Writing

[00dave]

I've decided to have a go at writing my own fantasy book.

Now that you've stopped laughing please consider that it's not as ambitious as it sounds in this day and age, but it does need a lot of research which is where you lot can help me.

The thing is that although creating your own fantasy world is fun and you aren't restricted to the "rules" of writing it does present a few problems. The age target is the first. Talking animals or witches and wizzards can be seen as very childish and 2 dimensional these days but orcs, elves and dwarves can be seen as copying Tolkien.
So here is a list of what I've included so far, see what you think is believable:
Ghosts/spirits
dragons
demons
people who can jump really high or float
elemental magic
healing magic
fate and the changing of

The last one not being as black and white as it sounds, meaning not it's not Rand pulling on the threads.
Let me know what you find believable or what you really like in a fantasy that tends to get missed.
Also if you have any cool names that you want to share please do, it's a bitch thinking of names for people, places and races.

 

[DaGaffer]

Don't ask people on message boards for things like names, races or places (or for God's sake, anything to do with the plot). On the off chance you have a hit, some twat will only end up sueing you. Sad but true.

 

[00dave]

That's where creativity comes in. I'm not asking for plot details, main characters only get names I give them, I'm only asking for minor stuff.
But thank you kindly for your concern.
(Sorry been watching due south recently)

 

[ECA]

I think you are approaching this from the wrong direction.
A rich world where you can suspend disbelief requires strong characters and rich textures. You need to have a strong view of the world in which your adventures are going to take place in, once thats in place I think its a lot easier to come up with characters.

Fiction tends to become popular as a result of the love that comes through from the creator. Trying to emulate that will usually fail. Although middle aged women buy all sorts of crap lol

 

[Damini]

You want to write a believeable fantasy book? Surely that defies the purpose? You want a world where the rules are subverted, or at least, that's what I do when I read fantasy.

I wouldn't be hindered by what other authors have done - everything has been covered in some way, shape or form, and the realm of fantasy has so many cross over points that it's impossible to really differentiate where one world begins and another formally ends. Create your own world, and your own rules within it, and as long as you breathe credibility into it with the way you handle it, then nothing else matters. Suspension of disbelief is the thing! It's your world, you control every aspect of it, and so you decide the rules and you decide what the readers believe.

Oh, and buy yourself a Generic Book of Baby Names, specifically one that gives you meanings of the names. It's a great help.

 

[00dave]

I see what you're saying but I still think there is a line between what is believable and what is just insulting people's intelligence. If I were to have a brave knight who sets out to kill a dragon with the help of a wizzard then had him return to marry a princess would you take that world seriously. It's an extreme example I know but also take for example the wheel of time books. I personally think that the whole threads of time, prophecies and fate are a little bit hard to swallow, I mean if everything goes around and around like a star trek time loop then what what's the big concern (plus the dates sometimes don't add up) And what kind of name is the one power? It's like calling your main character John.

What I'm looking for is a way to not set off down the crap road like Robert Jordan did after book one.

 

[TdC]

imo it's not the world, but what the writer has the chars do that makes a story believable. iow, you can have all the elves and dancing pixies you want just as long as your chars act on situations regarding good/evil/humanitarian/etc issues in a humane fashion that readers can relate to.
To me you can't have a fantasy character jaunt through a dungeon slaughtering everything that moves (much like most fantasy games these days) because that char will have to be a raving psycho to get that done. Such chars tend to have major issues with what they're doing (or a mate doing so) just to tone down the lunacy.

for example, Rand in the Wheel of Time goes all gay and weepy, keeps holding back, struggles with himself, etc because otherwise us humans extrapolate that he will flip out and wreck the world. because he's that powerful. Us readers imagine that he can do it. We sympathise with Rand (while still calling him gay behind his back) because the writer tortures him so.

another example is perhaps Frodo in LotR. he's the epitome of teh ghei: he doesn't want his burdon, he doesn't want to destroy it, everyone's out to get him, he spends most of his adventure hurt wet and miserable, and that is why everyone loves him. He's certainly not an uber powerful elven lord with a glowing sword slaughtering orcs by the score, but a small hobbit. Easilly overlooked, but not because nasty Tolkien keeps chucking great dollops of danger at him.

tbh my fave "fantasy" (anti)hero of the moment is K.J.Parker's "Poldarn" of the Scavenger trilogy. He gets hurt, gets into a lot of trouble, everyone's out to get or manipulate him and he has no idea at all what's going on up to the last ten pages or so of book three. He's certainly not all-powerful.

Sadly the last example doesn't really fit the fantasy creteria you describe inasmuch as there are no elves/dragons/dread lich kings/etc. He's just a bloke in a semi-medievel country at an undetermined period of time. That I also happen to like because the writer doesn't bother with hinting that "ooh arr it could have been earth!!1"

In Jordan's case, he uses the "Wheel of Time" and the "pattern" and threads and things as metaphors for fate and destiny. Can anyone (except maybe the Dalai Lama) really explain how that stuff works without resorting to metapor? The wheel comes into play to symbolise the never-ending struggle of good v evil / light v dark / blue v red through all of eternity. Jordan explains the "one power" as the force that turns the wheel of time. A human might interpret this as it being some kind of cosmic force. A scifi boffin might call it midiclorians or solar rays or reverse molecular destabilisation patterns or that wierd stuff that Captain Kirk uses as aftershave. It really depends on the reader accepting something a writer places in the world or not. Like you said, you read "one power" and thought "wtf?", whereas I read "one power" and thought "oh, ok".

Boiling down: for me, it's not that your chars have scales, wear mail and have tentacles, if they can tap the life force and channel it by their mind's power, wield an axe they got off a dragon-priest or a laser sword they made themselves in a hut on a desert planet or are just regular guys finding themselves in irregular circumstances, but it's how they deal with the shit that makes them believable. How they struggle to not do insane/improbable/(really) unbelievable acts (that would wreck the scope of the world). That's where it's at.

 

[Lazarus]

so Teedles,

you enjoyed those "parker" books?

 

[TdC]

I did indeed mate, though tbh they weren't quite what I was expecting. I'm more used to fluffy fantasy where there are +3 swords made by dead dragon mages and things. not gritty reality-esque fantasy where most fantastical things occur after the personage has knocked himself out after running full-tilt into a tree while trying to get away from a battle