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Fantasy Fools

Fantasy Fools

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the best fantasy advice anyone has given you

15 posts in this topic.

  1. Writersdomain
    Writersdomain · Jan 14, 2010
    So, there's a lot of talk of fantasy wherever you go. What is the best fantasy advice anyone has ever given you? And how did it affect your writing?



    Personally, the best fantasy advice and the best writing advice I was ever given was something along the lines of "stop making worlds and characters and finish it". For a long time, I overanalyzed what I was going to write to the point it was unwritable, but I quickly amazed myself with what came out when I stopped making family trees and maps and started finishing stuff. What about you? :wink:
  2. Merlin34
    Merlin34 · Jan 14, 2010
    "Go out and make stuff."

    There's a lot of cliched fantasy out there, so original ideas will go along way.
  3. Lynlyn
    Lynlyn · Jan 20, 2010
    I think it would be Orson Scott Card's advice to establish world quickly.

    In other words, let people know where the edges of your world are pretty quickly. How and if magic works, what time period the technology is akin to, et cetera. There's nothing like getting 3/4 of the way through a book thinking it's realistic and then -- surprise! -- finding out that the main character's love interest is a vampire.

    Or, you know, that this whole thing was actually set up by aliens...
  4. AspiringAuthorA..M.
    AspiringAuthorA..M. · Jan 23, 2010
    That's the problem I need advice on Fantasy. All I've gotten is mostly little critiques. And those have stopped coming. :(

    Anybody good in the advanced critiques reviewing? Care to read from my Fantasy/Sci-Fi novel? It's told in the third person omniscient point of view from five teenagers. Three boys, and two girls. Four are troubled, one is even suicidal. The book begins with all five of them having the same mysterious dream. In it I include many, many animals, and strange imagery. At one point of the dream things drastically change. Upon waking up I tell the reader about them, and how tragic they are off in life. The book takes a huge twist at the end.

    If anybody is interested tell me, so I can replace the current attachment with an improved version. :P

    topic56519.html
  5. Sureal
    Sureal · Jan 23, 2010
    Don't write a prologue, is the best advice I've ever seen.
  6. AspiringAuthorA..M.
    AspiringAuthorA..M. · Jan 23, 2010
    You're write about that. I wrote one, and it just... dragged on and on. It didn't even sound fantastical. It was just a thing describing the state of the world that the characters are in. War, famine, etc. But, it was all told more effectively through the characters. So I'm glad that I scrapped it.
  7. Rosendorn
    Rosendorn · Jan 23, 2010
    Mine is probably "Even though it's fantasy, everything has to make sense." Ie- No deux ex machinas, no suddenly changing the rules half-way through without a fantastic reason to do so, no making god-like characters, rules to the actual world, and nothing completely out of left field that doesn't tie into anything you've established before in the story.

    You can be as odd, strange, and different as you want, but make sure it all ties itself together!
  8. Lauren2010 Admin
    Lauren2010 Admin · Jan 23, 2010
    Sureal wrote:Don't write a prologue, is the best advice I've ever seen.


    Agreed. 100%
  9. Karsten
    Karsten · Jan 23, 2010
    Writersdomain wrote:Personally, the best fantasy advice and the best writing advice I was ever given was something along the lines of "stop making worlds and characters and finish it". For a long time, I overanalyzed what I was going to write to the point it was unwritable, but I quickly amazed myself with what came out when I stopped making family trees and maps and started finishing stuff.


    Great advice. When I first got started writing, like most fantasy writers I wanted to write a sprawling million-book epic fantasy series, so I started off with hundreds of pages of planning. Total waste of time. Story is about people and conflict - not world-building, not backstory, not infodumps of any kind. There's a good chance you won't get to the end of the first novel, let alone the millionth, so there's no point planning too far ahead either.

    Bite off what you realistically expect to chew.
  10. Merlin34
    Merlin34 · Jan 24, 2010
    Sureal wrote:Don't write a prologue, is the best advice I've ever seen.

    I don't think prologues are inherently bad, just when they're super long and make no sense until halfway through the story.
  11. dragons
    dragons · Jul 10, 2010
    My moto is "Believe in what you write" Because if you dont believe in it how can you truly understand what your writing is about? Thats my answer and my question is do you understand what I'm trying to say
    -dragons
  12. Kelcia
    Kelcia · Jul 16, 2010
    I'm torn between two mottos.

    1: "Put your backside in the chair and write."

    'Nuff said huh? ;)

    2: "When you first write it, don't think. Then, sit down and work out the kinks. Then write it again using your head."
  13. Peregrine
    Peregrine · Feb 24, 2013
    My best advice is... "Lose yourself in your world, because only after then is it truly yours
  14. Saga97
    Saga97 · Feb 25, 2013
    Mine is dream, every single daydream or thought write it down let your mind flow through characters, stories and worlds.

    And when you are writing don't think to much.
  15. kayfortnight
    kayfortnight · Feb 25, 2013
    I have a tendency to basically make my prologue what most people consider chapter one. Sometimes, a prologue is important, like one story I told entirely from past tense. It was a collection of diaries that one character put together into an in-universe novel. (That's actually one of my favorite tactics.) In anything like that, a prologue is a necessity not to set up the world, but to introduce the person putting the story together.

    Best advice I've ever gotten? Don't give in to the temptation to revise or edit until you've actually finished your first draft. Easier said than done.


But sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.
— Dalinar (Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson)