Young Writers Society

I need all the Info on Elfs possible!

What yuo say? Its imposible? No its not! Now shoo shoo shoo, go ge tme info.

Well I am not very good at Reserrching so i would love it if someone posted a paragraph or 2 about Elfs. Thanks.

And in return I found this utterly awesome site on Fantasy Novels

http://www.inspiredauthor.com/Fiction_Writing/Fantasy/Write_Novel/index.htm

You don't need research on Elves, you need to make your own Elves unqiue. Don't use other people's ideas unless it's to get original inspiration. ^_^

Ooh, I was thinking that everyone used a main phisque and stuff.

Ok! Sorr for the hassel

Make a fat elf with a huge beard.

Traditionaly Elves are tall, lean, graceful and facially flawless.
Essentially they are all supermodels hahaha

But I guess you can make an elf whatever you like. It's your story.

If you are going to have elves in your story, you must ask yourself this: Why am I having elves in my fantasy? What purpose do they serve?

Having elves in your story simply because they are cool or that everyone uses them just sets yourself up for failure. Anything which you use in telling a narrative must serve some sort of purpose or else it will be pointless and a waste.

It's not how unique your elves are that determine if it is a cliche or not, but ultimately how they are used to tell a narrative.

The classic elves - An elf is a creature of Norse Mythology. The elves were originally imagined as a race of minor nature and fertility gods, who are often pictured as youthful-seeming men and women of great beauty living in forests and underground places and caves, or in wells and springs. They have been portrayed to be long-lived or immortal and as beings of magical powers. Following J. R. R. Tolkien's influential The Lord of the Rings, wherein a wise, immortal people named Elves have a significant role, elves became staple characters of modern fantasy.

Basically tall, graceful, powerful, agile, perfect people with pointy ears and lots of magic. Oh, yeah, they generally have black/blond hair, emerald green/sky blue/dark eyes, and so on.

Flawless.

Yeah, right. Even elves can't be flawless, something I like to point out in my own stories.

Sorry for the mini-rant, that's just the way I see it.

Everyone left out pointed ears. Usually, tall, lean, green tinged skin, green pointed eyes. Beautiful people. Often called the Little People.

Elves in literature play a large role in nature. Mainly women, they lives in the woods, are attuned the the mother, and are excellent archers. They are beautiful because nature is beautiful and many have light purle-blue skin like water. They wear they're hair long and wear clothes made themselves naturally.

True norse mythology..

They were originally thought as forest spirits. The words "Little people" come from the believe that elves were really small.

The were thought as a race of forest gnomes tha were easily angered and liked to do pranks.

Only the leaders of these forest spirits were tall and all that.

All this about beautiful and green eyes, is a bunch of *****
Now then. At some part on the way of development, the elven somehow were mixed with fairies. Wich are actually from african folklore, if you don't believe me read a book called spider man.... no not the person who swings from a web, the one from african folklore. It is really old and had been re-written a few times.

But anyways. The evolution of fairy and elf were mixed when fairies came to Europe, they were mixed with the forest spirits. This can be seen in some literary works and even Shakespear plays!!!

Then came some authors and no J.R.R Tolkien was not the first one to make up the modern elf, it was one author before him.

J.R.R Tolkien was the first to have "fading" elves, wasn't he?
If I was going to incorporate elves into my fantasy, I wouldn't have them as a slowly-fading race because it's pretty cliche now,

Haruno Sakura wrote:J.R.R Tolkien was the first to have "fading" elves, wasn't he?
If I was going to incorporate elves into my fantasy, I wouldn't have them as a slowly-fading race because it's pretty cliche now,

I believe so. I also believe he was the first to really use elves as a race. We get the standerds from him, which means we get the cliched version from him.

[edit] Modern fantasy
Main article: Elves in fantasy fiction and games
The first appearance of modern fantasy elves occurred in The King of Elfland's Daughter a 1924 novel by Lord Dunsany. The next modern work featuring elves was The Hobbit, a 1937 children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. Elves played a major role in many of Tolkien's later works, notably The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's writing has such popularity that in the 1960s and afterwards, elves similar to those in Tolkien's novels became staple non-human characters in high fantasy works and in fantasy role-playing games.

Post-Tolkien fantasy elves (popularized by the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game) tend to be more beautiful and wiser than humans, with sharper senses and perceptions. They are also said to be much more gifted in magic and stronger physically and mentally (although this can be disputed by comparing human advances in technology to the somewhat rustic elven technology). Often elves do not possess facial or body hair, and are consequently perceived to be androgynous. A hallmark of fantasy elves is also their long and pointed ears (a convention begun with a note of Tolkien's that the ears of elves were "leaf-shaped"). Elves of the Tolkien mold have become standardized staple characters of modern fantasy. It is worth noting that those things described as being of or related to these fair elves are referred to as "elven" or "elfin", as opposed to "elfish" (a term more closely associated with the sprite-like elves of medieval conception).

here read that.