Puppi]

Great, now I have to do it too :smalltongue: (by the way I apologize if I'm posting a lot in this thread. I'm actually trying to write right now and this is giving my brain a break while still actually seeming like work).

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Talking dead deer head, random assault by a stranger, some dog-like monster who act like puppies...but really, nothing important so far. I'm working on it
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
...no?
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Nope.
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
Gains some power for a significant loss, may possibly defeat badguy?
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
Nope. Does a small side quest for books about magic.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
Errr...nope
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No prophecies. Ever.
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
There's a guy who does that, but it's not his sole purpose. He's mainly just being a jerk.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
Two, actually, though they get out of the disguises quite quickly.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
Nope
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
Nope. Deluded by his own hatred!
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
Nope. Overly-talkative student wizard, but he's not forgetful
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
Noooooo
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Again that might describe the guy who is doing it just to be a jerk.I wouldn't call him a sage though. He's lying most of the time.
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Nope.
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
Yep...damn!
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
ummm..nope
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Nope
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
heck no?
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No dwarves, sorry
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
I'm not really fond of elves, so I don't think they'd last long if I put 'em in the story
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
They can be great friends in some other story?
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
Ships...ships...don't think we got those
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
lolwut?
26. 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"?
There's The Wilderness. Not sure if that counts.
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No prologue, you get thrown in along with the main character
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
not sure how long it will take to write it all out
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
dear god I hope not
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
I am not Stephen King
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
Still working on the first. Hopefully something exciting happens now that you've taken away my rescue of someone and my jerk by saying they're cliches =P
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No, that would be silly for this story
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
If I was I wouldn't need you, testy thing
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
Hmmm....nope. They would've killed everything by now.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
Transported to a slightly different world, along with a LOT of others.
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
nope. I like simple names
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Bartholomew...we calls him Barty
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Ones named Tim and the other is Belthy, problem solved.
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
nope
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
nope
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
There's a halfbreed. Well, not anymore, blood's intermixed too much between the 2 races. So now there's 'obviously has more of X' people. It'd be like calling someone a half-African, just kind of weird.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
no dwarves. There might be ancient caverns though
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No?
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
Nope. I did mock up one, but that was for a homebrew I made and I couldn't think of a good swordsman, so I stuck in what I thought a certain character would be.
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
nope
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
There's a fight at a goth club. Well mainly it's the main character running away from someone.
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
No I don't, that's why I made up my own empire.
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
one wanders around, but she kinda has to
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No. Barty kinda blurts everything out.
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Nope, and the main character is pissed that they don't
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
Yup, it's the term used for a type of fuel, like oil or gas.
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
Nope. Body armor, though
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Not unless one of the characters is trying to describe something to another, i don't think
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
it's soft and heavy and no one uses it?
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Vampire horses do :smallwink:
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Nope.
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
I don't think my main character even has a weapon. I should give her a crowbar.
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
nope
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Nope
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No, unless it's some sort of ceremonial sword that goes over your fireplace.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
A main character previously fell in love with one, and it ended very badly for him. He's kinda pissed.
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
My loathing of puns knows no bounds.
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
Nope.
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No, but it's best to play it safe. <--I like your answer
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Yeah. The pot would suck to carry around too.
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No.
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No, I respect mead too much
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
nope.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No thieves guild.
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No, he just kind of causes death. It makes his job easier.
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
Nah
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
Nope
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No.
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No?
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
I did, damn you

[Kaihaku]

It may seem painfully obvious but vary sentence structure. Case in point, the Eye of Argon (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Misc/Eye_Of_The_Argon).

Fanfiction is a cancer. Do not contribute to it. It is a horrible writing exercise.

This page (http://springhole.net/wiki/index.php/Showing_VS_Telling). Know the difference, it could save your life one day.

Flow before verbosity. I have a friend who believes heightened language determines the quality of a sentence. His papers look like a dictionary threw up.

Rap/hip-hop is a surprisingly helpful media to express meter and polish diction. Look up Danger Doom, Gnarls Barkley, and MC Frontalot.

Good advise.


There are 30-something laws governing the use of commas. Get an editor.

Oh commas... I misuse them so. :smallfrown:

[Trizap]

just thought up of some by myself

4: no black/white mentality (thats a given)

5: Repeat after me: characters first, world second, plot third

6. no flatsies: keep characters round.

7. for gods sake, NO OVERLY VILLAINOUS SPEECHES, COMPLICATED DEATH TRAPS OR RIDICULOUS EVIL SCHEMES!! (although, this probably applies to other mediums more than novels....)

8. thoroughly read and study the Inheritance Cycle, then do the exact opposite of whatever Paolini does. (for example if Paolini were to write a story about dog, you should go do a story about a cat)

[Kaihaku]

5: Repeat after me: characters first, world second, plot third

:smallconfused:

[Jayngfet]

I do world first, characters second, plot third.

[Kaihaku]

I do world first, characters second, plot third.

Yeah...

The world forms the characters, the characters form the plot.

[LurkerInPlayground]

You know, with fantasy novel checklists for Mary-Suedom being so long, you'd almost expect it to be simpler to know *what* to do instead of what not to do.

[Kaihaku]

Don't write fanficition starring yourself in a world ripped off of someone else.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I only skimmed the thread, but as an amateur writer I'm eager to share my thoughts. I hope I'm not just repeating anyone.

1. Write, write, write. The hardest part of being a writer is actually writing. Everyone, everyone has "a really great idea for a story" or thinks at some point that they can be a writer. The difference between writers and these people is that writers write. There are a rare few writers who write very little (Earnest Hemingway reputedly went long stretches without writing, and would work on his novels as slowly as 200 words a day). But I would not recommend this route. As Neil Geiman once said, "you've got to write, and you've got to write something to the finish. There's no magic elves to come and finish that manuscript you've got locked away in the night." I'm paraphrasing, but the importance of his point can't be underestimated. You should approach your writing like it's a real job, with a regular set of hours you have to put in every day.

Steven King, in On Writing (great book, was a huge help to me) recommends imposing a half-hour out of every day where you sit down and force yourself to write. Don't pause to think, just scribble (or type) out the words as they come and force yourself to be relentless. Eventually, you should build this up to an hour, then two, and eventually try to write for at least four hours a day. Prolificness helps in several regards:

-The more you write, the better you get. As you parse the words in your mind, you should become better at setting a sentence in the best way, deciding what details to include and what to excise.
-Putting your thoughts out on paper can help you organize them, and gives you a kind of "third person view" once you see them in front of your eyes. You might realize that line of dialogue that sounded great in your head reads as ridiculous, or sits awkwardly on the page. You might realize you skipped over a major plot point, or find yourself picking holes in the story you didn't realize were there.
-Ideas, like plants, flourish when tended and wither when neglected. The longer you let that great idea sit in your head, the fainter it eventually becomes, until it's only a vague memory. Conversely, sitting down and picking up where you left off the very next day gives you time to think between writings, and lets the ideas stay fresh and vibrant in your head.

2. Revise, revise, revise. This is undoubtedly the hardest part of writing. Sometimes squeezing out the words can be as hard as squeezing blood from a stone, and when you've suffered to fill out a page, going back over it can feel like a Sisyphan task. Nevertheless, no writer on earth is so good that they can't stand some revision after the first draft. When you look back over what you've written, you'll inevitably see some sentences that can be made more clear, where a better word could have been used, or something that should be emphasized more or simply harms the flow of the story and should be pruned altogether.

(Conversely, some writers can take this too far. If you find yourself on the third or fourth rewrite and still feel your story can be made better, you should realize that at some point you have to declare it "good enough" and move on.)

Revising takes an objective, critical eye. You need to be harsh on yourself (but not too harsh!) In order to achieve this, I find it's best to put something down for a while after you've completed your first draft. Wait a while--a few days at least, maybe even a few weeks. Then come back to it. You'll look at your work from a more distant, objective and critical place. Read it with the eye of someone with no emotional attachment to the work--sure, you think something is cool, emotionally evocative, richly poetic or whatever--but will someone who doesn't have your sensibilities or experiences agree?

3. Have faith in your ability to revise. Don't worry about making the first draft perfect. The first draft should be when you're the most free. Write anything that comes into your head. A flourish of language, a simile you like, stylistic choices that could be risky. The first draft is where you throw in everything, including the kitchen sink. If you're not certain about how such and such a line will read, although you think it might work, go ahead and throw it in. You'll be able to judge later.

4. There are no hard and fast rules to good writing. While bugaboos like exposition, purple prose and telling instead of showing are almost universally reviled by critics and writing workshops, remember this. Every "rule" can be broken, if you do it with style. "But what if they think my main character is a Mary Sue?" is not the first criteria you should worry about--just worry about being good.


5. Do the research. The more you know about the world outside you, the bigger your internal world will get. Study a bit of everything--history, science, philosophy--they can contain great idea-germs for stories. ("What if X theoretical particle was discovered?" "What if the British had been prepared at Valley Forge?" "What if Plato's Realm of Ideallic Forms really existed?" etc.)

This also means going outside. Watch and observe people. The way they move, the way they talk and interact---these things will help you flesh out strong characters who feel like real people. Study anything and everything. Learn how forest ecologies work, how a house is really built, so on--all these little details can resurface in your story, creating a world that feels as real as our own. The world you create will be much richer and more fleshed out if you know you're picturing, say, a forest of "tangled blackthorns under yawning maples" as opposed to say, "a forest of vines and trees."

5. Fanfiction is not inherantly bad, despite what some may think. If you have something to say about the original story, if you think you can tell it well and entertain someone, then why not? I don't think anyone would call Johnathon Lydgate a hack poet, but some of his most famous stuff is essentially Chaucer fanfiction (he was a friend of Chaucer's), and he had his own points to make using the milleu of Chaucer's iconic characters. Or what if the Cthulhu cycle had simply ended with H.P Lovecraft's death? We wouldn't have the expanded stories about Shub-Niggurath, Nyarlathotep and Azathoth if August Derleth hadn't begun penning his Cthulhu-mythos "fanfiction," inspiring other writers (some of considerable talent) to adapt the Cthulhu-mythos to their own stories and fit in a broader (and awesome) universe. Timothy Zhan's popular trilogy, the brilliant comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, John Milton's Paradise Lost, all of these things are "fanfiction," adopting and playing off the ideas of other writers. Works of fiction are not vacuum-sealed islands, and it would be a poorer literary world if they were!

That's everything I can think of. There isn't a lot to it, in the end, because creative writing is not a technical exercise. There's no codex of rules to follow, no surefire recipe for a good novel. You can avoid every "pitfall" that's commonly associated with hack writing and still produce utter drivel if you don't have a story worth telling. Or you can write something utterly by-the-numbers, that uses every trope of its genre, and if done with style, enthusiasm and a deft touch it can still entertain and inspire.

EDIT: D'oh, I wrote all this and I ended up misunderstanding the thread after all. Well, hope some of these are helpful anyway.

[Piedmon_Sama]

And what the hell, just for fun I thought I'd fill this out....

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
50 pages is where most of the action I’ve thought of takes place. The rest... I’m working on.
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
He’s an apprentice mechanic, and his geneology is quite well recorded. He IS the archetypical unassuming young commoner unknowingly destined for greatness, but I want to specifically play off and subvert that trope.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Not at all.
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
Well, yes. See above.
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
Well, sort of. It’s “lost technology” and actually it’s employed by the hero and the villains of the story. I suppose no, because they’re simply tools for the characters and not the focus of the plot.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
They could, potentially.
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No-one forsaw any of this plot coming.
Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No, the plot is set up early on and pretty straightforward from there.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No. There may be an Elvis impersonator.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
Nope.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No, the only monarch in the story is the villain, and there are no other countries; just small towns dotting the landscape.
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No, almost all the characters are soldiers and quite competent.
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
No, everyone is mentally as well as professionally competent.
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No. The heroes do pick up a wandering monk, but he's not in on the plot... or much of anything.
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No. They're too busy milking cows and sewing buttonholes or whatever.
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
Well, yes, but that’s because they’re defenseless villagers and they’re imperiled along with their fellow townsfolk.
Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
There’s no place for ideals in MY--er, no.
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Well, yes, but again that’s because they’re civilians and no more helpless than the male ones.
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Well, yes, but that’s because they’re not major characters and don’t have enough screentime to get fully fleshed-out.
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No.
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No.
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
There are no sapient species in the story except humans... (I can tell this test isn’t very well adapted for science fiction).
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No, there are child characters and they can be funny and endearing, but they’re not clowns.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
A wide variety of vehicles appear in the story, for manifold industrial and military purposes.
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Many, MANY centuries before my story takes place.
26. 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"?
No, everything has really boring names like “American colony pod 8” and “Stumptown.”
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
I think the first part of the story sets up the setting pretty well. Hell, there’s a classroom scene in Chapter 1.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No, I don’t want to do any sequels--honestly, this setting was made for one story and that’s all it will have.
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
See above.
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
I’m going to do my best to keep it thin.
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
You’re getting a little offensive!
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
See above, jerk!
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
You caught me! That which is dead cannot die...
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
Oh my goodness, no. Not nearly enough crotch-grabs and poop jokes.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
The main character lives in our world, but people say he’s always off in his own....
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
Yes, because they’re of Mexican ancestry and they use the double-surname convention.
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Yes. There are Spanish, Hindu and Arab characters with traditional names... not everyone is a “James Smith” you know.
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
I think it’s pretty well explained by dint of said villages being colonies.
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
No.
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Just humans! Boring, I know.
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
Some characters are half-Mexican. Though you could call them Half-American, too. Guess whoever set up the colony gets the right.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No, but there are subterranean passages. Enclosed and poorly-lit spaces are easy to describe, it’s a good writing trick.
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.... the novel was sort of “inspired by” an RPG but I quickly left the source material behind.
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
Well, it’s not my favorite. Like I said, I quickly forgot all about the RPG inspiration, you wouldn’t be able to guess it from reading.
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
I wish!
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
The main character is under the drinking age, so you’ll never know!
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
I’d be a pretty poor Medieval Studies major if I didn’t.
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
Well, yes. I mean, you may think the Adventures of Jim the Stay-at-Home Bartender are groundbreaking but I don’t think it would go over with the publishers too well. Besides, criminals have to move around a lot and the main characters are.
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No--that happens, but it’s because of the characters’ traits, not the demands of the plot.
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
No, although some characters have psychic powers and they’re not hard to identify as “telekinesis,” “pyrokinesis,” “necrokinesis,” etc. (what, you don’t know necrokinesis?)
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
It may come up in church.
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
A lot of the body-armor used is technically armor-of-plates, but no.
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
“Okay, see that button, marked 'points?' Now, hit ‘points...’ good.”
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
People in this setting are much more concerned with harvesting their crops than trekking out to distant and monster-filled mountains for gold that may or may not exist.
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Well, the draft horses the villagers use will put in a solid ten hour work-day....
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Yes, because he’s a cyborg... oh, wait, make love? No, he’s a cyborg...
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
He’s a fourteen year old kid, he wouldn’t know what to do with one of those if he had one.
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
I may include that now, for the hilarity.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Well, as much as you can “stab” with a shove of telekinesis.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
No.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
Yes. Sometimes love conquers all, is that so bad?
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
Define “large...”
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
He’s tough, you know, for a fourteen year old kid, but he’s not going to get up from a strong adult’s blow (as he learns the hard way).
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No, but it's best to play it safe. <-----Thirded.
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
It’s only a poor choice if you’re too poor to have your servants start making it for you beforehand!
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No, they live in armored RVs and brew ‘shine in their bathtubs. Totally original!
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No, it’s something far, far worse.
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
Well, that’s the villain’s goal, but no.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
The only cities large enough to potentially have them are well past the “guild” stage of economic/social development.
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
Not at all, he’s actually kind of a nice guy. Shame about the whole neo-fascist world-domination thing he’s into.
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
Nope, the “party bard” can hold his own [i]and entertain the troops after ass has been sufficiently kicked.
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
I have way too much respect for cultural diversity... possibly more than is realistic/healthy.
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No, the only tombs are in the cities and they don’t take kindly to destruction of civic property.
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No!
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
Well, Star Wars, a little.

[TheBST]

If your plot involves amnesia, you don't have a plot.

[Mx.Silver]

Ooh, exams.

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Nope

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No

3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Hahahaha... No

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No

5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No

6. How about one that will destroy it?
Again, no.

7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No, it's more fun to keep the reader guessing anyway.

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No, if only by virtue of the world not containing any gods.

10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No.

11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
Umm.. No?

12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No.

13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
If you crossed out the slow and kind-hearted part and replaced it with murderous and egomaniacal.

14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Not really.

15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No, not even the one who gets her eye removed.

16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
NO!

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No. I know what dark places that road leads *coughTehanucough*

18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Clumsy is not generally a quality you'd look for in a cook and no.

19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Not particularly. None of them use swords for one thing.

20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No.

21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No!

22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
No.

23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
The only characters under four feet tall are children and no.

24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
I know it's a lot later than some fiction would have you believe.

26. 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"?
No.

27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
Nope.

28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No. I don't see anything wrong with them but I'm not going that way.

29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
I haven't really planed much in the way of sequels.

30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
Doubt it.

31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
What previous book?

32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
Why would anyone do that?

33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
Ye- I mean No! Definitely not.

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
I don't do role-playing.

35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No.

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No because it's stupid.

37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
No.

38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
No. There is so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
None whatsoever.

40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Nope.

41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
Given the races involved in the world that would be impossible. Which is probably just as well.

42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No.

43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
I don't do RPGs.

44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
See above.

45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
Not that I'm aware of. Unless they're sneakily controlling my brain! Argh! Get out of my head! Get out of my head!

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Nope.

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
No. Not that it matters anyway as the setting isn't medieval

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
No, most of the action takes place in one area.

49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No.

50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
No. Magic works a little differently.

51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
Never.

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No.

53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Has anyone ever done that?

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
No, I know it's weight.

55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
no.

56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Nope.

57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No.

58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
Why would anyone try to stab someone with a scimitar? Just look at the damn thing!

59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
No.

60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No, and I've known that for a while.

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
Given my cast? I think not.

62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No.

64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No.
.
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
I've actually cooked stew before.

66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
Tundra isn't very common in the world in question.

67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No.

68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
NO!

69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
What thieves guild?

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No, but then again said mistakes aren't often made.

71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
:smallconfused: The hell?

72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
Oh for the love of- no.

73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
Nah, it's mostly wilderness.

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
Nope.

75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
It's not. Honest.

[Raz_Fox]

Well, I'm a young fledgling writer, so using a novel idea I'm still nurturing and growing I'll run through this.

Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
No. There'll be assassination and political intrigue.

Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No. He's not a farmhand. :smallbiggrin:

Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Not by the start of the novel...

Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No, it's about a rebellion and a young lad who'll do all of that by accident.

Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No.

How about one that will destroy it?
No.

Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.

Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No. The only character even close to this is also comic relief.

Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No.

Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
He isn't even married. He's barely of age to do so anyway.

Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
Not really. The (late) king was wily as well as kindly.

Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No. I've got a pair of wizard twins who are dark and light skinned and alturistic and greedy respectively.

How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
You kidding? He's losing his power but he's still quick. He's also slightly ruthless.

How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No.

Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Only one main character so far is female, and she's a wandering vagrant and secretly a were-fox. So, no.

Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
Yes. Wait, you said to be rescued, not doing the rescuing. :smalltongue:

Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No, at least not that I know.

Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No.

Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Closer to "cunning swashbuckler more comfortable with a rapier, but also knows how to cook meals for two."

Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No. There are none.

How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
Elves are magically-created bastards, so no.

Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
Again, no dwarves.

Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
There is no-one under four feet tall.

Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No, trade is a vital part of the economy.

Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
I don't know that, actually.

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"?
Not yet... :smallamused:

Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No. It should be understandable by the first few chapters.

Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
Depends on how much I like it. I don't have a trilogy planned yet...

How about a quintet or a decalogue?
Nope. Not yet, at least.

Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
Probably not until the editing stages.

Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
What book? My only published work was a self-contained short story.

Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.

Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
I am Raz_Fox. Not RJ in any way.

Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
What role-playing group? :smallfrown:

Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No. Fantasy realm to fantasy realm, however...
I name no names.

Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
Kek'in is one of the main characters, but he's the only one. Well, except for the insectoid mercenary. (Maybe, it's slipped my memory.)

Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
No.

Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
It depends. What is the culture of said village, when was it conquered by northerners and when was it settled by southerners?

Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
No. Shifters and Thri-Kreen (by other names) though.

How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Kinda. See above.

Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No.

At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
WHAT DWARVES??

Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.

Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.

Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
I don't think so. :smalleek: I really don't think so.

Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No. So that they can meet in an upstairs room, get found by the "royal guard" hunting them down, duel up and down the stairs, jump out of windows and walls and burn the place down. :smallbiggrin:

Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
I know how it works. :smallannoyed: The medieval era is my speciality when it comes to history.

Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
I don't think so. It's all focused on one city and its surroundings.

Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
Not really. Justin's slightly paranoid - that's a reason, right?

Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Kathor casts fireballs often. Aran acts more like a Fire Emblem priest.

Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No.

Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
Not yet. It's probably going to be a chainmail based army.

Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
No.

Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
I don't know. Yet.

Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Yes. If you don't mind it collapsing of exhaustion at the end of the day.

Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
No. My characters won't have sex at the drop of a hammer.

Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
That might be a good idea for Rasira - she's got as many tricks as Jarlaxle.

Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
Maybe. X'brn uses four scimitars, so he might stab occasionally while doing his blender imitation.

Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Rasira's too cunning to stab straight through armor. The neck and under the arm work a lot better.

Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
They can be heavy - they're sodding hunks of metal you're swinging about.

Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
Kek'in is the only one in the novel who might do this. Probably with Rasira, who's not unattainable, who's slightly clueless when it comes to love.

Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No. The characters. (The lazy high priest, the alien Kith X'brn, the greedy amoral Aran River, the witty duo Rasira and Kek'in... Justin is The Only Sane Man.)

Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
Depends where that dagger is. Really though, the only one able to do that would be X'brn.

Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
Not [I]frequently, but it might.

Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Kinda common sense there. Then again, do you need a good stew?

Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No. Elves don't drink... mead...

Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
*Teacher mode* Mead is a mildly alchoholic drink made with honey.

Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No.

Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
There is no thieves' guild in Dawn.

Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No. Demotion works so much better. The threat of death, however... Oh yes, that can be a powerful tool to keep people in line...

Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
Hey, Kek'in's not a bard!

Is "common" the official language of your world?
No. It's Trading tongue.

Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
Of course not.

Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
I try not to... that series is just so wonderful... *puppy-dog eyes*

Read that question again and answer truthfully.
Really, I'm going for more of an Eddings or Fiest feel with this one.
Would I lie to you?

[Evil DM Mark3]

I too wanted to make a story:

Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
In the first fifty pages we get the background, the plot, a skirmish and a council of war.
Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
One of the main characters left the farm because the army paid better and she is a bastard...
Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Her father might be the Duke Swiftsabre, but then again that goes for about 10% of all bastards in the Swiftsabre Duchy.
Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No.
Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No it is about a war.
How about one that will destroy it?
No it is about a war.
Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.
Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No, although there are background characters (like officers and important guildmages) who give orders. Does that count?
Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
The existence of gods is uncertain.
Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
There is theoreticaly a chance, but it is not the intention.
Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
The Guild Troth makes specific previsions to prevent this. Also Emperour Grimfist was never "kindly".
Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No.
How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
Short answer no.
How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Long answer nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oo.
Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Only when it comes to the traditional regimental warpaint. She has her pride.
Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No.
Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.
Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Why would she be in a war?
Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
She joined the army. I would hope she would cover at least some of this.
Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
There are dwarves. They are private people. They are a background feature at best.
How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
Elves cannot interbreed with anything else.
Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
No one likes elves. Enter elven woods and you are most likely to end up buried alive under an oak.
Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
Well, some of the children might be a bit funny, but no not really.
Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
"The Boatmen" or, their own name for themselves, The "Boulmerts", form a significant part of the character cast and are famous traders, among other things.
Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
I take it you mean, will I mention hay bales? No I won't.
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"?
The setting is adapted from a DnD setting of mine. There is an area known as the Wyld lands and one of Doom. The Spire of Doom was named such by a PR savvy warlord centuries ago. A lampshade is hung.
Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
The only prologue is a brief passage on the founding of the Empire and the signing and purpose of the Guild Troth. This explains certain things that would otherwise be confusing.
Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
I have other ideas but no trilogy planned and they may not even use the all of/any of same characters.
How about a quintet or a decalogue?
See above.
Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
I doubt it.
Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
My other attempts at fiction include some Sci-fi and an abondoned work that I am re-using ideas from.
Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
I think I just answered that.
Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
Que?
Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
It might have been if I could, oh, I don't know, invent a whole new system.
Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
2 letters, the negative, starts with n.
Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
Names are made up of letters.
Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Jeremiah and Alexander.
Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
lemmie think of all the things wrong: Clearly different first naming tradition. Clearly different second naming tradition. Clearly different native language. Quite possibly a mile wide gap in parents intelect (Tim is a contraction and I think and IQ of 130 odd needed to remember the other) Clearly from different nations. Belthusalanthalus
Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Yes but they are almost extinct thanks to the Hobgoblins, Yes and they are bastards, Yes and no.
How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Wha?
Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
There are Halflanders, but they are people from the halfland, not a species.
At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
Mines go down. There are no places of interest below the coal strata.
Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
I would need to invent the system first.
Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
I would need to invent the system first.
Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No.
Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Inns exist to make journeys along long roads more feasable.
Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
The political system is not traditional feudalism.
Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
They do travel, some stuff happens. The longest journey is about a fortnight.
Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
My characters possess an IQ greater than 3.
Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Yes. Pyromancers have a tendency to throw fire at people. Aviomancers can cause lighting (but this is much rarer)
Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
The members of the covens refer to the four stages of a spell as "Mana, Thought, Form and Motion." The Guild mages call them "Pressence, Contact, Induction and Release." Its just a name. For reference it goes Draw raw magic in in a way that won't burn your soul. Mind contacts raw magic in a way that won't obliterate your mind. Shape raw magic. Let go in a way that won't tear your mind out.
Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No but I don't see the problem with the term. It is not the correct name for plate armour (this might have been what you meant) but rather what was called Tatami Dô in Japan.
Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
There is a duel where each fighter has five "hits" in a manner not dissilar to modern fencing.
Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Gold is heavy. Gold is also not very interesting.
Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Only if he is a Animancer in the form of a horse.
Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Alexander could if he wanted to, but as a Vitamancers he can put magic straight into his (or others) bodies, most usually used for healing. He can also lift twice his own bodyweight above his head if he commits enough to it. Can't see why he ever will mind you.
Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
Boomerang axes, I might mention that in explaining why magic weapons are rare, ie they are more trouble than they are worth. Imagine not catching the retuning axe? I mean it would be coming in at about eye level...
Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
Your non-euclidian scimitars worry me.
Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armour?
Yes. With a Stiletto. It is what they are designed for.
Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
Not human swords. Giants exist, somewhere, and one of their swords is on display in a building the heroes visit.
Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
No.
Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
They are not punny.
Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
Oddly enough yes, thanks to certain magics she has resistance to brute force, but a carefully placed blow, say with a dagger to the eye, can still kill her.
Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
One arrow in the chest can kill a man. Alternatively three can be survived, at least for a while.
Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
I do. On the river meals though...
Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No. The peoples of the Fairfrost and Icewater duchys are among the more restrained people of The Empire.
Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
Mead, sometimes called Honey Wine, is nothing beer.
Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
It is mostly humans Vs humans with Hoboblin mercenaries. No race has one unified nation.
Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
Thieves' guild? There are about 3 people who can use that with a straight face, it's the law.
Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
Um, why would he?
Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
Dunkan is a Sonomancer, sort of like a bard. He does use music as a weapon, because that is what Sonomancers do. He is far from useless.
Is "common" the official language of your world?
There is no common or common stand in.
Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
There are the Royal tombs, but any tomb that has treasure must have crazy powerful ghosts and the Necromancer's Guild has no interest in making work for themsleves by disturbing them.
Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
He got a good idea and failed to write it well.
Read that question again and answer truthfully.
He had no idea how to write.

[Kaihaku]

Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
He got a good idea and failed to write it well.
Read that question again and answer truthfully.
He had no idea how to write.

hahaha.

I am intrigued how so many amateur writers dismiss one of the most popular and influential authors of the last century as having 'no idea how to write'. I'm glad you people don't usually read Asimov, your esteemed opinions on that author would probably be wasted on me. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of others around the world who actually thought Tolkien and Asimov were great authors. Silly us.

[Quezovercoatl]

Still very much in the proto stage of the writing, also spoilerised for length

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
No
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No
6. How about one that will destroy it?
No
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
“Forgetful”? hell no, but “Ultra driven and single minded” dose apply to almost all of them
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
Not as anything more than a minor character.
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Am toying with the idea of someone trying to do the “you must discover the rest of it by your self” thing until the hroes decide to beat it out of him.
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
Not unless you want to grossly oversimplify them.
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No, Elves and Humans can not inter breed and even if they could good bloody hell NO
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
Guilty
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Late 1800’s I think
26. 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"?
Hell no
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
No
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
No
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
No
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No no a thousand times no
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Yes. What’s wrong with that? four syllables too much for you too read?
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Well some tmes people give there children odd names but mostly no
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Guilty
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
What the hell are those
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
Am trying to think of something more original to call the Halflings
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
I don’t think mines cover enough distance for that to really work
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
NO
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Not solely
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
No, but I do need to do more research
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
No
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
Not for plot reasons
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Guilty
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
no
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
No
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Something like 22 grams per cubic centimetre isn’t it
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
no
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
no
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
guilty
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
no
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
yes, and it is immediately remarked upon by other characters as something they should not have been able to do, infact it is hey they blow their cover
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
No
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
No
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
no
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
how about a bad stew
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
Not relly, not “nomadic barbarians” but you can find elves in almost any terrain and they do like to drink
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No, “mead” is a short way of saying “horrible tasting wast of honey and disgrace to alcohol”
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
only the elves have one religion but other than that no
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
nope
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
no
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
no
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
no
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
no, only the most well hidden remain un looted
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
no
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully
I did

[Helanna]

I don't particularly like this test - it's just a little harsh - but I have run my story through it. It wasn't too bad. So now I'll run this year's NaNoWriMo novel through it. It's not totally planned out yet, so I'll do best I can.

And if you want to write, but don't know what Nanowrimo is . . . well SHAME ON YOU. (http://www.nanowrimo.org)

Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Psh. It's not even October, you think I know what happens in the first 50 pages?

Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No. He's basically like a hitman for the empire/kingdom/whatever I decide he works for.

Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No.

Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No. It's about . . . well, it's a long story. Like a novel-length story :smalltongue:

Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No.

How about one that will destroy it?
No.

Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.

Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No . . . Crap. I just realized I have no way to get information to my characters . . . hmm.

Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No.

Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No. One of the main characters is his cursed slave, though.

Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No, not even close. It doesn't focus much on the king, really.

Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No, I don't think I have wizards. Probably sorcerers, though, but forgetful sorcerers probably don't live long.

How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
No. Honestly, slow-witted warriors probably don't live real long either.

How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No. Happened in my other book, but those mysterious reasons were revealed at the end.

Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Gods no. Besides, my main characters are already lovers. Sets up the tragic sub-plot involving heavy use of irony!

Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No, although one of them *is* captured from the beginning of the book. It sets up the other tragic sub-plot involving heavy use of irony!

Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.

Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No. I'm thinking the owners of Dragonlance could sue me if I did that.

Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Umm . . .I don't think so . . . At least this is helping me plan out my novel!

Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
Nope, no dwarves.

How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
Nope, no elves, as far as I know.

Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
N/A

Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.

Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No. What, do pirates usually rob fishing ships?

Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
No. And Wikipedia wouldn't let me cheat was no help.

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"?
No. Actually, I haven't created a world yet. I should do that, really.

Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No, but I don't mind prologues like that. Many people skip prologues anyway.

Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
Nope. Definitely a stand-alone, seeing as half the MCs end up dead.

How about a quintet or a decalogue?
No.

Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
I have no idea. It might end up being!

Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No.

Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.

Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
I *wish* I could write as well as RJ. It's not his fault this list is so biased. :smallfrown:

Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No.

Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
Nope, it's all in some fantasy realm.

Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No. That tends to irritate me.

Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
I should probably name my characters, huh?

Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Ouch. What books do this?

Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Not that I know of. Maybe elves, I don't know.

How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
No.

Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No.

At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No . . . actually I'm not sure where the MC goes yet.

Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.

Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.

Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
I wish. Then I could get paid.

Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No. They're there for sleeping in.

Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
Not unless I've been lied to by multiple sources.

Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
I switch between MCs when traveling is happening.

Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No. Well, yeah, but he's evil so of course he's not gonna tell.

Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Probably. I like fire, so I'll probably have some fire-powered sorcerors.

Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No.

Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No. Note to self: Still have to do research on types of armour.

Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Oh gods no.

Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Um, I know it's really heavy . . .

Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No. Unless they're zombie horses! (Eragon sporkings.)

Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
No. There is something called 'stamina'. People do not have unlimited amounts.

Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No . . . but what if it was a boomerang? I mean you'd hope it wouldn't return to you, preferably being stuck in somebody's body, but if you missed it would, right?

Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No. But Note to Self: also research types of weapons.

Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
No. That is silly unless you have shot a ballista at them.

Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No, they're generally about 4-5 pounds, right? Also, they're not 6 ft. long . . .

Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
NO. GODS I hate that cliche with all my heart. *coughEragoncough*

Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
Nah. I wish I was clever enough to make good puns.

Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No. I'm pretty sure that both could take him out (depending on the woman).

Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
Nope. It's hard to breathe when an arrow just punched a hole in your lung.

Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Nope, I know it takes a long time for stew. Bread, meat, and cheese - much better.

Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No.

Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
Um . . . I guess not?

Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No. I haven't actually worked that out yet? Hold on, idea coming . . . okay, no.

Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No.

Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No. One of them is too smart, and the other one's not actually evil, just misguided.

Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No. The more people sent on an assassination mission, the worse.

Is "common" the official language of your world?
No.

Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
A definite no.

Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.

Read that question again and answer truthfully.
I'm really pretty sure it's not.

[Evil DM Mark3]

hahaha.

I am intrigued how so many amateur writers dismiss one of the most popular and influential authors of the last century as having 'no idea how to write'

Allow me to qualify the statement with a quite form the man himself.
"It is too long, too bland and it was a mistake to have written it as if it where a saga. No one will want to read it."

The thing is, that quote has the exact problem with it in it. It reads like a medieval saga. That was deliberate. But a saga was never ment to be read by a person on their own. It is a medium that is part story, part play. You listened the saga, you didn't read it. That is the problem right there. Reading it is HARD.

[Tengu_temp]

hahaha.

I am intrigued how so many amateur writers dismiss one of the most popular and influential authors of the last century as having 'no idea how to write'. I'm glad you people don't usually read Asimov, your esteemed opinions on that author would probably be wasted on me. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of others around the world who actually thought Tolkien and Asimov were great authors. Silly us.

Agreed - dissing Tolkien as a talentless hack who wrote boring, dry stories seems to be hip these days. It's a perfect example of Seinfeld Is Not Funny - Tolkien's plots seem cliche and uninteresting because all of their elements have been done to death by the countless imitators who went after him.

Ah, and the test? Amusing, but not good for judging the quality of stories. I always felt an author who concentrates more on avoiding cliches and less on creating a good plot and characters is missing the point. Cliches are not bad if executed well.

[Trizap]

well yea, we don't really have to be uptight about it.

thing is, we still wanna avoid cliches, there is a reason why they are looked down upon.

hmmmmmmm.....



10. Everything in Moderation; don't be too uptight about avoiding cliches, but don't be too accepting of them

(on a side note, the phrase "Everything in Moderation" applies to almost everything I can think of......)

[Haruki-kun]

5: Repeat after me: characters first, world second, plot third

I usually do Characters first, Plot second, World third, with very few exceptions in which plot and world switch. I don't understand why that's so important, though, but as far as stuff that's not really important goes, this is not even among top 100.

I am led to believe that since the dawn of the Internet (and TV Tropes), people have become critical to an extent where they actually look for things to criticize. Usually, it's easy to find them, but in the end, any person who doesn't explicitly hate the genre or story in question might shrug and say "Yeah, so? What's your point?" At least I know I have. On numerous occasions.

...Actually, is there a trope for this? If there isn't, it must be made. :smalltongue:

[Revlid]

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
No, things happen.
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No.
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No.
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
No.
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
There are plenty of spirits... not really in disguise, though.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No. He's an amoral administrator posing as an evil vizier who's duped a kindly king (actually the vizier, who's in on the whole thing).
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
Does neurotic, OCD wizard count?
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
No. Not even a little kind-hearted.
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No.
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No. Well, when she's in disguise she worries about her looks, a bit.
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No. The main female character exists to shank.
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
Do female ideals include shanking those who see past her con-artist tricks?
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No. Except the cannibal.
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No. Except maybe the golem.
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No.
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No.
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
No. They don't exist.
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No. Trading and transport, for example.
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
It doesn't appear in my story.
26. 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"?
No.
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No.
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
Yes, but they're not one continued story. Just a series of stories set in the same universe.
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
No.
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No.
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
No.
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No.
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No. Not yet. There is a side character with a double-barreled surname, though.
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
No.
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Yes. Does this actually happen anywhere?
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
No.
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
No.
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No.
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No.
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No.
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
No.
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
No. Well, to one place, but that's frankly more of a side-quest that ends up leading to the actual plot.
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No.
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Enslaving a mad lightning-sprite to a copper rod?
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No.
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No.
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
No.
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Yes, I do.
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No.
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
No.
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No.
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Not straight through. A joint, with a rapier.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
No.
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No.
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No.
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Yes, I realize this.
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No.
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No.
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No. There are several "thieves' guild" variants, but all of them are simply organized crime gangs.
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
Yes. He then raises the unfortunate as a ghostly undead servant before reanimating his bones - far more efficient.
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No. There is a 'useless bard' in the novel, but he's actually an assassin.
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
No.
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No. There is an area that is littered with tombs, but the lack of graverobbers is due to the aggressive occupants and curses.
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
No, really. I was slightly depressing when I first read the Exalted sourcebook, since the setting is essentially a low-magic version of that, set in a world based on this one, complete with all the anachronisms required for each country to be suitably awesome.

[streakster]

I might as well take it too...

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Running highway firefight and assassination attempt.
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
Heh, no. He'd rather like that, though.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No. He knows it. Of course, 50% of the cast is an heir as well, and they're further up in line.
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
Young? No. Great? No. Defeats? No.
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
It's broken.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
Everyone hopes that one's broken. Neither is central to the plot.
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No. He already showed up, and lost. Hard.
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Hoh, no. He's not losing his tongue.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
Disguise? No.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
Secretly? No.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
Kindly? Hahahaha....Besides, he's a fair hand at magic himself.
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
Does it count if he's selling his memories?
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
Strike "kind-hearted".
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
He'd lose his tongue. Again.
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Well, yes - but only one, and she's actively trying to seduce/kill the main character for personal and political reasons, not to mention she's a bit vain. And under orders to look good, on pain of pain. So she has her reasons.
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No one exists for that.
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No. There is a feminists character, but she dies early on.
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Well, yes...she's a MAID, for crying out loud.
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Well - one, but she can kill you with either.
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No. Technically, there are no dwarves.
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No! Blasphemy!
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
Again, technically no dwarves or elves. Also, their attitudes are solely based on what political side they're on. What, they're supposed to all be on one side cause they're all one race?
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
Ho, no. No, they're more there for horror.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No, there are also cruise ships!
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Not as long ago as I think.
26. 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"?
No maps. "Feel free to draw your own."
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No prologue.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
Nope, self-contained.
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
No, it's a six-book duology. I kid.
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
No. Podunk phonebook? Maybe.
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No previous book. Besides, this one will be action-packed and self-contained.
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No! What am I, Robert Jordan?
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
Ah, I see what you did there.
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No. That would more tame.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No. There is one real world, and its the one the characters are in.
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
First names? No.
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
....umm....THEY HAVE NICKNAMES!
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
*twitch*That makes me physically enraged...
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Some humans refer to some of the cast that way. Some humans are stupid.
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Urgh. No.
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No. No real races. There are hybrids, and they are not angsty or obvious.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
Replace "ancient and dwarven" with "a modern coal", then replace "take a shortcut through" with "hide in".
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No. Silly. They have to go a certain way, after all.
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No. Don't think it would be possible, actually...
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
Do you want to take this outside?
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
There is one fight in a hotel. One. And they weren't even going to stay there.
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
No, I have no idea how it worked. So I shall avoid it.
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
Teleportation FTW!
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
He. Would. Lose. His. Tongue.
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Fireball? No. Stare at things until they burn? Yes.
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
Mana feel like a woman [/rimshot]... No. No I do not.
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No. Breastplate? Yes.
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
"Points! He's the bad guy! Hit Points!" No. I do not and would not.
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
It's stinkin' heavy. I watched Pinky and the Brain.
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Normal horse? No. Giant monstrosity that cracks pavement and breathes fire? Yes.
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
One could. Of course, he doesn't get tired. Ever.
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
Does throwing around weapons with your mind count? What about teleportation?
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
Ahh, no. Nor a muffin tin.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Yes. And a wall.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
Not even a zhanmado weighs that much.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
Strike that, reverse it, and replace attains with tries to seduce/kill/marry.
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
Xanth, it aint.
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
Small woman with dagger? No. Large woman with enchanted poisoned throwing knives? Yes.
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No, but it's best to be safe. <--Fourthed.
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Of course. That's why they have microwaveable stew cups.
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No barbarians, and no tundra.
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
Mead has honey!
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
Again, no real races. Also, heck no.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
What thieves guild?
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No, death is the reward for a good job.
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
The temple singer is not useless in a fight. Far from it, actually. Might be one of the deadliest people in the book...
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
If it is, you can shoot me.
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
The tombs are under the palace, and are well-guarded enough that stealing from them falls onto the list of Really Bad Ideas.
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
Tolkien would spin in his grave if I said yes.

[Flashlight]

Since I'm bored and intrigued now, I'll do it too.

Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
- A bloody murder followed by an infiltration of a trading company doesn't count as nothing I guess.

Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
- Hell no

Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
- No

Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
- No, the main character is already experienced and got all skills necessary

Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
- No

How about one that will destroy it?
- No

Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
- No lame-ass prophecies at all

Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
- Not as sole purpose.

Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
- No

Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
- Uh, that would imply some ugly things ^^

Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
- No, I don't use monarchy

Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
- No classic wizards there

How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
- powerful? yes slow? yes kind-hearted? rather heart-out-of-chest ripping

How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
- No, he would be killed

Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
- Only if the use disguise

Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
- No

Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
- Yes, I got Alice Schwarzer there :smallyuk:

Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
- No wench, and not clumsy, the rest would fit.

Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
- No

Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
- *looks up dour in dictionary* No

How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
- No

Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
- No

Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
- Yes, I got "Big Man" known from Trapped in the Closet :smalleek: (irony)

Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
- Transport is there too, and battles

Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
- No

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"?
- I didn't draw a map (yet), but the names would not be like that.

Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
- The entire? No Half the "novel"? Yes

Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
- Hell I won't ever publish that if I would every put it to paper.

How about a quintet or a decalogue?
- :smallfurious:

Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
- No

Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
- previous book? No

Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
- No

Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
- Who the balls is Robert Jordan?

Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
- Haha. "Everybody dies" would be the only sentence then.

Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
- Yes, it would be hilarious to have Paris Hilton there. (Naw)

Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
- N'o

Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
- Nononono

Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
- *with immigration and cultural differences in mind* Not at all, except the second name is very inpractical

Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
- no, no, no and no

How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
- No

Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
- Only if used as insult

At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
- No dwarves, no mines

Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
- no

Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
- no

Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
- I would do it if they pay well

Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
- No

Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
- No, I know how it worked

Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
- No, we got airships and ships and teleporters

Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
- No

Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
- Sudden explosions don't count, right?

Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
- No

Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
- No

Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
- No

Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
- No, I do realize that

Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
- Only if they got Red-Bull-infusions

Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
- The barmaid would kill that guy, so no

Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
- No, but maybe a Bumerang

Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
- No

Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
- Not with mundane weapons, and nothing that could be considered human.

Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
- Magic swords and custom metals make this one useless

Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
- No, the hero is female

Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
- No. Rather some dark sick English style of humour

Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
- No

Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
- No, but who would answer that with a yes?

Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
- No, I do realize, I cooked stew

Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
- No

Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
- No, I love mead :smallredface:

Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
- No

Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
- :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:Oh no

Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
- No, that would be waste of possible followers

Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
- No

Is "common" the official language of your world?
- No, but "usual"

Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
- No

Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
- No, I have yet to read LOTR

Read that question again and answer truthfully.
- *pulling out gun* what?

[Trizap]

.........maybe people should stop posting the Writer Exam answers here, its making things too long, and is kinda distracting while still being on topic

[Haruki-kun]

.........maybe people should stop posting the Writer Exam answers here, its making things too long, and is kinda distracting while still being on topic

Actually... it would be OK if everyone could just spoiler it, so it's not so long.

[Oregano]

I'm with the people that you shouldn't avoid all the things on the list, in fact I find it cliche how many people are averting/subverting the cliches, it gets old, fast.

[Hell Puppi]

If your plot involves amnesia, you don't have a plot.

Awwww :smallannoyed:
What if they have trauma-induced amnesia because they were sharing their mind with a demon? Am I still a hack? :smalleek:

[TheBST]

Awwww :smallannoyed:
What if they have trauma-induced amnesia because they were sharing their mind with a demon? Am I still a hack? :smalleek:

Eventually reveal the 'amnesia' to be a load of BS- more like willful repression and denial- and have the character come to accept all the hideousness for what it was and move on with more resolve (or have a breakdown). Simple!

Otherwise amnesia's usually one of three things:

-A way to withold info from the audience simply to stretch out the story
-A reset button
-A cliched way to explore identity issues.

Cheap tactics, really. Go forth and break the mould!

[Kaihaku]

I'm with the people that you shouldn't avoid all the things on the list, in fact I find it cliche how many people are averting/subverting the cliches, it gets old, fast.

Yeah, be original, don't blatantly rip off of other people, and don't worry if you happen to resemble someone else.

[Nerd-o-rama]

And isn't #4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth) the basic backbone of 80% of stories, good or bad, anyway?

[Pokemaster]

Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
No.

Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No.

Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Oh, he knows it.

Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
Yes, depends on whether I go low-magic or no-magic.

Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No.

How about one that will destroy it?
Kinda.

Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
If by "ancient prophecy", you mean "drunken/stoned ramblings of senile priests", yes.

Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Pretty much the whole point of the protagonist.

Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No.

Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No.

Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No.

Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No.

How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
No.

How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Again, whole point of the protagonist.

Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No.

Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No.

Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.

Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No.

Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No.

Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No.

How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No.

Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
No.

Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.

Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No.

Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Yes.

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"?
No. I use the Civ4 world generator and I try to use names that work.

Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No.

Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
I'll write until I'm done with it.

How about a quintet or a decalogue?
I'll write until I'm done with it.

Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
No.

Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No.

Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.

Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
No.

Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No.

Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No.

Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No.

Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Possibly.

Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
No.

Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
No.

How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
No.

Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No.

At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No.

Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
Maybe if I can find a system that'll help me figure out how armies of mooks should crush each other.

Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.

Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No.

Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No.

Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
No.

Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
No.

Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
Probably. Again, whole point of the protagonist.

Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
No.

Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No.

Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No.

Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
No.

Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
No.

Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No.

Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
No.

Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No.

Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No.

Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
No.

Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No.

Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
No.

Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.

Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No.

Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No.

Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
No.

Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No.

Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No.

Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
Only humans, several countries, various religions.

Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
Merchant guilds, actually.

Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No.

Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No.

Is "common" the official language of your world?
No.

Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No.

Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.

Read that question again and answer truthfully.
No.

[Jorkens]

A couple of things that have been annoying me lately:

51) Is there an identifiable split in your world between the Forces of Evil (who are motivated by being evil and hating everything that is good and right) and the Forces of Good who are motivated by loving flowers and kittens and wanting to protect the world from the Forces of Evil. And if that is the case, is this part of a larger philosophical point or just a convenient way of not having to worry about the motivation of your charcters and the moral implications of what they're doing?

52) If the "author's voice" in your story (either the protagonists or the narrator or the way that the events can be interpreted depending on how you've written it) places great moral value on abstract concepts like Friendship, Honour, Truth, Justice and so on, are they concepts that you personally think of in those terms in your day to day life? Or are they concepts that you only think of in the abstract when they come up in (fantasy) books?

[Lord Seth]

I was looking at the threads where people were expressing their hate towards books for certain reasons, and then an idea occurred to me: why not make a list of things a writer should avoid doing?

I already got three reasons:

1. don't make trilogiesI wholeheartedly disagree. There is nothing wrong with a trilogy. What is almost always a bad idea, however, is to plan a trilogy, then make more books.

[TheBST]

Say, how about we make our own test for people who aren't writing fantasy novels?

Here's a couple:

-Have you spent more than a year planning the book without even starting it?

-Does every scene begin with five paragraphs describing clouds or trees?

- Are your female characters all either angels of the earth or scheming bitch-whores?

-Do all your characters think in grandiloquent prose complete with classic references?

-Are you trying to be the next James Joyce?

-Seriously, don't try to be the next Joyce.

-Has anyone complained of migraines when reading your story?

[Haruki-kun]

Agreed. Stories were made to end sometime.

[Mewtarthio]

I wholeheartedly disagree. There is nothing wrong with a trilogy. What is almost always a bad idea, however, is to plan a trilogy, then make more books.

The triology is a perfectly good and noble form of marketing. You release the first part as a stand alone to see if the idea catches on, then you release the second part with a cliffhanger to get everyone excited, then you tie everything together in the last part. What's wrong with that?


-Are you trying to be the next James Joyce?

-Seriously, don't try to be the next Joyce.

I'd just like to add: Really, for the love of all that is sweet, pure, and righteous in this world, DON'T.


-Has anyone complained of migraines when reading your story?

Well, that kind of goes without saying. You might as well ask questions like, "Has your publisher quit the business out of disgust after reading your manuscript?" or "Has your significant other been seen arguing with her mirror: 'No, I won't do it! ...But I love him! ...To hell with the greater good! *sob* *sob*'?"

[Jorkens]

The triology is a perfectly good and noble form of marketing. You release the first part as a stand alone to see if the idea catches on, then you release the second part with a cliffhanger to get everyone excited, then you tie everything together in the last part. What's wrong with that?
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with trilogies or even increasingly-innaccurately-named-trilogies. It's just that people setting out at the beginning of their first book to write a trilogy tend to do so because their world is so vast and complicated and their plot is so long and convoluted that they couldn't fit into a single book. And that is often (but not always, obviously) a sign of a writer who can explain in excruciating depth the political intrigues of a kingdom the story the doesn't even visit, but can't give a more nuanced characterisation of their protagonist than 'a naive but plucky farmhand.'

[thubby]

write to a goal. don't go for a trilogy, or one book, or anything. write, get the character to his goal, tie up the loose ends, and be done.

don't force an idea. a scene, no matter how cool or interesting, is going to kill your story if you try and make it go where you don't flow into it.

3 is the magic number

please, please, make a character, not a characature.

if your not sure about something, have someone else read it, if you can't, don't use it.

[Saithis Bladewing]

Avoiding cliches for the sake of avoiding cliches does not make a good story. Write your story as it comes naturally, if it happens to be similar to other things, don't hesitate to look for ways to make it more unique, but don't make it unique just because other writers told you 'CLICHES ARE EVIL'. Just because it is a cliche doesn't mean it can't be well done.

[Oslecamo]

When you start writing a story, NEVER reread what you already wrote before the whole thing is finished, or you will find yourself continually changing your own story and never end(or take several years. Or decades).

[Zeful]

And isn't #4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth) the basic backbone of 80% of stories, good or bad, anyway?

Yes, but you can do it in a different way. The test is referring to a prohecy, the book I'm trying to write doesn't have a "Chosen One" just a guy who got dealt a really bad hand and fights back. He goes through most of the journey described on that page with a few exceptions.

[Telonius]

Wow. I ... passed the test. No to all questions. Even to #29:


28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?

HAH! Planned eight-book series! Eat it, test! :smallcool:

[DomaDoma]

Yes, but you can do it in a different way. The test is referring to a prohecy, the book I'm trying to write doesn't have a "Chosen One" just a guy who got dealt a really bad hand and fights back. He goes through most of the journey described on that page with a few exceptions.

No, number 4 is talking about the coming-of-age, defeating-evil thing. Like our man Campbell says - bog-standard.

[Zeful]

I thought he was referring to something else. Sorry.

[Mr.Bookworm]

All of the cool kids are doing it, so I'll take the exam.

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Stuff happens.

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
Farmhand? Yes. However, his biological parents are alive and well, and live on the farm with him. They have never been anything but peasants.

3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Nope.

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
He comes of age, I suppose. He gains power in the sense that he gains experience. He kills the big antagonist of the novel, but he's probably "gooder" than the hero.

5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No.

6. How about one that will destroy it?
A small sub-plot is planned about one they look for briefly, but it turns out to not exist.

7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Nah.

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
Nope.

10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No.

11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
The king's a bleepity-bleep most of the world wants dead.

12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No.

13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
The most sympathetic character (in my opinion) is rather dim-witted. but even he's a bit of a bleep.

14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
That's stupid.

15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Heck no.

16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
Double no.

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
Ew. No.

18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Nope.

19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Sort-of, but mainly due to the fact that 90% of the female characters are in the army.

20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
Dwarves live underground, and are pretty much universally hated.

21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
Any half-race is almost certainly mentally retarded, and is prone to genetic defects and early deaths. Some of them make good slaves, though, like half-ogres.

22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
Everyone hates the elves, and everyone hates the dwarves. And they don't really run into each other a lot. So, no.

23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
Noooooo.

24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No.

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
After seeing this question, I immediately looked up what a hay-baler is and when it was invented. So, sort of?

26. 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"?
I can't draw maps, but there are no such names in my story.

27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
That would be stupid, no.

28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
Nothing wrong with trilogies, but no.

29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
Er. No.

30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
I can barely write a twelve-page story. No.

31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No previous books.

32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
Nope.

33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
How dare you?

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
I am guilty of stealing ideas and modifying them from role-playing games occasionally, yes.

35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No.

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
The only acceptable uses of apostrophes is when you're HP Lovecraft.

37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
No.

38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
No.

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
All of the above. Orcs are only mentioned, though, elves are bleeps living in the jungle, dwarves are bleeps living underground, and the halflings are all dead.

40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Nope.

41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
Yes, though they're sterile, and quite prone to retardation and genetic defects, and quite probably won't live to see the age of five.

42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No.

43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
Nope.

44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
Nope.

45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
Not unless they want to make a new campaign setting for me. Which I would be cool with.

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Nope.

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
Not unless I'm mistaken, no.

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
Not really.

49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No.

50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Nope.

51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
NEVER!

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No.

53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
I will personally hack the shin-bones off an author that uses that term in anything but a parodic or humorous fashion.

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
No, I know it's weight.

55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Nah, that's stupid.

56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Nope.

57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No.

58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
There's no scimitars in the novel, so no.

59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Yes, through heavy armor, but it has to do with magic.

60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
Heck no.

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
Heh. No.

62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No.

64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No.

65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
They mostly eat dried jerky. Stew's still the go-to meal for when they're camping, though.

66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No.

67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No.

68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No. Double no. Double triple no.

69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
There's not a thieves guild.

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No. He

71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No.

72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
I like to think I'm more original than that. No.

73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
Nah.

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.

75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
I swear by Gandalf's beard, no.

[Flashlight]

Yes, but you can do it in a different way. The test is referring to a prohecy, the book I'm trying to write doesn't have a "Chosen One" just a guy who got dealt a really bad hand and fights back. He goes through most of the journey described on that page with a few exceptions.

The "Chosen One"-stuff is really getting old since it's evident that he will save the day for everybody, even if he has to sacrifice himself. What I would try to do is having multiple important characters where it isn't clear who the main hero is, though it's hard to do so.

Another note: There was somewhere a quotation that listening to certain hip-hop-songs will increase diction and style. I have to agree with that, since I have dramatically improved in the last two years when I began banging conscious/political/abstract hip-hop.

[lin_fusan]

I'd like to chime in and support Piedmon_Sama's writing advice, Haruki-kun's criticism on criticism and tropes (I personally find tvtropes.com infuriating), and like to second Nerd-o-rama's comment about question #4.

You definitely have to read stuff that resembles your work so you know what works and what doesn't. You definitely have to read stuff that's different than your stuff so you can free up the cobwebs in your head.

And you definitely have to write constantly and consistently.

I'd like to add that writers should be very suspicious of writing groups. If the group has a goal to finish, refine, and publish writing, then take a look into it. If the writing group's goal is to feel good about, or take joy in the process of, writing, run away from that group as fast as possible.

[Jayngfet]

Hmmm, I had an idea ofr a novel that I've done some light work on, let me see how it fares:

Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
A battle
Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
The thing about farmhands is they really don't have the skills to fight against most others.
Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No
Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No, he somes of age, gets other people to get power and finish it.
Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
Sidequest?
How about one that will destroy it?
No.
Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
Prophecies are stupid.
Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No.
Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No gods.
Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
He tries to fake this, and is met with a "who cares".
Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No.
Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No.
How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
Does slow mean xanatos gambit working?
How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Those are halmarks of bad fantasy.
Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
No.
Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No.
Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.
Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No.
Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No.
Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No dwarves.
How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No.
Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
No.
Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.
Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No ships.
Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
No?
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"?
No.
Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No.
Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No.
How about a quintet or a decalogue?
Oh sweet pelor no.
Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
No.
Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
Do I look like paloni?
Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.
Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
Maybe?
Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No.
Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
Why?
Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No.
Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Yes.
Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Depends on circumstances.
Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
A couple of orcs, a few elves, that's it.
How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Ew, no.
Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No.
At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No dwarves.
Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.
Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.
Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
Oh god no.
Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
They can't sleep?
Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
I researched feudalisim.
Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
Um, yes?
Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
No.
Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Fireball.
Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No.
Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
Sweet Azahoth no!
Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Heaven can keep it's help.
Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
I realise.
Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No horses are needed that long.
Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
Anyone who fights that long isn't normal.
Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
I am Ripoff, son of beorngar! No.
Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No scimitars.
Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Magic knife?
Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
No.
Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
No.
Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.
Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
What if the dagger can smash rocks?
Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No.
Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Yes.
Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
Where do they get barrels?
Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No.
Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No.
Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No theives guild.
Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
Yes, then he brings them back a minute later missing a hand as a warning.
Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No.
Is "common" the official language of your world?

Does this look like it's D&D?
Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
A couple, but not taken for goood reason.
Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.
Read that question again and answer truthfully.
No.

[Lord Seth]

When you start writing a story, NEVER reread what you already wrote before the whole thing is finished, or you will find yourself continually changing your own story and never end(or take several years. Or decades).This advice seems...questionable.

[Eerie]

I feel this (http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/) is relevant to your interests.

Now I have the urge to write a book that will answer YES to all those questions.

It will be a world where mead is a synonym of beer;
Gold is a very light metal;
People have three hearts and five lungs (arrow in the chest? big deal!);
"The Blasted Lands", "The Forest of Fear" and "The Desert of Desolation" are all geographic features, not to mention "The Gorge of Doom";
It will have orks, orken, dwarves and dwerrows - and those are four distinct races;
Horses can gallop all day long without stop. (They are actually mutant unicorns. And then they explode.);

And so on... :smallamused: It will be a great book.

Except that I`ll have to change my name to Robert Jordan and apply for a job to Wizards of the Coast. Damn... :smallmad:

[streakster]

Now I have the urge to write a book that will answer YES to all those questions.

It will be a world where mead is a synonym of beer;
Gold is a very light metal;
People have three hearts and five lungs (arrow in the chest? big deal!);
"The Blasted Lands", "The Forest of Fear" and "The Desert of Desolation" are all geographic features, not to mention "The Gorge of Doom";
It will have orks, orken, dwarves and dwerrows - and those are four distinct races;
Horses can gallop all day long without stop. (They are actually mutant unicorns. And then they explode.);

And so on... :smallamused: It will be a great book.

Except that I`ll have to change my name to Robert Jordan and apply for a job to Wizards of the Coast. Damn... :smallmad:

Make Robert Jordan your pen name. It'll boost sales if nothing else.

[Oregano]

I shall do this as I have been inspired to write a story(not novel).


Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Stuff happens, hopefully the majority of the main characters will start their adventure(s)
Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
Nope
Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
He does have a claim to the throne but he's not the heir(heir means next in line right?)
Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
A bit, but it's more of a team effory.
Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
Nope
How about one that will destroy it?
Nope
Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
There is a prophecy but not that one
Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Nope, the guy diespensing info is there all along
Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
Nope
Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
Nope, I don't think so
Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No King of the world and still nope anyway
Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
nope, the closest to a wizard is far from forgetful
How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
nope
How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Kinda, his reasons aren't personal and they're known from the beginning
Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
I don't intend them too, it depends how I develop the story
Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
nope, don't think so, maybe a random villager
Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
nope
Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
nope
Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
nope
Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
I don't really know what dour means but I don't think so.
How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
Nope
Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
nope but they don't hate each other either
Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
nope
Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
nope
Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
no idea, sorry, 1800s?
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"?
nope, I can't draw maps
Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
nope, it's a direct message to the reader
Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
nope
How about a quintet or a decalogue?
nope
Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
nope
Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
Never really wrote anything longer than a short story which was a miniadventure
Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
nope
Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
nope, leave the poor guy alone.
Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
nope
Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
nooo
Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
maybe a hypenated name but that'll be it
Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Perhaps
Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
If someone was playing a joke, no
Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
not completely sure yet.
How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
nope
Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
perhaps
At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
no, I doubt it'd really be a shortcut even if they did
Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
nope
Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
nope, but I may do
Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
nope
Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Very few inns and no
Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
I know how feudalism works
Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
sometimes
Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
Yes and no, he could but he's restricted, it's hard to explain
Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
don't intend to
Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
don't intend to
Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
Nope, doubt anyone will wear plate armour anywho
Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
nope
Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
I knew it was heavy but I have recently been enlightened as to how heavy
Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
nope, horses need rest and food and water
Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
nope, I don't think anyone will achieve anything that epic
Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
nope, might have a shield and be Captain America though
Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
no, you slash with them silly
Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
maybe if they have been ubered up but no plate
Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
nope
Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
I don't think he will
Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
it'll be light on humour
Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
nope
Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
depends where in the chest but he'd probably be disabled or something
Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
yes, but what if it's bad stew?
Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
noo
Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
noo, it's a honey drink or something isn't it?
Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
don't intend to
Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
no, thieves are largely disorganised
Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
nope, he understands the fundamentals of good leadership
Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
nope, but a bard may be in it at some point, I love bards
Is "common" the official language of your world?
nooo
Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
hopefully not
Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
noo, it will be indirectly influenced though
Read that question again and answer truthfully.
same as above

There we go.

EDIT: Wow I said no to more than I thought but some of them were silly.

[thubby]

This advice seems...questionable.

in spirit it is a good idea though. trying to avoid excessive rewriting is one of the hardest things i have dealt with.
that's why we have editors.

[Ozymandias]

in spirit it is a good idea though. trying to avoid excessive rewriting is one of the hardest things i have dealt with.
that's why we have editors.

If they rewrite your story, they're co-authors, not editors.

[Jayngfet]

Don't make a character or group inheritly good and pretty because you agree with them.

Under no circumstances can elves be cooler than everyone else.

Never make a species always chaotic evil.

[streakster]

Don't make a character or group inheritly good and pretty because you agree with them.

Under no circumstances can elves be cooler than everyone else.

Questions, questions:

Is every group you happen to agree automatically right and pretty?

Are your elves cooler than everyone else?

[Mewtarthio]

Never make a species always chaotic evil.

What about Lovecraftian horrors? Or zombies? Or demons? Or vampires?

[Kaihaku]

What about Lovecraftian horrors? Or zombies? Or demons? Or vampires?

I don't know that those should really be treated as species.

[Mewtarthio]

Why not? Really, what's the fundamental difference between an orc and a vampire besides the fact that the former can breed naturally?

[Trizap]

This advice seems...questionable.

yea..........writing is just jotting something down once then looking at it ever again, you need to go back and improve it or its not good enough.......
and then theres grammar and spelling.........

[Lord Seth]

Why not? Really, what's the fundamental difference between an orc and a vampire besides the fact that the former can breed naturally?Is vampire really a race or species? I don't think it would be a certain kind of species. You can have human vampires and elf vampires and dwarf vampires, right?

[streakster]

Is vampire really a race or species? I don't think it would be a certain kind of species. You can have human vampires and elf vampires and dwarf vampires, right?

And vampire vampires!

Not kidding there, by the way...

But yeah, vampirism is a condition. At least generally. Unless its a race, in which case you have spine-breaking vampire babies. That sparkle.

[GrassyGnoll]

And vampire vampires!

Not kidding there, by the way...

But yeah, vampirism is a condition. At least generally. Unless its a race, in which case you have spine-breaking vampire babies. That sparkle.

Please don't mention Twilight, it makes me seizure with rage.

[Lord Seth]

A vampire's status as a species/race or a condition depends primarily on the series, though most stories seem to lean towards vampirism as a condition.

[Jayngfet]

What about Lovecraftian horrors? Or zombies? Or demons? Or vampires?

Considering I can name exceptions to all of those...

[thubby]

zombies don't think, as such can't have alignments, it's like having an evil toaster.
much the same could be said of the oft-animalistic horrors. just because you happen to be it's prey doesn't make it any more evil than a bear, or a whale.

[streakster]

zombies don't think, as such can't have alignments, it's like having an evil toaster.


Obviously you haven't read enough Pratchett. "They can take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

[Lord Seth]

Obviously you haven't read enough Pratchett. "They can take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"I will never be able to take that line seriously after what Elan did with it.

[Nevrmore]

Since we're on the subject of vampires, now is a good time to introduce one of my rules for "things to avoid as a writer":

Don't write about vampires.

[Eerie]

Since we're on the subject of vampires, now is a good time to introduce one of my rules for "things to avoid as a writer":

Don't write about vampires.

All those prohibitions are stupid. People have the right to write whatever they want to. No one forces you to read their books.

About vampires: I haven`t yet seen vampires who have an uncontrollable urge to suck blood, but work it out by only biting bad people. Like, criminals who would receive death penalty anyway, but haven`t got caught by the authorities. So those vampires kill them and consider themselves perfectly Lawful Good.

Any writers used this idea already?

[Nevrmore]

All those prohibitions are stupid. People have the right to write whatever they want to. No one forces you to read their books.
And I have the right to tell you what to avoid as a writer? No one forces you to read my posts? Taking everything else hypocritical in your post and turning it around back on you?

[warty goblin]

All those prohibitions are stupid. People have the right to write whatever they want to. No one forces you to read their books.

About vampires: I haven`t yet seen vampires who have an uncontrollable urge to suck blood, but work it out by only biting bad people. Like, criminals who would receive death penalty anyway, but haven`t got caught by the authorities. So those vampires kill them and consider themselves perfectly Lawful Good.

Any writers used this idea already?

Agreed there. The best book I've read in the last four months was about vampires after all, I would not have liked for it not to be written because vampires are cliche. Not that I'm saying vampires aren't cliche, because anymore it seems you can't take a turn around the Sci-fi section in a bookstore without tripping over a pile of the things, but just because there are a lot of them doesn't mean all of them are bad. Some, almost certainly, but likely not all.

[Eerie]

Agreed there. The best book I've read in the last four months was about vampires after all, I would not have liked for it not to be written because vampires are cliche. Not that I'm saying vampires aren't cliche, because anymore it seems you can't take a turn around the Sci-fi section in a bookstore without tripping over a pile of the things, but just because there are a lot of them doesn't mean all of them are bad. Some, almost certainly, but likely not all.

Humans are super-cliche. Absolute majority of books feature humans, and most of those books are bad (not just sci-fi and fantasy, but mainstream as well).

But no one tell authors to avoid writing about humans. :smallbiggrin:

[Telonius]

I think the bad authors aren't actually writing about humans. In most bad books that are about "humans," actual humans wouldn't act that way.

[Jorkens]

I think the thing with cliches (and this applies to any medium imo) is not that if you realize you're using a cliche you should immediately drop it and do the opposite, it's that if you realize you're using a cliche, you should think hard about whether you're doing it that way because it's the best and most interesting and most effective way to do it in the context of your work, or whether you're doing it that way because you didn't think about it much and just went for a standard stock idea.

[Lord Seth]

I liked how The Dresden Files had multiple incarnations of vampires.

[Oregano]

Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
I don't intend them too, it depends how I develop the story

I'll have to change this as some women will obsess over him, simply because he's a member of the aristocracy.

edit: How long should a prologue be if it's Times New Roman size 10?(just while I'm typing the first draft).

[Blackfang108]

Damn you, Terry Pratchett! *shakes fist*

Seriously, I've only gotten through the first couple of Diskworld novels. It pains me to think that every funny idea has already been taken by him.

Not all of them.

Monty Python and Mel Brooks round out the rest.

EDIT: something I've found helpful: I write out a narrative of a gaming session a day or so later, while it's still fresh.

the current campaign is going well. I may be able to string it into into a novel and give my DM co-authorship.
(it's worth a shot.)

[Trizap]

Humans are super-cliche. Absolute majority of books feature humans, and most of those books are bad (not just sci-fi and fantasy, but mainstream as well).

But no one tell authors to avoid writing about humans. :smallbiggrin:

I never even considered to write about humans in my books except as an unimportant, background race at best, one of the many mooks that my character comes across at worst, and you know what happens to mooks........

whichever way it is, humans won't even have major influences in my books

[Seraph]

The Exam


1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
stuff happens.
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
no.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
no.
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
no.
5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
there is a quest for a magical artifact involved. the elf accidentally drops it off a bridge 10 minutes after they get it.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
also yes, but only by accident.
7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
there is a false prophecy a king uses to trick the protagonists into playing hero.
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
no.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
no.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
no, although there is a joke on the subject.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
no.
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
no.
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
no.
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
replace "mysterious reasons" with "because he is a ****". oh, and "sage" with "Dragon the size of a castle"
15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
no.
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
one is captured and rescued, but this is not the range of her characterization.
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
no.
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
no.
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
no.
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
no.
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
no.
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
there are no dwarves.
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
no.
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
no.
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
no.
26. 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"?
no.
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
prologue yes. everyone that's read it has said they get what it was trying to say without having to read further.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
the first in a duology that calls itself a trilogy, just to screw with people by making them search for the nonexistent 2nd book.
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
no.
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
no.
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
no.
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
no.
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
no.
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
no.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
no.
36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
no.
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
my REAL name has more than three syllables. **** you.
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
no.
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
yes yes no no.
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
no.
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
no.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
what dwarves?
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
no.
44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
no.
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
no.
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
not my fault my cast is a bunch of ****ers.
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
no.
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
no.
49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
no.
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
no.
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
no.
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
yes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plated_mail)
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
no.
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
no.
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
no. one character does, however. good eating on a horse, you know.
56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
no. doesn't stop him from trying, however.
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
no.
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
no. they stab them with an axe, topped with a spike just to troll you people.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
yes, because the person stabbing is an undead monstrosity several times stronger than a human.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
no.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
no.
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
no.
63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
no.
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
no.
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
since when have roving mercenaries had a ****ing palate?
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
no.
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
no.
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
no.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
no.
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
not as if zombies can **** up, can they?
71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
no.
72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
no.
73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
no, it all was stolen already.
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
no.
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
**** you.

[streakster]

I believe this fits. (http://xkcd.com/)

[The Linker]

I believe this fits. (http://xkcd.com/)

(To people who read that after Friday, when the main page will have a different comic up, that's #483 he's talking about.)

*slinks away*

:smalltongue:

[Forderz]

This site (http://www.writingexcuses.com/) has a lot of entertaining and informative advice on what to both do and not do, plus, it frequently mentions Superman, Schlock Mercenary, and Brandon Sanderson!

[thubby]

just remembered one.
never start with your favorite idea. odds are it is a very complex idea which you lack the skills to do it justice.
(this applies to most arts, actually)

[Destichado]

You know, I thought that too, once -before I started writing seriously. But now I'd say, go right ahead and tackle your favorite idea straight off. Or rather, tackle an aspect of it. If your idea is a 12-novel epic, obviously, spare us that... but certainly try writing a scene, a chapter, a related short story.

If you don't, you'll wind up forgetting or losing interest in your favorite idea. Bitter experience talking.:smallfrown:

[Thend]

The singular thing I have learned not to do as a writer is assume that because someone is reading my second book that they have read my first. Same with someone reading my fifth. Basically, make sure every sequel could be read as though it were it's own singular book. Not that I've ever wrote a book but I know the feeling of being completely lost but still wanting to read a book because it kicks ass. I also know the feeling of learning later that I had nine prequels to read because the tenth book was so incredibly stand alone.

In summary, if your going to make a sequel or prequel of any kind make sure it can be read as it's own book.

[DomaDoma]

The singular thing I have learned not to do as a writer is assume that because someone is reading my second book that they have read my first. Same with someone reading my fifth. Basically, make sure every sequel could be read as though it were it's own singular book. Not that I've ever wrote a book but I know the feeling of being completely lost but still wanting to read a book because it kicks ass. I also know the feeling of learning later that I had nine prequels to read because the tenth book was so incredibly stand alone.

In summary, if your going to make a sequel or prequel of any kind make sure it can be read as it's own book.

I do hope being read as its own book doesn't count, say, additions to the cast that would be fairly counterintuitive in the prequels where they were introduced, or background character deaths of a similar bent - readers had better accept having their pants spoiled off here, because otherwise you're not doing the character arcs right.

Also, it's impossible to pull off with epic fantasy, and so help me if I'm going to abandon that genre.

I've only read one of them myself (The Concrete Blonde), but from what I hear, the Harry Bosch series of gritty detective novels does the stand-alone thing with the above caveat in mind.

[Lord_Gareth]

I've seen a lot of bad advice here and some good advice, so I'm going to pitch in a few cents of my own.

- On the Subject of Cliches, Vampires, Elves, etc: There's a reason these are so popular; they're interesting, and they work. The question you should be asking yourself when you realize that you have a cliche isn't, "What can I do to replace this?" - it should be, "Does this help the story?". Likewise, vampires/werewolves/elves/dwarves are popular figures because they have deep, firm roots in ancient mythology and literature. Yeah, they've gotten a bad rep in recent years (I want to go back in time and THROTTLE Tolkien for what he did to elves), but that doesn't mean you can't come up with an interesting way to do things.

- On Length: Don't make your story longer than it needs to be. We don't need to know the name of every hill, inn, blade of grass, or dung pile in your world. Yes, it's great that you have an original world of your own, but keep the focus on the story, not the pretty flowers.

- On Naming: Names should flow, not chop. Well, actually, that's a personal opinion, but for the sake of the reader, have names pronounce phonetically. It's frustrating and irritating to talk about a certain character and then find out from the appendix in the back that every third letter in their eighty-letter name was actually silent.

- Magic magic ninjas what?: Magic (a term English describes very poorly) isn't something you have to avoid in fantasy, but it is something you should strive to make unique to your piece and to make logical sense. Magic in D&D, for example, rapidly runs out of sense and goes careening pretty fast into Deus Ex Machina mode. Define limits or explain the lack thereof; if your world is a place where magic and technology compete, explain (through showing or telling) how and why. If magic can make you a walking god, why doesn't said character rule the world?

- Nonhuman sentience: There's long and deep mythological roots about nonhuman intelligence - look them up sometime. Nonhumans aren't humans with odd sterotypes and gruff/aloof/wise manners - they're strange and alien and often fairly terrifying. The original elves were actually lesser gods that had to be appeased; likewise, dwarves were not drunkards in their original mythology. This isn't to say that you have to obey mythology faithfully, but you should be aware of it and strive to make nonhumans appear, well, non-human.

- Hack vs. Literary: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HACK. Hack is writing with no inherant message or moral value; look at Eragon, the Lord of the Rings or anything by Salvatore. These books aren't bad, they're just shallow. There's nothing wrong with writing them, but keep in mind that if you get known as a hack writer, you'll have a hard time publishing anything else.

Conversely, if you're aiming to write something literary, don't beat your reader in the head with it. Orwell didn't, and you don't have to either - the message(s) should be clear without you having to club the reader into submission with them.

- Half Breeds: Again, there's a lot of mythic roots, not the least of which is the idea of a human stolen by faeries and raised as one of their own. Half breeds are a world of their own, both of and apart from their heritage. They don't necessarily have to struggle with their nature, but that's perfectly fine if they do; often, they're simply a group unto themselves that has their own little laws and cliques.

- Authors I'd Reccomend Learning From: Orson Scott Card, Niel Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, George Orwell, Paolini (someone's going to jump down my throat for this, but the man is the current Hack Champion of the World; he's doing something right), Chuck P-something (can't spell his last name; he wrote fight club) and Jerry Spinelli. There's probably more I'd reccomend if I could call them to mind.

[kamikasei]

Hack is writing with no inherant message or moral value; look at Eragon, the Lord of the Rings or anything by Salvatore. These books aren't bad, they're just shallow.

Uh...

The Lord of the Rings has no inherent message or moral value?

[Lord_Gareth]

Eh, maybe it does, but I saw a black-and-white world, frequent biblical allusions and, frankly, I only finished the book to say I did. By all means, find meaning in it; just because I failed to doesn't mean you can't ^_^

[warty goblin]

Eh, maybe it does, but I saw a black-and-white world, frequent biblical allusions and, frankly, I only finished the book to say I did. By all means, find meaning in it; just because I failed to doesn't mean you can't ^_^

Clearly we operate on different wavelengths. LOTR is one of the most intensely moral texts I've ever read, it just doesn't shove it in your face and go "See here! MORALS!!" the way some books do. I've spent hours debating the significance of the ending with myself, why Frodo couldn't destroy the Ring, why Gollum was neccessary, and so on.

The world does tend towards black and white, but isn't overly so. Orcs are more or less pure evil, but it is decidedly unclear just where they fit in the cosmology, if they in fact have free will at all, or are any more than brutes. Even the Elves are flawed, yet their flaw (pride in returning/never leaving Middle Earth) is arguably a good thing for the world. Also, Gollum.

Also on your earlier point on vampires, werewolves etc. These can be interesting, but having an ageless character with pointed teeth does not an interesting narrative by itself make.

[Oregano]

I agree with more or less everything you say, especially the names thing, I hate names I can't pronounce, I try for phonetic names or real but exotic names for characters.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I have a SERIOUS beef with the amnesia sass that went on a page or two back. It's hard to swallow having to deal with massive retrograde amnesia, and minor active amnesia, let alone hearing ignorant detraction upon the subject having the possibility of being compelling. Sure, it's been done poorly, and to death. The fantasy genre has been misused in much the same manner, yet the novels manage to sell. Amnesia isn't just a bloody plot device, it's a life derailing event that affects d*mn near every aspect of your reality! :smallfurious:

[Telonius]

I want to go back in time and THROTTLE Tolkien for what he did to elves

I'm honestly curious about what you found so distasteful about Tolkien's elves, at least compared to what elves were before Tolkien got to them. The English version of elves were something more like brownies or pixies, but Tolkien was going back to Scandinavia for their stories of the alfar. There are semi-divine elves, warrior elves, and sorcerous half-elves in many of those traditions. (Confusing the issue is the fact that the dvergar, from which we get the word dwarf, are referred to as "dark alfar," by Snorri Sturluson.) The image of elves as fruity tree-huggers has more to do with Tolkien's successors than Tolkien himself. Feanor would have stuck that sort of elf on the boats right before he left Valinor. :smallamused:

[Lord_Gareth]

That's the thing; the Alfar weren't semi-divine, they were lesser gods. Tolkien not only "humanized" them, but he really cut them down from their origins.

Mind you, I'm big for old-fashioned faerie tales and the fae, so I'm admittedly biased on that score, but hey.

[warty goblin]

That's the thing; the Alfar weren't semi-divine, they were lesser gods. Tolkien not only "humanized" them, but he really cut them down from their origins.

Mind you, I'm big for old-fashioned faerie tales and the fae, so I'm admittedly biased on that score, but hey.

Err, no. Just no.

The Elves do things that not even the gods can do. The Silmarils come to mind here. They live forever for another, which would drive a mortal insane, and are pretty much better than, and different to people in every way. Read The Children of Hurin, and the difference becomes fairly apparent.

Humans in Middle Earth might be slightly better warriors at the high end, and even this is dubious. When humans entered Thangorodrim, they did it as slaves or by stealth. Fingolfin rode up to the front door and terrified every creature that dwelled there with his challenge, then goes on to chop up the lord of all evil pretty damn good. That is catagorically not human.

[Lord_Gareth]

When I say "humanized", I meant mindset, not capability; of course elves are going to do things humans can't - they're not human. But through their history, they have very human motivations - fear, greed, anger, xenophobia, pride, jealousy, and love, just to name a few - and they carry these motivations out in a very human manner. They might have done it in a far more epic fashion (that closely mirrored many myths - getting the gem from the wolf's stomach but losing his hand is strikingly similar to the binding of Fenris), but they did so for human reasons. That's the part that irks me; they're not alien enough. They're strangeish, sure, and they have that cold air about them, but you can get both of those at the local goth hangout.

[DomaDoma]

Clearly we operate on different wavelengths. LOTR is one of the most intensely moral texts I've ever read, it just doesn't shove it in your face and go "See here! MORALS!!" the way some books do. I've spent hours debating the significance of the ending with myself, why Frodo couldn't destroy the Ring, why Gollum was neccessary, and so on.


For that matter, Inheritance IS very big on shoving moral messages up your nostrils. If morals and messages were all it took to make a book literary, then CPao would have it made. But I'll just assume that consistency with the rest of the story is kind of a factor.

Frankly, though, when I hear "literary", I think of Camus and Salinger and all the other twits who think a decent story comes second to random philosophizing.

[Lord_Gareth]

Frankly, though, when I hear "literary", I think of Camus and Salinger and all the other twits who think a decent story comes second to random philosophizing.

Literary writing has its cliches like everything else; what you just pointed out is one of them ^_^

[Nevrmore]

I've seen a lot of bad advice here and some good advice, so I'm going to pitch in a few cents of my own.

- On the Subject of Cliches, Vampires, Elves, etc: There's a reason these are so popular; they're interesting, and they work.
Disagree disagree disagree. I think that, at one point, vampires and elves were interesting and they did work. But that point has long passed. As I've said before, when a character type becomes so overused, that thinking up different interpretations of that character ("He doesn't have to drink blood! She isn't affected by holy items!") becomes overused, it's time to put the beast to bed.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Disagree disagree disagree. I think that, at one point, vampires and elves were interesting and they did work. But that point has long passed. As I've said before, when a character type becomes so overused, that thinking up different interpretations of that character ("He doesn't have to drink blood! She isn't affected by holy items!") becomes overused, it's time to put the beast to bed.

Define "work". Vamps are often poorly executed in terms of quality, but that doesn't keep them from being popular regardless. The Twilight series stands as a monument to vamp garbage still raking in a killing.

[Nevrmore]

Define "work". Vamps are often poorly executed in terms of quality, but that doesn't keep them from being popular regardless. The Twilight series stands as a monument to vamp garbage still raking in a killing.
I don't count something being popular as "working." I count something being written well and not being boring and contrived "working."

[Lord_Gareth]

It depends on what kind of mythology you go into though, Nevrmore. Some myths place all vampires as OCD - others involve slaying them at crossroads, holy wafers, burning them, or more. Like most popular "monsters", vampires have a long and rich mythological history.

Personally, I think that to make a character from a "cliche race" work, the character has to be interesting. If the main selling point of the character is that he/she is a vampire/werewolf/elf/squirrel, then you have a problem. But if you have an interesting character that engages the reader, and they HAPPEN to be a vampire/werewolf/elder god/ghost, then you have something good.

Let's take vampires for an example - in Gothic Horror, the terror behind vampires wasn't their monstrousness, it was their humanity. One of gothic literature's main themes was the perversion of the familiar, and the idea that evil lurks everywhere. The vampire was the ultimate showcase of Man (or Woman) as the monster, both horrible for its intentional evil (covering up a murder) and for the urges it simply cannot control (the need to drink blood).

Those vampires were fascinating and terrifying; more modern interpretations tend to dissapoint in the ways you described.

(Oh, and as to the holy items thing; what if vampries weren't cursed by God? Or what if they're not Christian but, say, pagan, and you need a different kind of holy item? The list goes on and on and on).

[WalkingTarget]

When I say "humanized", I meant mindset, not capability; of course elves are going to do things humans can't - they're not human. But through their history, they have very human motivations - fear, greed, anger, xenophobia, pride, jealousy, and love, just to name a few - and they carry these motivations out in a very human manner. They might have done it in a far more epic fashion (that closely mirrored many myths - getting the gem from the wolf's stomach but losing his hand is strikingly similar to the binding of Fenris), but they did so for human reasons. That's the part that irks me; they're not alien enough. They're strangeish, sure, and they have that cold air about them, but you can get both of those at the local goth hangout.

Ah, but then, Tolkien's Elves and Men are both the Children of Illuvatar. They are different from Men, but not as much as, say, the Tuatha Dé Danann or the álfar. His Elves are "made by man in his own image and likeness; but freed from those limitations which he feels most to press upon him. They are immortal, and their will is directly effective for the achievement of imagination and desire."

They're a thought-experiment: take humans, switch the "mortality switch" to "off", see what happens. There's a bit more to it than that, but it's the essential difference.

Tolkien later expressed regret in having used the words "elf" "dwarf" and "wizard" for things that were inherently different than what these words call to mind.

[Lord_Gareth]

See, that explanation I'll accept with good will (in the same way that I stopped being furious at him for The Silmarillion after I found out that he didn't want it published and, in fact, knew that it read like the Old Testament + Elves). Thank you very much, Walking Target ^_^

[Lord Seth]

In terms of elves versus humans in LOTR, at the end of the series, men are the ones who rise to dominance while the elves fade to obscurity...

[SmartAlec]

To add a little bit more, there was a neat essay I came across some time ago entitled 'Do Elves Write Novels?' which dealt with the close ties that Tolkien's Elves had with Middle-Earth and how it affected their psychology. Men can dream, Men leave the world when they die, Men have an abstract imagination. Elves, by contrast, don't - their craftsmanship mimics forms in nature, not because it's better, but because they genuinely can't think of doing it any other way; their literature is all historical, they don't do impressionist or abstract art.

All reasons why, in the beginning at least, the Elves were in awe of Men.

[Turcano]

About vampires: I haven`t yet seen vampires who have an uncontrollable urge to suck blood, but work it out by only biting bad people. Like, criminals who would receive death penalty anyway, but haven`t got caught by the authorities. So those vampires kill them and consider themselves perfectly Lawful Good.

Any writers used this idea already?

Um, Anne Rice.

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, vampires are pretty much ruined. They've become too heroic, I suppose, too wussified. They're not supposed to angst about things, they're immortal monsters and they damn well better act like it. That said, what the vampire/elf/werewolf/miscellaneous beastie needs is a good subversion that all the hacks will rush to imitate, putting them back where they belong.

[streakster]

I feel that vampires are the focus far too often. But I have no problem with them just thrown in so long as "Ooo I am a vampire" isn't the main driving force of the plot.

[Lord_Gareth]

It all circles back to one main thing - a single Deus Ex Machina shouldn't drive your entire plot. Whether it's "wee I'm a vampire" or some form of magic, your story shouldn't hinge on a single gimmick. It's okay if your story is about vampires/magic/elder gods, as long as it's actually written well.

[Helanna]

Here's something to avoid (Kind of summing up my opinion of the above posts:)

Do not - EVER - subvert a cliche or trope just to avoid it and be "original"*. It has been done. This includes changing a species beyond recognition in an attempt not to rip off Tolkien - A for effort, but if you're going to change the elves so that they're completely unrecognizable, why don't you just make them a new race? That's a LOT more original than just calling them 'elves' and then feeling all clever because your elves are "different".

* Unless you're satirizing it, and then you have to be sure you can actually pull it off.


I'm not sure how I feel right now on using "over-used" species (like vampires, elves, dwarves, etc.). On the one hand, there is practically nothing original left to do with them without making them entirely new species (see above). On the other hand, that's not necessarily a death sentence, the story can still be very good and original, if you think it through and don't just use stereotypes and cliched versions just because "that's how they are".

[Flickerdart]

I'm not saying that subverting a race is enough to make a plot, it isn't. But a spectacular work that just happens to have the subversion will inspire imitation from other writers, therefore it can function as a half-assed way of "fixing" its image.

[Hell Puppi]

I have a SERIOUS beef with the amnesia sass that went on a page or two back. It's hard to swallow having to deal with massive retrograde amnesia, and minor active amnesia, let alone hearing ignorant detraction upon the subject having the possibility of being compelling. Sure, it's been done poorly, and to death. The fantasy genre has been misused in much the same manner, yet the novels manage to sell. Amnesia isn't just a bloody plot device, it's a life derailing event that affects d*mn near every aspect of your reality! :smallfurious:

I now feel the need to defend my plot, but really that never comes out well (or it just comes out as "Well I'm different because..."). I can only hope that I try to do it in such a manner that at least some people won't find it cliched and trite. I really can't write out the amnesia aspect of the plot without destroying the entire story....so yeah. I apologize if I offend.

[TheEmerged]

Okay, answering just the questions from that quiz that weren't an immediate "NO" -- in particular, the ones I felt I had to qualify in some way.

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy? Yes, but all these things have already happened to the main character in the story. The plot essentially happens when someone is trying to bring Supreme Badguy back...

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise? Kinda. The character isn't a god but is "sufficiently powerful" enough to count, and exists in the background/backstory.

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented? Not precisely, but I was within 20 years of being right...

26. 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"? I never draw maps, I suck at them… But I'm guilty of subverting this one for the sake of a funny line early in the story.

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group? Kinda. The main character is the kobold psion I played in a 3.0 edition D&D campaign. The story takes place well after the campaign though.

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings? Yeah, it's established as a D&D world.

41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"? No, but only because I renamed Half-Elves as "Farsidian".

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't? I’m no expert but I’ve got a reasonable idea.

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place? “Inordinate” is a relative term; a large part of the story takes place as the main characters are trying to find the cult trying to return the Big Evil Guy to the world.

50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"? Yeah, but again it’s established as a D&D world.

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs? I know it’s heavy, forgive me for not knowing its exact weight.

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains? No, primarily because she dies during his origin story.

65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal? This is another one I'm guilty of subverting.

72. Is "common" the official language of your world? Um… it’s not called common but there is a single language most of the world shares.

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings? No
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully. Unless the LotR is about an epic-leveled kobold psion having to save the "forces of Good" from themselves, the answer is still "No".

[bluewind95]

If you're going to use something like elves and you want to change them so that they're not ripping off Tolkien... I would think it is valid to maybe take some elements out of Tolkien's... but combine them with other elements, like from the other mythologies? Then you would have something more original and that is more, well, yours, since you actually mixed them into something different, if not completely 100% new.

[Stycotl]

"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."

--C.S. Lewis

just tell your friggin story. give it your gut feeling, tell the story, and then brace yourself for the edit.

i have found that a good way to stay above some of the current fantasy cliches is to study up on and include variations of the base folklore. a well-studied author is generally pretty easy to spot, and knows enough about the topic to be inspired with ideas that actually work.

i can't tell you how obnoxious it is to watch war movies that get everything wrong--even simple things like grenade explosions, rank hierarchy and insignia, etc. all it takes is wikipedia, or visiting a veterans' forum or something.

same with fantasy. even though fantasy includes fantastic elements (no kidding, huh?), it still has to have a basis in reality, especially as far as humanity and psychology are concerned, in order to capture the reader and to actually tell a meaningful story.

take a peek into ethics and philosophy, and into psychology and the humanities, and then you'll know enough to at least pull off the relationships in the story, or the emotional and mental traits that drive the plot line.

otherwise you end up with something like.... twilight...

as far as the test, don't worry if you are answering yes to the questions. take note of it, and like others have said, ask yourself why you include those elements. then stick with it if it has actual meaning.

also, there were a number of weapons, swords and polearms in particular, whose sole purpose was to punch straight through plate mail. and one can't discount the longbow and the crossbow, which, even before firearms, were making armor obsolete on the battlefield.

oh, and tolkien's elves, i remember reading, were as much inspired by the old testament as they were mythology (though some would equate the two to be one and the same...). tolkien's humans were supposed to represent the shorter-lived, carnal man before the flood, and his elves were supposed to represent the longer-lived man that was around in adam's day, enlightened, walking and talking with God, etc. i don't remember what the book was called that claimed this, but it had a bunch of his journal entries, letters to loved ones, religious lectures, etc. in fact, much like c.s. lewis, though not to the same degree of obviousness, tolkien's world was a metaphor for his religiously christian beliefs.

aaron out.

EDIT: oh, incidentally, if you want to see a good website that offers some really exceptional writing tips, visit:

www.dramatica.com

they are developing a template system that has come in handy when i am trying to determine the roles of the characters in my writing. i would not suggest adhering to the template as if it were the only way you can write a book, but it certainly helps, especially with the planning process. theirs is a product that they want to sell you eventually, but they give tons of it away free on their website.

ok, now out.

[Lord Seth]

oh, and tolkien's elves, i remember reading, were as much inspired by the old testament as they were mythology (though some would equate the two to be one and the same...). tolkien's humans were supposed to represent the shorter-lived, carnal man before the flood, and his elves were supposed to represent the longer-lived man that was around in adam's day, enlightened, walking and talking with God, etc. i don't remember what the book was called that claimed this, but it had a bunch of his journal entries, letters to loved ones, religious lectures, etc. in fact, much like c.s. lewis, though not to the same degree of obviousness, tolkien's world was a metaphor for his religiously christian beliefs.I'm not sure that the elves are really supposed to be pre-flood or pre-fall humans. They're really rather apathetic as to the rest of the world and it's made fairly clear that while humans become dominant, the elves will slowly fade into obscurity. I suppose someone could claim that it's a metaphor for the less perfect becoming dominant, but I don't recall the novels ever portraying man's eventual dominance as a particularly bad thing.

[GrassyGnoll]

Yeah, vampires are pretty much ruined. They've become too heroic, I suppose, too wussified. They're not supposed to angst about things, they're immortal monsters and they damn well better act like it. That said, what the vampire/elf/werewolf/miscellaneous beastie needs is a good subversion that all the hacks will rush to imitate, putting them back where they belong.

As Jerkcity prophetically sums up...http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj13/Lord_Of_The_Ducks/problemwithdrinkingpeoplesblood.gif

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I now feel the need to defend my plot, but really that never comes out well (or it just comes out as "Well I'm different because..."). I can only hope that I try to do it in such a manner that at least some people won't find it cliched and trite. I really can't write out the amnesia aspect of the plot without destroying the entire story....so yeah. I apologize if I offend.

I think you misunderstand me. I'm having to deal with the real thing (as in most of my life is gone and it's easy for me to not retain new information). So when the subject is dismissed outright, it's obnoxious. Now mind you, I know it's been done poorly by hack writers, but that doesn't mean that the subject itself is poor material so much as repeatedly executed in a cheap manner.

[Stycotl]

I'm not sure that the elves are really supposed to be pre-flood or pre-fall humans. They're really rather apathetic as to the rest of the world and it's made fairly clear that while humans become dominant, the elves will slowly fade into obscurity. I suppose someone could claim that it's a metaphor for the less perfect becoming dominant, but I don't recall the novels ever portraying man's eventual dominance as a particularly bad thing.

sounds similar to the old testament....

also, who said it had to be a bad thing. if it is a metaphor, it can't work on all levels. i am pretty sure that with his goal in mind, he wouldn't have made the metaphor as obvious lewis always did.

again, that's not a bad thing. it's just a perspective. yours is as valid as mine; lewis' is as valid as tolkein's.

either way, as i said, i don't remember the name of the book--though i bet google search would turn it up--but it was a very well documented book. seemed sound in its research to me.

aaron out.

[Sequinox]

This seems like the only place that I could ask, so... Should I write double spaced or single spaced? also, whats the word processor/book page ratio? Meaning 1 page of Microsoft works is 2 pages of material of whatever.

[Oregano]

I also wanted to know similar answers Sequinox because it can seem like I've typed a lot and then when I look at it, it's only half a page or so, and I feel daft then.

[Sequinox]

You hit the nail on the head, oregano.

[Lord Seth]

This seems like the only place that I could ask, so... Should I write double spaced or single spaced? also, whats the word processor/book page ratio? Meaning 1 page of Microsoft works is 2 pages of material of whatever.When writing for what, exactly? For a publisher? For a school paper? For your own personal amusement? For a fan fiction?

[Oregano]

I think he just means a decent novel/story, it shouldn't really matter though, they should be of the same length/quality.

[Cristo Meyers]

The last I heard was something like 80K to 100K words for a novel, but since I'm sitting on something like 26K I can't exactly vouch for that...

As for formatting, any publisher or editor is probably going to have guidelines for you to use, so I wouldn't sweat that until you're submitting the drafts.

[Flickerdart]

As Jerkcity prophetically sums up...<image>
That's...not really what I meant.

[averagejoe]

This seems like the only place that I could ask, so... Should I write double spaced or single spaced? also, whats the word processor/book page ratio? Meaning 1 page of Microsoft works is 2 pages of material of whatever.

If for yourself? Whatever you like best. For a publisher? Each publisher has a format they'll tell you to use. The page ratio depends on the font they use, the size pages they use whether they end a page when the chapter ends; each publisher does it differently. It's better to just look at the word count, although, really, you should just write your story until it's over. Padding is irritating.

[Zeful]

This seems like the only place that I could ask, so... Should I write double spaced or single spaced? also, whats the word processor/book page ratio? Meaning 1 page of Microsoft works is 2 pages of material of whatever.

It's one to one in the print view.

As for how you should write, if your having issues one single spaced, bump it to 1.5 space (Ctrl+5 I believe).

[GrassyGnoll]

That's...not really what I meant.

I thought you were talking about the decay of vampires as monsters. From Dracula kidnapping and eating babies; to death by orgasm; to a painful, sensual experience; to 'it's cool I can drink animal blood'; to the eventual mocha-pire.

The sort of vampire where angst is directly proportional to lethality.

[chiasaur11]

I thought you were talking about the decay of vampires as monsters. From Dracula kidnapping and eating babies; to death by orgasm; to a painful, sensual experience; to 'it's cool I can drink animal blood'; to the eventual mocha-pire.

The sort of vampire where angst is directly proportional to lethality.

I still feel the need to praise Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden's Baltimore.

It has Vamps who are straight up nasty. WW1 setting too.
And all the characters with any sense in the book are of the opinion that th only sensible response is to kill every Vamp on the face of the earth.

[Obrysii]

This seems like the only place that I could ask, so... Should I write double spaced or single spaced? also, whats the word processor/book page ratio? Meaning 1 page of Microsoft works is 2 pages of material of whatever.

If you're writing a rough draft (of anything), I find single-spaced works best. That way, if you have to write a 5 page paper, you only really need to write a two-and-a-half, since once you double-space it, it'll be 5.

From what I've heard, ~80 pages of typed, size 12 New Times Roman, work constitutes an average small-sized novel.

[warty goblin]

I thought you were talking about the decay of vampires as monsters. From Dracula kidnapping and eating babies; to death by orgasm; to a painful, sensual experience; to 'it's cool I can drink animal blood'; to the eventual mocha-pire.

The sort of vampire where angst is directly proportional to lethality.

Read Fevre Dream, it has the most...brutal vampires of anything I've ever read. Granted I've not read a whole lot of vampire fiction, but Damon Julian is one seriously nasty mofo. Perhaps even more horrifying though are the humans who want to be vampires. Now they are scary.

[Eerie]

But brutal vampires are boring. Back in the middle ages, when they were invented, they were already boring....

[streakster]

But brutal vampires are boring. Back in the middle ages, when they were invented, they were already boring....

Compared to what? Sparkly mocha-pires who are "oh-so-pretty"?

Feh. Brutal ones, anyday.

[chiasaur11]

Compared to what? Sparkly mocha-pires who are "oh-so-pretty"?

Feh. Brutal ones, anyday.

Agreed. Bring on the pure evil monstrosities!

[warty goblin]

Agreed. Bring on the pure evil monstrosities!

One thing that is interesting to do is to play with how evil the brutal vampires really are. I mean they are not human, and kill for food, which is more or less the equivilent of eating a hamburger. Not that one isn't justified in staking the hell out of 'em whenever they show up, but are they evil?

Could be fun, have a caring vampire family, you know, Mom and Dad bring back drunkards and others for the kids to feed on, take them on family outings to the beach, teaching them how to survive. Would be crazy freaky, getting eaten by a bunch of three year olds...

[Cristo Meyers]

One thing that is interesting to do is to play with how evil the brutal vampires really are. I mean they are not human, and kill for food, which is more or less the equivilent of eating a hamburger. Not that one isn't justified in staking the hell out of 'em whenever they show up, but are they evil?

Could be fun, have a caring vampire family, you know, Mom and Dad bring back drunkards and others for the kids to feed on, take them on family outings to the beach, teaching them how to survive. Would be crazy freaky, getting eaten by a bunch of three year olds...

"Timmy! Quit gnawing on that boy's torso!" Mom rushed over to the children and separated them. "I'm so sorry, I just can't take him anywhere." She said to the other boy's mother, trying hard to ignore the horrified expression on the woman's face...

[Seraph]

one of the stories I'm currently writing has a vampire antagonist. he's pretty much unstoppable and can shrug off anything less powerful than a flamethrower, and the only reason he doesn't crush the protagonists is the fact that the main character is a spellcaster who can keep him from getting too much an advantage.

[Hell Puppi]

Man this is still why I love me some Alucard.
When even other vamps call you a monster, you have to be doing something right.

[Jayngfet]

If you're going to make a parody don't make it obvious. Total drama island or discworld are good. That parody by Garth Nix isn't.

[PhoeKun]

If you're going to make a parody don't make it obvious. Total drama island or discworld are good. That parody by Garth Nix isn't.

Conversely, make it really obvious. Ishmael Reed's The Terrible Twos is fantastic.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

The idea of doting vampire "parents" looking after turned, and now eternally young, children... it's a little surreal. Like a couple that was turned before having kids, thus are fixated on the idea of playing "house" in undeath.

[Lord Seth]

If you're going to make a parody don't make it obvious. Total drama island or discworld are good. That parody by Garth Nix isn't.Total Drama Island isn't a blatant parody of Survivor?

Contestants on an island, divided into teams, one team wins invincibility and one person from the losing team gets voted off. This occurs every three days. Eventually the teams are combined and only one person wins immunity. Plus, the last seven or so people to be voted off get a hand in deciding who wins (though in this case it's who helps the final two contestants in the last challenge, they don't actually vote)

How is that not an obvious Survivor parody? I mean, I like TDI, but it's pretty obvious what it's parodying.

[TheBST]

Now mind you, I know it's been done poorly by hack writers, but that doesn't mean that the subject itself is poor material so much as repeatedly executed in a cheap manner.

Ah, maybe I should clarify since I'm the one who started the aforementioned amnesia sass.

To be honest I don't know half a squat about real-world amnesia. If someone wrote a story that kept close to reality of the condition, good on them. Otherwise, when it's just a plot device- it makes me cringe. When it's used just to spread out a story or as a half-arsed framing device- it's so corny I don't think it's salvagable. No offense intended- I just don't think writers should try to make dramatic capital out of it anymore.

[Rockphed]

A couple things that bear repeating:

Go read Ella Enchanted. At least until she gets back from school. This should only be a couple chapters, and it is pretty easy reading. Then apply her thoughts to all of this. You are too lazy to read that? Her thoughts were something along the lines of, "At school I learned all the rules of good behavior. Where before I misbehaved out of ignorance, now I can willfully choose when to break the rules and when to follow them." Apply this to cliches, tropes, and general weirdness. Learn how to do it right, then break it when you feel it is appropriate.

Start small. Don't try writing a 12 volume epic story without building up to that. Write short stories first. You might never publish them. You might never even want to try, but if you can't introduce a character in half a page, make them interact with the world for a half dozen, and then bring the story to a close by page 20, you will never be able to do these things over novel lengths.

[Jayngfet]

I mean that not everybody realises it's a parody. I've seen people take it seriously and my friend called it a rip off.

Also: Team pets must be useful. I use war squirrels. One can take out an armored knight alone. They're named after fomorians(Balor, Elatha, and later Bres).

[Lord Seth]

Ah, maybe I should clarify since I'm the one who started the aforementioned amnesia sass.

To be honest I don't know half a squat about real-world amnesia. If someone wrote a story that kept close to reality of the condition, good on them. Otherwise, when it's just a plot device- it makes me cringe. When it's used just to spread out a story or as a half-arsed framing device- it's so corny I don't think it's salvagable. No offense intended- I just don't think writers should try to make dramatic capital out of it anymore.Depends on the context, really. The episode of Monk where Monk gets amnesia plays it mostly for laughs, so it's okay. Death Note made amnesia a major part of one of the arcs, but it all culminated into what were possibly the three most awesome words ever spoken in an anime, so that's fine also.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

In the real world, as opposed to crappy plot land, there are two types of amnesia that I am aware of. I only have come to truly begin to grasp the nature of the pair since my accident. Living with the both of them has not been fun.

The first form is the one that is most often cited. It's called retrograde amnesia, and it's the loss of stored memories. In other words, worst case scenario, you no longer have a past. I had this one in a BAD way, it's slowly getting better though. This is not good, but it gets worse.

It gets worse by means of the second form, which is active amnesia. In other words, you are crippled in your ability to retain information. This was a living EFFING NIGHTMARE to go through. You start each day like it's your first, and end it as if it was your last. As you are concerned, it is. You live many lives with a day's duration because you cannot keep things in the long term. I went weeks reliving, and "dying", the "first" day of my life until my brain started to settle some and retain/recover information. I cried myself to sleep knowing that each day I lived was an utter waste because it'd be gone when I awoke. Being born each morning, and dying every night (as far as my perceptions grasped the situation at the time) messed with my head in a bad way.

[Lord Seth]

In the real world, as opposed to crappy plot land,Exactly how is any series that dares contradict with "real world" amnesia a "crappy plot land", particularly if said series is science-fiction oriented, i.e. Men in Black, Death Note, the Star Trek series, etc.?

I still liked the amnesia episode of Monk, also...

[scsimodem]

Another good technique I've seen is actually pretty straightforward. Many writers base their worlds on popular fiction, such as Tolkien, Forgotten Realms, etc, but remember that these all had inspiration in the real world. If you're looking for a new angle (using old angles isn't inherently bad, but there's just something about having something a little different that will drive your pen), do some research on the creatures from which Tolkien, Lewis, and others drew their inspiration.

For example, if you like the general idea of vampires, go look up the various vampire-like myths that led to the creation of modern vampires. If it's a purely fantasy world, you might draw from Greek myth and say vampires are the people who are unable to pay the toll for the ferry across the River Styx. You might draw from Eastern European superstition that vampires were suicide victims or dead witches who were able to stay on Earth and postpone their inevitable damnation in Hell by subsisting off the blood of others or by doing Satan's work themselves. Try to even work in some of the less well known weaknesses. In order for Chinese vampires to get past a bag of rice, they had to count every grain, and, in fact, many ancient burial traditions that began the practices of leaving things on or in a grave involved either leaving piles of rice or grain on the grave so that, in the event the person awoke as an undead, they would be too busy to terrify people or leaving farming implements so the undead would have something to eat besides people.

[Oregano]

For example, if you like the general idea of vampires, go look up the various vampire-like myths that led to the creation of modern vampires. If it's a purely fantasy world, you might draw from Greek myth and say vampires are the people who are unable to pay the toll for the ferry across the River Styx. You might draw from Eastern European superstition that vampires were suicide victims or dead witches who were able to stay on Earth and postpone their inevitable damnation in Hell by subsisting off the blood of others or by doing Satan's work themselves. Try to even work in some of the less well known weaknesses. In order for Chinese vampires to get past a bag of rice, they had to count every grain, and, in fact, many ancient burial traditions that began the practices of leaving things on or in a grave involved either leaving piles of rice or grain on the grave so that, in the event the person awoke as an undead, they would be too busy to terrify people or leaving farming implements so the undead would have something to eat besides people.

I agree, although research can be very hard, I believe another weakness is that a vampire has to untie every knot in a net if it's placed over them. They were both used in the sequel to Dracula 2000.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

Exactly how is any series that dares contradict with "real world" amnesia a "crappy plot land", particularly if said series is science-fiction oriented, i.e. Men in Black, Death Note, the Star Trek series, etc.?

I still liked the amnesia episode of Monk, also...

It's crappy plot land when "amnesia" is used as an easy way out for a character knowing too much and the writer needs a quick fix to dumb them down for a period of time. My case? Not going to be mostly recovered from for at least another 2-4 years at best.

[Helanna]

Death Note made amnesia a major part of one of the arcs, but it all culminated into what were possibly the three most awesome words ever spoken in an anime, so that's fine also.

Although in Death Note, people only lost a few specific memories, and never even knew that they had been erased until after they were restored, so it's a bit different. Although they were indeed the greatest three words ever spoken in anime. :smallcool:


I agree, although research can be very hard, I believe another weakness is that a vampire has to untie every knot in a net if it's placed over them. They were both used in the sequel to Dracula 2000.

EDIT: Quoted this then forgot to reply.

Also: Steal their left sock. They will spend forever looking for it. :smallbiggrin:

[Lord Seth]

It's crappy plot land when "amnesia" is used as an easy way out for a character knowing too much and the writer needs a quick fix to dumb them down for a period of time. My case? Not going to be mostly recovered from for at least another 2-4 years at best.Oh it's true amnesia can be misused. But there's still plenty of cases where it worked. It was pulled off hilariously in the Tintin adventure "Destination Moon", Phoenix Wright: Justice For All had a justification for it (it was the tutorial and there had to be some reason Phoenix didn't know anything he used to know), and Batman had a pretty good episode named "The Forgotten" where he got amnesia from being hit in the head.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you seem to be declaring that all cases of such Easy Amnesia (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EasyAmnesia) are bad, when plenty of times it's pulled off well, if not necessarily realistically. (I mean, seriously, Haddock's attempts to cure Professor Calculus's amnesia in "Destination Moon" absolutely cracked me up)

Note that I'm referring to amnesia from a bump on the head or something, not the more science fiction-ish amnesia like, say, in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Conundrum".

[Hadrian_Emrys]

No, what I'm railing at is the notion that amnesia playing a part in a story has been reduced to a lame cliche outside of a few exceptional cases. It's upsetting to see that such a seriously crappy state of existence is so easily placed in the eye-roll bin thanks to the poor handling of the subject by terrible writers.

[Hell Puppi]

Eh I was using self-brought on amnesia (it's a spell that takes a lot of mental effort, obviously). The character realized she was a horrible person who thought she was doing things for the common good and she had to be that way. When she realized what she'd done, she figured there was only 2 choices, but because she worked as a necromancer, death wasn't really an option (vengeful spirits of the dead), so she tried to erase her memory and start over as a different person.
The story starts when she wakes up as that different person and is more about the good/evil and balance kinda thing than the fact that she has amnesia.

Yeah, I know, trying to explain my plot :smalltongue: Really I just want to get a story written, I've been trying for years.

[bluewind95]

Mm, this talk about amnesia brings me to a piece of advice I heard of before. Try not to write about things you don't really know about, if your intent is for it to be at all believable. Now, if you're writing for comedy, it's possible, yet questionable, to use such things as amnesia, terminal diseases, abuse and whatnot. These things are extremely hurting to those who actually live through them and treating them lightly (or worse! For comedy!) can indeed be insulting to those who have experienced them. I have seen authors who treat, for example, rape as something as inconsequential as hitting one's hand against a desk while walking: something that hurts a few minutes and then is nothing. Treating something so serious as this so lightly is indeed insulting to those who have gone through it. So therefore, if you can't do the true effects justice, then it's best to avoid the topic altogether. It will come across as the author being ignorant/callous/horrible/etc, more so than good writing. If you must use such things as plot devices, then it's best to at least research the subject, to make things more believable.

Personally I did have one plot that required amnesia, and yes, as an exploration of what memories can do to one's personality. It was a character, tainted with a truly horrible past that due to magic circumstances, ended up being completely mutated into another creature. Why? Because she was supposed to have died and reincarnated (thus losing the memories), but the problem was that she didn't die, so her memories were magically sealed away and her body mutated past all recognition (into an entirely different creature, yes). With the magic-induced amnesia, the character reverted into her purely natural behaviour, which was rather friendly and fiercely loyal(instead of the cruel cynic she had become. Still fiercely loyal, though). However, since it was not a real reincarnation, the soul rebelled against the seal placed on the mind, and occasionally would bring sudden flashbacks of her previous memories. And then, due to some other circumstances, the magic seal was undone and she recovered everything (down to her true form) in a matter of seconds. The character became unconscious out of shock and took weeks, if not months, to come to terms with it all. By now, I have changed the backstory and it has no amnesia, but that's pretty much all that I've done with amnesia. Probably not a great use of it, but this was a few years ago.

[Jayngfet]

On rape:Tv tropes has a nice series on it, but I'm on a PSP and can't link it...

I have one character who got raped as part of the big bad's xanatos gambit, he goes from a friendly fighter to silent and jumpy, though that's more from the result being the birth of a race of emotionally dead super soldiers(elves).

Did I mention that the rapist was a catgirl?

[Lord Seth]

Mm, this talk about amnesia brings me to a piece of advice I heard of before. Try not to write about things you don't really know about, if your intent is for it to be at all believable. Now, if you're writing for comedy, it's possible, yet questionable, to use such things as amnesia, terminal diseases, abuse and whatnot. These things are extremely hurting to those who actually live through them and treating them lightly (or worse! For comedy!) can indeed be insulting to those who have experienced them.I feel obligated to respond to your rather weak comparison of amnesia as comedy to rape as comedy.

So, I assume you hate Looney Tunes. I mean, if I fell off a cliff, I'd die! If I was next to an explosion, I'd die! If my head was turned 180 degress, that would be quite painful! Yet in many cases, characters have those happen to them and it's at most a minor inconvenience. Yet no one accuses Looney Tunes of being Dead Baby Comedy.

See, here's the thing. If amnesia is used for comedy (i.e. Monk, Tintin) you'll notice it's not "real" amnesia. It's what TV Tropes calls Easy Amnesia. A bump on the head causes it, and it's fairly easy to cure. It's something completely separate from "real" amnesia, so playing it for comedy is fine. Same with the above Looney Tunes example. Real explosions kill people, but on Looney Tunes it just covers them with ashes. It's played for comedy because it's not anything like what would actually happen.

Rape as comedy is a different thing. Even when played for comedy, it's still rape. The same thing happens as in real rape (the reaction and aftermath may be different, but the act itself is the same). That's why comparing "amnesia as comedy" with "rape as comedy" is completely in error. If you do that, you must concede that Loony Tunes is Dead Baby Comedy because it's insensitive to people who have been blown up or chopped up or shot or anything else.

[averagejoe]

I feel obligated to respond to your rather weak comparison of amnesia as comedy to rape as comedy.

So, I assume you hate Looney Tunes. I mean, if I fell off a cliff, I'd die! If I was next to an explosion, I'd die! If my head was turned 180 degress, that would be quite painful! Yet in many cases, characters have those happen to them and it's at most a minor inconvenience. Yet no one accuses Looney Tunes of being Dead Baby Comedy.

See, here's the thing. If amnesia is used for comedy (i.e. Monk, Tintin) you'll notice it's not "real" amnesia. It's what TV Tropes calls Easy Amnesia. A bump on the head causes it, and it's fairly easy to cure. It's something completely separate from "real" amnesia, so playing it for comedy is fine. Same with the above Looney Tunes example. Real explosions kill people, but on Looney Tunes it just covers them with ashes. It's played for comedy because it's not anything like what would actually happen.

Rape as comedy is a different thing. Even when played for comedy, it's still rape. The same thing happens as in real rape (the reaction and aftermath may be different, but the act itself is the same). That's why comparing "amnesia as comedy" with "rape as comedy" is completely in error. If you do that, you must concede that Loony Tunes is Dead Baby Comedy because it's insensitive to people who have been blown up or chopped up or shot or anything else.

I dunno about Loony Tunes, but Tom and Jerry creeps me the hell out. I'd call it a dead baby comedy, but it hardly qualifies as comedy.

[sun_tzu]

hahaha.

I am intrigued how so many amateur writers dismiss one of the most popular and influential authors of the last century as having 'no idea how to write'. I'm glad you people don't usually read Asimov, your esteemed opinions on that author would probably be wasted on me. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of others around the world who actually thought Tolkien and Asimov were great authors. Silly us.

I read Bilbo the Hobbit and loved it as a kid.
Many years later, I tried to read Lord of the Rings. I had to stop in the middle - it bored me. Bored, bored, bored.
Love Asimov's books, though.

[Helanna]

I read Bilbo the Hobbit and loved it as a kid.
Many years later, I tried to read Lord of the Rings. I had to stop in the middle - it bored me. Bored, bored, bored.

That still doesn't make Tolkien a bad writer. It means you didn't like his style.

Why do I always feel like I'm the only one who ever makes the distinction between disliking someone's work, and them actually being a bad author? :smallfrown: It's possible to like something that's bad (I read Eragon), and it's possible to dislike something good (people dislike Tolkien). I honestly don't think quality is as objective as some people would like to think. It is largely subjective, but people seem to believe that their opinion is a fact. "I do not like Tolkien, therefore he was a bad author." What??? That is not how it works! :smalleek:

Oh and that wasn't necessarily aimed at you, sun_tzu, it's just something that's been coming up a lot on these boards that was annoying me.

[Oslecamo]

I read Bilbo the Hobbit and loved it as a kid.
Many years later, I tried to read Lord of the Rings. I had to stop in the middle - it bored me. Bored, bored, bored.
Love Asimov's books, though.

Wow, guess what, 90% of the world population thinks Shakespeare is boring as hell. Shakespeare must be a really bad writer!



Did I mention that the rapist was a catgirl?

Must...Resist...Urge...To ask...For details...

Was it a serious story or a parody? Or just a RPG character with a crazy DM?

[warty goblin]

This brings me to a very important point- for the love of Morgoth-in-exile do not ever try to write like Tolkien. You will fail (unless your name is Christopher Tolkien, and no, getting it legally changed doesn't count), and the resulting abortion of tone and story will make my eyeballs cry for mercy. If somebody likes Tolkien's style, your failings will make them want to go all Oedipus Rex on their face. If they don't, it just makes your work look like a cliched 'me too' that can't quite pull off the 'too' part.

Part of this is due to the fact that Tolkien really isn't at as high a level as people think, most of the time, particularly when the story is character focused. The Silmarillion is full of pretty epic language, but is basically free of actual viewpoint, and is also amazingly epic, and so gets by with it. All the Frodo and Sam bits in LOTR though? Not so much with the 'thees' and 'thous.' Hell, even Galadrial, the oldest person in the books, didn't talk like that most of the time. So remember, unless you are writing a cosmology without any actual characters and pretty much no dialog, do not ever use 'thee,' and mixing the two styles (normal dialog, mythic descriptions), is just plain wrong.

[averagejoe]

That still doesn't make Tolkien a bad writer. It means you didn't like his style.

Why do I always feel like I'm the only one who ever makes the distinction between disliking someone's work, and them actually being a bad author? :smallfrown: It's possible to like something that's bad (I read Eragon), and it's possible to dislike something good (people dislike Tolkien). I honestly don't think quality is as objective as some people would like to think. It is largely subjective, but people seem to believe that their opinion is a fact. "I do not like Tolkien, therefore he was a bad author." What??? That is not how it works! :smalleek:

Oh and that wasn't necessarily aimed at you, sun_tzu, it's just something that's been coming up a lot on these boards that was annoying me.

I feel much the same way, actually. When most people say, "I dislike Tolkien," one comes to understand from the reasons they give that they actually mean, "I dislike the type of story that Lord of the Rings is."


Part of this is due to the fact that Tolkien really isn't at as high a level as people think, most of the time, particularly when the story is character focused. The Silmarillion is full of pretty epic language, but is basically free of actual viewpoint, and is also amazingly epic, and so gets by with it. All the Frodo and Sam bits in LOTR though? Not so much with the 'thees' and 'thous.' Hell, even Galadrial, the oldest person in the books, didn't talk like that most of the time. So remember, unless you are writing a cosmology without any actual characters and pretty much no dialog, do not ever use 'thee,' and mixing the two styles (normal dialog, mythic descriptions), is just plain wrong.

:smallconfused: What thees and thous? I mean, sometimes they would quote poetry or whatever, but the dialogue was mostly on the level.

[WalkingTarget]

:smallconfused: What thees and thous? I mean, sometimes they would quote poetry or whatever, but the dialogue was mostly on the level.

They show up occasionally (Aragorn and Eowyn at Dunharrow for example). Tolkien used them mostly when somebody is being "formal" as modern English doesn't have distinctions for that sort of thing like some other languages do (Spanish tu vs. usted).

[Tengu_temp]

Man this is still why I love me some Alucard.
When even other vamps call you a monster, you have to be doing something right.

I think Alucard would be cooler if he wasn't indestructible - being faced only by enemies who cannot seriously threaten you takes away a lot of your badass factor.

[chiasaur11]

I think Alucard would be cooler if he wasn't indestructible - being faced only by enemies who cannot seriously threaten you takes away a lot of your badass factor.

Still, Hellboy manages to be badass in spite of that.

Maybe it's the fact he at least can be hurt and stopped, which is nearly as good.

[Oslecamo]

I think Alucard would be cooler if he wasn't indestructible - being faced only by enemies who cannot seriously threaten you takes away a lot of your badass factor.

I never saw anyone complaining from the fact that the TTGL faces only enemies that want to lose at all costs and have an unstopable weapon on tops.

[warty goblin]

I feel much the same way, actually. When most people say, "I dislike Tolkien," one comes to understand from the reasons they give that they actually mean, "I dislike the type of story that Lord of the Rings is."



:smallconfused: What thees and thous? I mean, sometimes they would quote poetry or whatever, but the dialogue was mostly on the level.

That's what I said, that they don't use thees and thous for the most part.

[Tengu_temp]

You're being purposely ignorant if you think the enemies they face in TTGL cannot significantly hurt them.
If they couldn't, Kamina wouldn't die.
Or 90% of Dai Gurren Brigade, later.

[Oslecamo]

You're being purposely ignorant if you think the enemies they face in TTGL cannot significantly hurt them.
If they couldn't, Kamina wouldn't die.
Or 90% of Dai Gurren Brigade, later.

That's because only one guy could carry the weapon of power.

Deaths explanation:
Kamina dies because he charges alone against one of the enemy's strongest mecha. So much for badassness. Yes, he stills holds on for a few seconds, but the other boy would have pwned everyone else either way.

In the end of the series, they again die because they mindlessly charge against the enemy, leting themselves get surrounded. So

It's not the enemies that kill them. It's their stupidity. Of course jumping into the middle of a crossfire/blackhole will kill you. If they had just standed back and shooted they would have suffered no casualities whatsoever.

The boy, on the other hand, goes as far as puting someone whitout spiral energy in the lower cockpit, and still owning everybody, wich goes a long way to show the driller simply couldn't be stoped by anything.



Why their enemies are morons:

Vael:I shall give you all the time in the world to prepare to fight me. Oh, you got hurt, no problem, repair at will that I'll wait.

Monkey King:Kill the enemy comander with my super mech? Nah, I'll get in my minor mech, despite the enemy already having obliterated several of them.

Scorpion queen:I shall strategically position myself myself in front of their main guns!

Air king: Ok, guys, now fly really close to that mountain so the enemy mecha can more easily jump upon us.

Tatu king: Behold my ultimate tequnique of spinning in circles so you can take your time to find my weak point!

King spiral:Sorry about breaking your mech, boy. Here, stab me at will with your weapon of unstopable power. I could crush your skull with my hands before that, but that would mean I win, and I really can't admit that.

Sorrow forces:WE SHALL KILL YOU WITH SORROW! BEHOLD OUR STILL MECHAS WHO LET THEMSELVES GET KILLED WHITOUT FIGHTING BACK! WE'LL HOLD OUT OUR STRONGEST UNIT UNTILL YOU MANAGE TO CHARGE UP YOUR MECHA! PLEASE END THIS FOR GOD'S SAKE IT'S BEEN SEVEN EPISODES ALREADY!

[Tengu_temp]

You might want to rewatch the show.
Kamina was taken down by a sneak attack. And no, without him engaging the enemy boss Simon wouldn't pwn everyone - he'd fall into even deeper stress and all the good guys would die.

The enemy dimension was chock-full of enemies - they were everywhere, and they were not willing to go through the hole, so in order to save Nia they had to face the whole enemy army head-on. There were no other options.

On top of that, Alucard wouldn't be able to die even if he acted really stupid.

So he often does.

[averagejoe]

They show up occasionally (Aragorn and Eowyn at Dunharrow for example). Tolkien used them mostly when somebody is being "formal" as modern English doesn't have distinctions for that sort of thing like some other languages do (Spanish tu vs. usted).

Well, yes of course that, but he was mentioning Frodo and Sam specifically. It was a good technique in this instance because of the reasons you mentioned.

[bluewind95]

I feel obligated to respond to your rather weak comparison of amnesia as comedy to rape as comedy.

So, I assume you hate Looney Tunes. I mean, if I fell off a cliff, I'd die! If I was next to an explosion, I'd die! If my head was turned 180 degress, that would be quite painful! Yet in many cases, characters have those happen to them and it's at most a minor inconvenience. Yet no one accuses Looney Tunes of being Dead Baby Comedy.

See, here's the thing. If amnesia is used for comedy (i.e. Monk, Tintin) you'll notice it's not "real" amnesia. It's what TV Tropes calls Easy Amnesia. A bump on the head causes it, and it's fairly easy to cure. It's something completely separate from "real" amnesia, so playing it for comedy is fine. Same with the above Looney Tunes example. Real explosions kill people, but on Looney Tunes it just covers them with ashes. It's played for comedy because it's not anything like what would actually happen.

Rape as comedy is a different thing. Even when played for comedy, it's still rape. The same thing happens as in real rape (the reaction and aftermath may be different, but the act itself is the same). That's why comparing "amnesia as comedy" with "rape as comedy" is completely in error. If you do that, you must concede that Loony Tunes is Dead Baby Comedy because it's insensitive to people who have been blown up or chopped up or shot or anything else.

Actually, yes, I highly dislike Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry for those reasons. And like Averagejoe, I would call them dead baby comedies, except I can barely classify them as comedy at all. They seem to me to treat things that should be serious in too light a way, things that should not be funny as funny. Just recently in a certain country's independence day celebration, some person grabbed a grenade and threw it at the multitude of people, killing 8 and injuring others. I really don't think that the surviving families are going to be especially amused at the cartoon explosions and whatnot...

It is true that these kinds of comedies are also much less realistic than when rape is used. Rape is possibly the extreme example of a serious issue used badly. But that doesn't mean other topics are any less sensitive, especially for people afflicted by the real versions. You can also make the case for rape in comedies not being "real rape" because, you know, in real life, people wouldn't get over it so quickly, nor would it be seen as funny. Also... a really strong blow to the head? In comedies it causes easy and temporary amnesia. In real life, it causes a lot of things, from real amnesia to seizures to all sorts of brain damage, to death. Sorry, but, to me, both things are just as bad.

Also, I mentioned that these things should mostly be avoided if you want something to seem at all believable. If you want to write a tactless comedy, you're well within your rights.

[Anteros]

I know I'm a bit late for this, but do you really think taking generic advice from random people on the internet is a good way to improve? As far as you know the people advising you could be the worst writers ever.

Honestly, if anyone is going to critique you as a writer, you really need to see their own work first. That's not to say you can't get general tips or advice from people, but you should definately take whatever they give you with a grain of salt.

[Sir_Norbert]

Start small. Don't try writing a 12 volume epic story without building up to that. Write short stories first. You might never publish them. You might never even want to try, but if you can't introduce a character in half a page, make them interact with the world for a half dozen, and then bring the story to a close by page 20, you will never be able to do these things over novel lengths.
Well, I have to say I can't agree. Although that might be just bitterness speaking because I can't write small. But seriously, I write because I get ideas for characters and stories, and they develop in my mind of their own accord. By the time I've even started getting anything down on paper (or computer) the initial idea has developed to the point where a short story wouldn't do it justice. I'm sure I could, if I tried, write a short story that introduced a character on the first page, had him interact with the world for half a dozen, and was over by page 20, but it wouldn't be a story that was worth reading, because it would show in the writing that I didn't care about it. But I'm also sure that I can do it over novel lengths -- because I have done it.

Real lives don't end after twenty pages' worth of material either. There's always more to say.

I am writing a 13-volume epic, and I've written the first book and got good feedback on it, and right now I'm in the middle of the process of trying to get it published, so we'll have to see. I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet, but I'm satisfied that it is, at least, as good as I with my skills can make it, and I'm happy enough with that.

The fifth volume of the series will centre around a character with amnesia and I'm going to do it properly -- the character will be trying to rebuild their entire life after going through something similar to what Hadrian talked about, and I'm going to try and make the reader care about them.

[Verosce]

The Exam that nobody has taken for several pages! Now most of this is purely hypothetical for my story, which has yet to fully take off, but these answers will almost definitely be the same.


1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Of course things happen, that's when you'll meet a good chunk of the characters doing badass things

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
None of them are

3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Negative

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No single supreme badguy. Possibly great powers.

5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
Magical artifacts, if they exist, won't be quite that powerful.

6. How about one that will destroy it?
See above

7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No one can know the future.

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Nope.

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
Not a "god" per se, but definitely someone immensely powerful due to *ahem* circumstances. He or she is not a main character though.

10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
NOOO. And again, no one supreme bad guy.

11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No one single monarch of the world. I mean come on, it's a whole world.

12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
I don't think you could even describe any of them as wizards.

13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
There will be slow people, kind-hearted people, and powerful warriors. All at once? Maybe, but not a major character.

14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Only if those reasons are good enough. Also "plot details" is rather generic.

15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
I'm sure some women would worry about their appearance around some of the male main characters.

16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
No one exists for a sole purpose.

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
See above.

18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Well yes, a good chunk of people in the world never do any fighting, I'm sure.

19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Certainly not fearless, but people trained from a young age to wield a sword (read: a weapon) are generally better at fighting than cuisine.

20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No dwarves. That does give me a hilarious idea for a short pouty guy though.

21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No elves and thus no half-elves.

22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
See the two answers above. But to answer that question for its own sake; it wouldn't be on a racial basis, it'd be on an individual basis, kind of like, I dunno, FRIENDSHIP. Some dwarves and elves would be friends and some wouldn't be.

23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No characters of such stature except children, really.

24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
Of course not.

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
I fail to see the relevance. Of course, maybe that makes me an awful writer as well as an idiotic person.

26. 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"?
No map drawn...yet. Location names will be named as if by the person who discovered them.

27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
It'll be easy to understand. The significance just won't be apparent until you know the characters and their accomplishments.

28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No plans. Just going to write.

29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
See ^

30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
If it gets that big, I'll split it into multiple books.

31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
This shall be the first, and no story ever ends. You just eventually stop telling everyone else what happens next.

32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No. That would make it the first in the series anyway, cripes.

33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
OH CRAP!

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
Hah, I was just thinking about writing out the story of the next adventure I play...

35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
...Yes. No avoiding this one. I am breaking a sweat trying to come up with some way to perform the transport that is not ridiculous. Ideas would be greatly appreciated, actually.

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
Nope

37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
If they did, it would be shortened by everyone else and also a very odd name for the world.

38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Naming a child "Belthusalanthalus" is wrong on so many levels.

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Nooo.

40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Noop

41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No.

42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No dwarves. Generic mines? No idea. Probably not.

43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No. Battle scenes will be thought of as they might actually happen.

44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
If I did it would be unrelated and for fun.

45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
Nooo.

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Inns exist to buy a drink and/or a room for a night or so.

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
I'll be inventing a new political system, since I have only a very basic grasp of feudalism. If it's somehow very close to feudalism, bully for me.

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
Depends on how far away the places they have to go are.

49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
Not "just so it won't break the plot". That's fourth-wall breakage. S/he'll have a reason; if not a good one, at least a realistic one.

50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Magic is much more subtle and not nearly as straight-up powerful.

51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
If I did, maybe as someone's name.

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
For the people that wear it, yes. This is a dumb question.

53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Only if one of the characters is referencing a game.

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
A lot. Gold coins are heavy, which is why the characters will be using mostly alternate forms of currency.

55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No. A good number of fantasy novels avoid this, actually. Dumb, baited question.

56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day?
While some people wear plate, they won't do a lot of traveling in or with it. Also, riding a horse for 4 hours and then making love? Yikes, painful.

57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
Magic isn't powerful enough for that.

58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
Only if s/he has a very poor grasp of how to use weaponry.

59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Only if s/he has a weapon designed to do so.

60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
The really big ones do. They're used more as bludgeons, though.

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
The unattainable woman falls in love with the unattainable hero, who unattainably falls in love with one of his unattainable female companion. Crazy **** goes down. (That's a somewhat poor representation of what actually happens)

62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
God, I hope not. Any character who performs that many puns will probably end up dead.

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
No, I pretty much think that one hit from a giant hammer would put most people down for the count.

64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
Only if that person is really lucky, or a woman (or man, I guess...) with very large breasts.

65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
I did not, but that's a good thing to learn.

66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No. There may be barbarians though.

67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
I wasn't sure what it was other than "alcohol for legends". Good stuff to know.

68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
Definitely not.

69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
They wouldn't be a thieves' guild then, would they now?

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No.

71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
There will be several people who can do great musical things. They are warriors first, however.

72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
I don't know the name of the language yet. It won't really matter.

73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
It's hard to divine magic, it's hard to get to battlefields, and magic isn't all that worth it to travel long distances for anyway. I wouldn't say "littered" though.

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.

75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
I won't grace this with an answer. Wait...****, I just did.



Wow, those writers weren't condescending or anything.

[Lord Seth]

Also, I mentioned that these things should mostly be avoided if you want something to seem at all believable. If you want to write a tactless comedy, you're well within your rights.I'd hardly call them "tactless" and calling them "Dead Baby Comedy" is absurd, and Looney Tunes was pretty darn funny a lot of the time. But from what you are saying I assume you also hate Monty Python and the Holy Grail. People get killed all the time and it gets played for laughs. The black knight skit (which is absolutely hilarious) is also horribly insensitive to amputees, according to you.

I think your problem is that you're taking things seriously when they're not supposed to be taken seriously.

[bluewind95]

I'd hardly call them "tactless" and calling them "Dead Baby Comedy" is absurd, and Looney Tunes was pretty darn funny a lot of the time. But from what you are saying I assume you also hate Monty Python and the Holy Grail. People get killed all the time and it gets played for laughs. The black knight skit (which is absolutely hilarious) is also horribly insensitive to amputees, according to you.

I think your problem is that you're taking things seriously when they're not supposed to be taken seriously.

Actually, I didn't watch those. To be fair, I couldn't stand 5 minutes of Austin Powers, and I couldn't stand even the first scene of Scary Movie, and I'm told those movies were hilarious.

Perhaps I'm taking things too seriously, but then again, not everyone has the same sense of humor. Then again... rape for comedy? Not supposed to be taken seriously. Doesn't make it any less tactless.

[Lord Seth]

Actually, I didn't watch those. To be fair, I couldn't stand 5 minutes of Austin Powers, and I couldn't stand even the first scene of Scary Movie, and I'm told those movies were hilarious.

Perhaps I'm taking things too seriously, but then again, not everyone has the same sense of humor. Then again... rape for comedy? Not supposed to be taken seriously. Doesn't make it any less tactless.Wasn't referring to rape, you were the one who brought it up. Actually, that brings me back to my point that I don't think you responded to, so I'll bring it up again.

Let's take Looney Tunes. Specifically, let's take this classic one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIdoL-WxhQ). Specifically 1:55-3:30, which is the famous "Duck season! Rabbit season!" sequence.

Now, as you and I know, if someone gets shot in the face in real life, it almost always has fatal consequences. But when Daffy gets shot, that doesn't happen. His beak may get flipped around, his head may turn upside-down, but he doesn't die or take any lasting injury. That's because in the Looney Tunes universe, things are different so these just cause minor injuries. As a result, no character reacts with horror and it can be played for laughs. Which was my original point about the amnesia.

Of course, we're all fans of a webcomic that has at least two characters (Belkar and Xykon) whose homicidal tendencies are played for laughs almost all the time, as well as the fact being squashed is funny (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0346.html), dozens of innocent villagers dying is played for laughs (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html), and I don't know what this one is but it certainly plays death for laughs (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0301.html).

[Anteros]

That "test" is so generic that it's practically worthless. It would be very hard to write a work of fantasy without violating at least some of the rules. Especially if you're Robert Jordan.

Edit: In regards to the argument going on earlier in the page. Just because something bad has happened to you, doesn't mean it's off limits to everyone else forever. A lot of writing revolves around bad things because bad things create conflict. In like manner, if an author can take a horrible thing like rape and put a humorous twist on it, more power to him. I personally tend to avoid such stories, but he's perfectly within his right to do so, and you are perfectly within your right to avoid his work.

I'll use a personal example. A close friend of mine was raped and brutally murdered about a year ago. As a result of this, I can't even watch horror or suspense movies without going into a blind rage. It's appalling to me that people can treat these subjects so callously, and get entertainment from them. However, the fact that I personally hate these types of works, does not make them any less entertaining to everyone else. Just because you or I consider a subject tactless, does not mean it can't be well done and entertaining to others.

[bluewind95]

Wasn't referring to rape, you were the one who brought it up. Actually, that brings me back to my point that I don't think you responded to, so I'll bring it up again.

Let's take Looney Tunes. Specifically, let's take this classic one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIdoL-WxhQ). Specifically 1:55-3:30, which is the famous "Duck season! Rabbit season!" sequence.

Now, as you and I know, if someone gets shot in the face in real life, it almost always has fatal consequences. But when Daffy gets shot, that doesn't happen. His beak may get flipped around, his head may turn upside-down, but he doesn't die or take any lasting injury. That's because in the Looney Tunes universe, things are different so these just cause minor injuries. As a result, no character reacts with horror and it can be played for laughs. Which was my original point about the amnesia.

Of course, we're all fans of a webcomic that has at least two characters (Belkar and Xykon) whose homicidal tendencies are played for laughs almost all the time, as well as the fact being squashed is funny (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0346.html), dozens of innocent villagers dying is played for laughs (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0040.html), and I don't know what this one is but it certainly plays death for laughs (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0301.html).

Yes, and I don't quite find those things funny. Yes, I do believe Belkar and Xykon have homicidal tendencies that I do not find funny, though I still enjoy the comic overall. Like I said, not everyone has the same sense of humor.

I also mentioned in my original post that I find using such things in comedy can be acceptable, but questionable. I mean, if it's done in a way that's not absolutely tactless and grotesque, hey, go for it. I still won't find it funny, but I am not every person in the world. Doing this, of course, as I mentioned in my original post, does make the whole thing feel less believable.

And that was my point(and again, I said it on the original post)! Doing such things is probably not a good idea if your intent is to be believable. Doing it for laughs and comedy, well, I personally find it questionable, but it's acceptable, provided one doesn't go completely over the top in order to be offensive.

Edit:

Yep, Antelos. Indeed, the topics are not off-limits. I expressed the opinion that I find them all very unpleasant, yes. But my point is that treating them in such unrealistic ways not only can offend people, but it also makes the whole work seem a lot less believable. Now, if you don't mind offending some people as long as you're entertaining the rest, and you also don't mind losing some of the "realistic" value of your work, sure, go ahead and write that stuff.

[averagejoe]

Actually, yes, I highly dislike Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry for those reasons. And like Averagejoe, I would call them dead baby comedies, except I can barely classify them as comedy at all. They seem to me to treat things that should be serious in too light a way, things that should not be funny as funny. Just recently in a certain country's independence day celebration, some person grabbed a grenade and threw it at the multitude of people, killing 8 and injuring others. I really don't think that the surviving families are going to be especially amused at the cartoon explosions and whatnot...

It is true that these kinds of comedies are also much less realistic than when rape is used. Rape is possibly the extreme example of a serious issue used badly. But that doesn't mean other topics are any less sensitive, especially for people afflicted by the real versions. You can also make the case for rape in comedies not being "real rape" because, you know, in real life, people wouldn't get over it so quickly, nor would it be seen as funny. Also... a really strong blow to the head? In comedies it causes easy and temporary amnesia. In real life, it causes a lot of things, from real amnesia to seizures to all sorts of brain damage, to death. Sorry, but, to me, both things are just as bad.

Also, I mentioned that these things should mostly be avoided if you want something to seem at all believable. If you want to write a tactless comedy, you're well within your rights.

Actually, I don't dislike Loony Tunes so much. What makes Tom and Jerry uncomfortable for me is the sheer amount of sadism displayed there. Loony Tunes is a place where, in general, the antagonists are jerks and get what's coming to them, and the pain they experience is rarely anything more than what they bring upon themselves. Jerry seems to love hurting that cat for the sheer sadistic pleasure of it, though, past the point where the cat has been beaten and removed as a threat (if he ever was a threat, that is; sometimes the mouse is cruel just because).

I'm curious; what do you think of something like Itchy and Scratchy, where it's a violent cartoon, but is trying to make fun of violent cartoons? (Although, again, as over the top as that is, it really isn't any worse than Tom and Jerry. Heck, except for the blood it almost seems tame in comparison. However, I'm speaking of hypothetical intent and not how well it actually pulled it off.)

Scary movie was a bad movie because it was really stupid, not because it was inappropriate. Even though it was.

[bluewind95]

Oh, yes, yes, I agree Tom and Jerry is FAR worse than Looney Tunes. I don't like either, but...

Anyways, Itchy and Scratchy make me extremely uncomfortable. I used to watch the Simpsons, and I thought it was okay, but that Itchy and Scratchy bit... just... no...

That one, though, is even more of a subjective opinion. I have a phobia of blood and the sight of it (even animated blood, yes) can make me feel queasy. The idea behind it seemed to agree with my idea, though. Why exactly are we(speaking of the general population) thinking such violent acts are funny?

[averagejoe]

Oh, yes, yes, I agree Tom and Jerry is FAR worse than Looney Tunes. I don't like either, but...

Anyways, Itchy and Scratchy make me extremely uncomfortable. I used to watch the Simpsons, and I thought it was okay, but that Itchy and Scratchy bit... just... no...

That one, though, is even more of a subjective opinion. I have a phobia of blood and the sight of it (even animated blood, yes) can make me feel queasy. The idea behind it seemed to agree with my idea, though. Why exactly are we(speaking of the general population) thinking such violent acts are funny?

Fair enough; real blood bothers me, and fake blood probably would if I didn't realize it's fake, which tends to wreck verisimilitude, but whatever; blood and violence has never been a big selling point to me anyways.

I've actually speculated a lot on why we find violent acts funny. A lot of the time, I think, it's the context of the violence, and not necessarily the violence itself. For example, take the video that Seth linked to, and the "rabbit season duck season" bit. It isn't funny because Daffy gets shot (or, at least not directly), it's funny because of the manner in which Daffy was tricked into getting himself shot. The gun firing is simply the necessary conclusion, as it were; the joke could have been done with, say, someone getting sprayed with a hose, or some such. The fact that it's a gun is just context.

Another example from the same video; the reversal of the hunter and prey. Role reversal tends to be something that's in some way emotionally liberating; Halloween, for example, or RPG's. By the same token, it's often funny; plays like Twelfth Night or, say, a really large, tough guy sobbing and whimpering when he stubs his toe. In both these cases, the reason people sensitive to violence don't find it funny is because they overwhelmingly see "violence" and not the joke. Other people, on the other hand, see the violence as essentially nothing, and so the joke is funny. Again, not because it is violent, but because there are jokes, and these jokes happen to involve violence.

Other examples might come from Wile E. Coyote; the humor in those cartoons is largely derived from the persistent futility of his actions. (Futility is funny, by the way; just look at the famous "Who's on First" routine, or the guy in Mallrats who couldn't see the sailboat.) The universe hates Wile E. so much that it's willing to bend over backwards and do impossible things just to make his life miserable. There's also humor just in the sheer volume of it; you can make something funny, and then by repetition make it not funny, but when you repeat it enough it becomes funny again, and typically even more so. Also, we have the aggressor failing and the underdog coming out on top; these are both funny even in non-violent situations.

I don't think we as a society find violence funny, or at least not most of us. I think that we often make violence absurd or silly, and there's humor in that, but rarely is the violence itself the point of it.

[Telonius]

This pretty much sums it up for me:


Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.

[Danin]

Things I answered yes to on that quiz:

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?

That about sums it up. It also only has one of the above and maybe a second.

[Lord Seth]

Scary movie was a bad movie because it was really stupid, not because it was inappropriate. Even though it was.Really? I thought Scary Movie was quite funny. Yeah, it went overboard at some points, but I still found it really funny. Scary Movie 2, on the other hand, was made even more inappropriate and had SUBSTANTIALLY fewer laughs. I recall maybe 5 jokes at most that got a laugh out of me in the entire movie.


Why exactly are we(speaking of the general population) thinking such violent acts are funny?Why do we find anything funny? Humor is a tough thing to analyze.

[averagejoe]

Really? I thought Scary Movie was quite funny. Yeah, it went overboard at some points, but I still found it really funny. Scary Movie 2, on the other hand, was made even more inappropriate and had SUBSTANTIALLY fewer laughs. I recall maybe 5 jokes at most that got a laugh out of me in the entire movie.

Really? I didn't even think it was funny when my humor was really juvenile. I don't really recall even being tempted to laugh.

[DomaDoma]

All I've seen of the Scary Movie franchise is, I'm told, the only good scene in Scary Movie 4, involving a teleprompter-dependent news anchor.

Not Another Teen Movie was the only movie I ever walked out on in the theater. Amazingly, it was not written by those two guys who made all the other awful spoofs this decade. Not that anybody here needs to take the advice, but poop and sex, in and of themselves, do not make passable comedy.

Now, An American Carol was hilarious even through all the heavy-handed politics. Going ludicrously over-the-top, but not in a graphic way, seems key. Also: riffs on pop culture can be dated - Kentucky Fried Movie was great when I watched it despite my need to be explained what Deep Throat was outside the context of Nixon - but they've got to be pertinent to the thing in question and included for synergy rather than brand name recognition, you two guys.

[Nevrmore]

All I've seen of the Scary Movie franchise is, I'm told, the only good scene in Scary Movie 4, involving a teleprompter-dependent news anchor.
You're thinking of Scary Movie 3, not 4.

[phoenixcire]

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
For the people that wear it, yes. This is a dumb question.


Actually, it isn't a dumb question as "plate mail" doesn't exist. Plate Armor is made up of solid metal plates. Mail is made of small metal rings.

[Seraph]

Actually, it isn't a dumb question as "plate mail" doesn't exist. Plate Armor is made up of solid metal plates. Mail is made of small metal rings.

You may want to reconsider your statement. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_mail)

[Lord Seth]

All I've seen of the Scary Movie franchise is, I'm told, the only good scene in Scary Movie 4, involving a teleprompter-dependent news anchor.I think that was from Scary Movie 3, which I thought was the funniest of the franchise. I liked the first, thought the second was awful, thought the third was better than the first, and I really have to see the fourth sometime so I can form an opinion of it.


Not Another Teen Movie was the only movie I ever walked out on in the theater. Amazingly, it was not written by those two guys who made all the other awful spoofs this decade. Not that anybody here needs to take the advice, but poop and sex, in and of themselves, do not make passable comedy.Really? While Not Another Teen Movie wasn't a great movie, it did have some decent moments of comedy (I mean, come on, you didn't think the "slow clap" gag at the end was funny?), and it is definitely superior to Date Movie and its sequels.

[DomaDoma]

Really? While Not Another Teen Movie wasn't a great movie, it did have some decent moments of comedy (I mean, come on, you didn't think the "slow clap" gag at the end was funny?)

I wouldn't know - I walked out when the boys watching the girl on the toilet collapsed into the bathroom which collapsed into the classroom with copious amounts of poo. It was looking pretty illustrative of the general taste and humor level by that point.

I did like the clique-assignation gag in the first five minutes, though.

[Oregano]

That's by far the most gross and stupid part of the movie, I don't think it goes down to that level ever again, it was a pretty good film, I can't take Chris Evans seriously in anything else after watching it though.

[Jayngfet]

Must...Resist...Urge...To ask...For details...

Was it a serious story or a parody? Or just a RPG character with a crazy DM?

That was me, it's played semi serious. The general idea is wizard + catgirl x lots of time = Elven supersoldiers. It dwells more on him fathering a merciless army of the fair folk than the raping itself.

[phoenixcire]

You may want to reconsider your statement.

You're right, I was a little hasty in my response earlier. Let's be more specific just for clarity's sake.

A mail shirt=hauberk, haubergeon or byrnie...depending on length
Mail leggings=chausses
Mail hoods=coif

There are others that I don't feel like listing right now.

Regardless of the fact that plates may be sewn into mail, it isn't called "plate mail."

[Verosce]

You're right, I was a little hasty in my response earlier. Let's be more specific just for clarity's sake.

A mail shirt=hauberk, haubergeon or byrnie...depending on length
Mail leggings=chausses
Mail hoods=coif

There are others that I don't feel like listing right now.

Regardless of the fact that plates may be sewn into mail, it isn't called "plate mail."

My bad, thank you for the clarification.

[pendell]

The world does tend towards black and white, but isn't overly so. Orcs are more or less pure evil, but it is decidedly unclear just where they fit in the cosmology, if they in fact have free will at all, or are any more than brutes. Even the Elves are flawed, yet their flaw (pride in returning/never leaving Middle Earth) is arguably a good thing for the world. Also, Gollum.



While the different mythological creatures are arguable, I would say Tolkien has a very nuanced shades-of-gray approach to *humans* in his world.

That seems to be an overarching theme of LOTR: The fallibility of ordinary human beings. The madness of Denethor. The age of Theoden. The treachery of Wormtongue. The fall of Boromir. The steadfastness of Faramir.

If anything, Boromir is the best match for the super-patriot who believes his country can do no wrong, and is perfectly willing to do anything if it means saving Gondor. And Frodo counsels him against trust in the 'strength and truth' of men.

And there's also a huuuge number of men -- Easterlings and Southrons -- who worship Sauron and are indisputably on the wrong side. On a pure numbers basis in the fight of Good V. Evil, it's plausible to say that humans are one of the *evil* races in LOTR. There are exceptions , such as the men of Gondor, but *as a rule* men are in the service of Sauron.

Tolkien portrays a world in which Good -- real Good -- exists but is for the most part off stage, across the sea and unreachable. Even the highest servants of Good in Middle Earth -- the Wizards -- can fall, and even those who don't fall (such as Galadriel and Elrond and the elves) are susceptible to faults and hubris.

So I think -- if one looks carefully -- there is actually a very nuanced view of good and evil in the LOTR. Yes, there is real Good. And yes, there is real Evil. And most of the creatures we encounter in the stories are somewhere between those poles. Except the Orcs. But then, that could just be a function of never meeting the right kind of orcs. If the only humans I encountered were soldiers on a battlefield, I might have a jaundiced view of them as well.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jorkens]

While the different mythological creatures are arguable, I would say Tolkien has a very nuanced shades-of-gray approach to *humans* in his world.

That seems to be an overarching theme of LOTR: The fallibility of ordinary human beings. The madness of Denethor. The age of Theoden. The treachery of Wormtongue. The fall of Boromir. The steadfastness of Faramir.

If anything, Boromir is the best match for the super-patriot who believes his country can do no wrong, and is perfectly willing to do anything if it means saving Gondor. And Frodo counsels him against trust in the 'strength and truth' of men.

And there's also a huuuge number of men -- Easterlings and Southrons -- who worship Sauron and are indisputably on the wrong side. On a pure numbers basis in the fight of Good V. Evil, it's plausible to say that humans are one of the *evil* races in LOTR. There are exceptions , such as the men of Gondor, but *as a rule* men are in the service of Sauron.

Tolkien portrays a world in which Good -- real Good -- exists but is for the most part off stage, across the sea and unreachable. Even the highest servants of Good in Middle Earth -- the Wizards -- can fall, and even those who don't fall (such as Galadriel and Elrond and the elves) are susceptible to faults and hubris.

So I think -- if one looks carefully -- there is actually a very nuanced view of good and evil in the LOTR. Yes, there is real Good. And yes, there is real Evil. And most of the creatures we encounter in the stories are somewhere between those poles. Except the Orcs. But then, that could just be a function of never meeting the right kind of orcs. If the only humans I encountered were soldiers on a battlefield, I might have a jaundiced view of them as well.
The key thing about LotR, though, which means that I would describe it as having a 'black and white morality', is that pretty much everyone who is evil is under the direct (or indirect) influence of either Sauron on Saruman (and arguably the latter becomes evil owing to the influence of the former).

I don't really have a problem with this - it just means that what LotR says about how people come to do evil things in reality is expressed in a slightly metaphorical way. I do have a bit of a problem with writers who use 'the eternal battle of good against evil' as their setup because it's conventional to do so and it saves them having to think about why people actually do bad things to each other...

[hamishspence]

outside of the first book, we can backtrack it all the way.

Melkor/Morgoth was corrupted by his own pride
Sauron was corrupted by Morgoth. And maybe excess desire to control.
Saruman was corrupted, partly by pride, partly by Sauron.

[WalkingTarget]

I don't really have a problem with this - it just means that what LotR says about how people come to do evil things in reality is expressed in a slightly metaphorical way. I do have a bit of a problem with writers who use 'the eternal battle of good against evil' as their setup because it's conventional to do so and it saves them having to think about why people actually do bad things to each other...

Well, the convention people are using there follows directly from some people's mindset in their lives (such as Tolkien, for example). If they are only doing so because it's conventional (which seems to be your complaint), then I agree that it's likely to end badly. If, rather, they're using it because they've set up a philosophical system within the setting to adequately justify it, then it can work well.

It comes down to "if you don't have a good reason to do it, then think of something else". This can be applied to most aspects of a story/setting, I think.

[Jorkens]

Well, the convention people are using there follows directly from some people's mindset in their lives (such as Tolkien, for example).
But I don't think (although I've never read that much about him or his beliefs) that Tolkein believed that people in the Real World(tm) do evil because they are greedy or proud and hence fall under the influence of the Dark Lord who convinces them to do evil stuff. More that people do evil because they are greedy or proud and hence do evil stuff of their own volition, and all the fallible and corrupted humans (and others) in LotR are a kind of catalogue of ways that that can happen.

If they are only doing so because it's conventional (which seems to be your complaint), then I agree that it's likely to end badly. If, rather, they're using it because they've set up a philosophical system within the setting to adequately justify it, then it can work well.

It comes down to "if you don't have a good reason to do it, then think of something else". This can be applied to most aspects of a story/setting, I think.
Ha, yes, actually that would be my synopsis of the whole thread tbh.

[pendell]

The key thing about LotR, though, which means that I would describe it as having a 'black and white morality', is that pretty much everyone who is evil is under the direct (or indirect) influence of either Sauron on Saruman (and arguably the latter becomes evil owing to the influence of the former).


But I don't think that's the case. Shelob 'owned Sauron not', and her predecessor Ungoliant (in the Silmarrillion) actually tried to kill Sauron's master Morgoth. When Ungoliant was defeated, she and her brood hunted all living things, be they Morgoth's or no.

There are also other powers in Middle-Earth for evil. Remember Gandalf's monologue after he came back in the Two Towers, when he was describing the 'deep places under the earth' that 'even Sauron knows not. They are older than he'.

And finally, remember that JRRT wrote LOTR as a mythical past history of earth. So in this myth he created, the Dark Lord was defeated and imprisoned and none came to take his place, yet it was not the end of war or strife or greed.

It's true that JRRT made up a devil-figure in Morgoth, but he also acknowledged that Morgoth, although he was the author of evil, was hardly the sole cause of it. One of the very last sentences in Quenta Silmarillion is along the lines of 'the evil seeds Morgoth sowed continue to bear their evil fruit' -- i.e., Evil may have started with Morgoth, but it certainly didn't end with him.

So while there's definitely a devil-figure in LOTR -- first Morgoth, then Sauron -- I don't think it's fair to view Sauron as the Source of All Evil or King of All Evil in the world. Sauron himself -- as Gandalf said -- is but a servant or emissary of a greater evil. He was the most threatening evil of his time, yes, but evil existed before him and evil would continue to exist after him. 'Ours is but to fight the evil of our time', IIRC another speech by Gandalf in Two Towers.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[OverWilliam]

How about a story about the guy who makes the ancient prophecy about the One hundreds of years ago? :smallconfused:

[Lord_Gareth]

I think they call that Revelations - it was tacked onto the Bible during the rule of the Roman Empire.

In all seriousness, it can be done, and it can be done well, but there's a lot of crap stories involving - or centering around - prophecies. Look at the Belgariad for an example of Chosen Ones done right.

[WalkingTarget]

But I don't think (although I've never read that much about him or his beliefs) that Tolkein believed that people in the Real World(tm) do evil because they are greedy or proud and hence fall under the influence of the Dark Lord who convinces them to do evil stuff. More that people do evil because they are greedy or proud and hence do evil stuff of their own volition, and all the fallible and corrupted humans (and others) in LotR are a kind of catalogue of ways that that can happen.

Well, Tolkien was well known as a devout Catholic. How that influenced his opinions on this sort of topic would stray into forbidden territory, though.

He was friends with C. S. Lewis. Might I suggest The Screwtape Letters as a quality piece of fiction?

¬.¬
⌐.⌐
:smallbiggrin:

[Lord Seth]

Well, Tolkien was well known as a devout Catholic. How that influenced his opinions on this sort of topic would stray into forbidden territory, though.

He was friends with C. S. Lewis. Might I suggest The Screwtape Letters as a quality piece of fiction?

¬.¬
⌐.⌐
:smallbiggrin:Screwtape Letters is barely fiction; I remember my library listed it under nonfiction. It's really more a series of essays that are written under a fictional context.

[truemane]

Well, making Screwtape Letters non-fiction would imply that they are an actual, factual record of correspondance between two demons. Which is absurd. The information contained within them MIGHT be classified as non-fiction, but the book is fiction. Your library needs someone else in charge of categorizing.

[Lord Seth]

Well, making Screwtape Letters non-fiction would imply that they are an actual, factual record of correspondance between two demons. Which is absurd. The information contained within them MIGHT be classified as non-fiction, but the book is fiction. Your library needs someone else in charge of categorizing.As I noted, the Screwtape Letter's "letters from demons" is just a set-up Lewis uses to write a series of essays. Did seem a bit weird though.

Either way, if it is fiction, it's only borderline.

[WalkingTarget]

As I noted, the Screwtape Letter's "letters from demons" is just a set-up Lewis uses to write a series of essays. Did seem a bit weird though.

Either way, if it is fiction, it's only borderline.

Note the shifty eyes in my last post, I'm aware that it's borderline. I was trying to address the shift towards real-world philosophy/religion by redirecting to "media".

[Gaming-Poet]

I love Pratchett dearly, but he's more of a "lifetime achievement in satire and fiction" than "single defining work of genius" kind of guy.

I take it you've never read Small Gods?

The insightful writing moments in that novel outnumber both the satiric and the strictly humorous moments something fierce!

[DomaDoma]

I think they call that Revelations - it was tacked onto the Bible during the rule of the Roman Empire.

In all seriousness, it can be done, and it can be done well, but there's a lot of crap stories involving - or centering around - prophecies. Look at the Belgariad for an example of Chosen Ones done right.

He's talking about the actual prophet back when whatever he was saying was completely irrelevant.

[Jayngfet]

I take it you've never read Small Gods?

The insightful writing moments in that novel outnumber both the satiric and the strictly humorous moments something fierce!

I loved small gods, but I really prefer lords and ladies or carpe juggulum.

I just love to see what pratchet does when man hunting horrors become the angsty teenagers of fantasy.