Young Writers Society

What are some fun things/unique events to have happen in a story? I'm asking for both fantasy stories and realistic fiction. c: I'm trying to avoid super cliche events and things, but having a hard time thinking of anything. Thoughts?

I don't write much realistic fiction (and when I do it's usually a mystery) so I'm just going to answer this from the fantasy side.

My take on cliches in fantasy, especially in the fantasy/adventure genre, is that having plot-related events that are cliche is difficult to do. More than likely, whatever you're thinking has been done before is probably a broad trope. Not to say that cliches can't happen in fantasy, because they can and do, but I haven't seen many cliched events. Events in fantasy tend to be so fully ingrained in the context of the fantasy setting that it's actually difficult to come up with exactly the same thing as someone else.

Most of the cliches that I see in fantasy actually come up in regards to the characters and their relationships with one another. But as long as you take the time to fully flesh out your mains, this is not a big issue.

Hope this helps a little? I know I didn't completely answer your question, but I think at the end of the day, as long as you're putting thought into this, you shouldn't have to worry too much.

Hm, that's an interesting thought. Thanks!

I have absolutely no context for whatever the basis of your story might be, so my answers are just related to what you should be looking to avoid. It's always easier to give a laundry list of things to avoid, so I'd like to ask for more context before going outside of just the general context.

In both fantasy and realistic, you're always seeking to avoid certain main characters. Like no matter what you're writing in, you're technically going to have a 'hero' and a 'villain'.
2 examples to illustrate before I move along:
In Star Wars, Luke is the hero and the Sith collective is the villain.
In Failure to Launch, McConaughey is the hero and the parents are the villain.

The standard realistic fiction in a teenage universe, sets the jock up as the villain and the nerd as the hero. Like highschool stories are going to be filled to the brim with cliches no matter which way you look at it, everything has been done at least 50 times before.
Magical teenagers? lol it's the most common thing
Love triangle between the drama club kid, the jock, and the nerd? No matter what genders you insert to any of these stereotypical roles, it's still going to ultimately have an easily predicted outcome. It's love or death, that's how it's worked for like a thousand years of story telling.

Again, I have no reference for what you're going where with this, so I just recommend generally avoiding highschool realistic, since it's got so many areas for pitfalls. If that is what you're trying to do, you've got to be like really careful with each word you write, since everyone tries to write the next teenage ficition.

Fantasy/sci-fi, usually deals with the issues in their magical systems/alien systems. I group them together because they both have similar issues, like the powers of the villain, no matter through magic or science, have the tendency to be unrealistically strong/weak. There needs to be appropriate power balances between the two sides fighting and that's where the focus needs to be there.

I can go on for many weeks about this but I'd like to hear what you have so far that sparked this thread.

Well, I'm thinking up events to happen in a fantasy novel and for a realistic fiction short story, but I feel like everything has already been written. I'm doing better now that I'm thinking of things that I do or normal things kids do for the realistic fiction, but the fantasy is hard. It seems like all they're doing is traveling, fighting a monster, traveling some more, and fighting so more. It seems so bland so I was trying to think of other things to happen to them.

There are probably a couple of ways to spice that up (and I mean, fighting monsters is kind of the basis of Percy Jackson, but I think few people consider Riordan's series to be boring), especially because in most cases, the power of a battle comes from its stakes and not the fact that the battle happens, or what cool monster gets beaten up.

So, to keep a questing adventure from getting dull with its monster-fighting format, you can try a number of things.

1. Keep the stakes in mind all the time. This is the biggest marker of an interesting fight, is what the characters have to lose in the case that they fail.

2. Have different styles of fights. You can play with hordes, puzzles, big bad bosses, villain objectives, settings, mechanics, and protag team drama to make a fight interesting in its combat alone.

3. Give proper cool down between fights. If your characters are travelling to each of their opponents, that gives you lots of time to have important team-building moments, start drama, throw in wrenches from other outside forces, and see really beautiful locations. If you mix this up in addition to having lots of very different fights, that'll give a solid mix of both action and cool down events. Also, perfect time to enact Murphy's Law.

That's sort of the core of it? It might be a good idea to pick up your favorite adventure fantasy and see how that book does pacing and stakes, and to see exactly how many major or minor combat scenes fit into the plot. It's probably not as many as you think.

Thanks so much @Ventomology ! All that really helped c:

Adding on to what has already been said, you need to take a few good looks at the Hero's Journey model. I put in the base design and then a more detailed one.


You could call it a cliche but it's still the base of every novel that barely even hints at adventure. Joseph Campbell is credited for the more modern knowledge of it, after all the work he did on examining classic pieces of mythology, which mostly use this model.

It seems like all they're doing is traveling, fighting a monster, traveling some more, and fighting so more. It seems so bland so I was trying to think of other things to happen to them.

A lot of the reason my stories have stupid plotlines is because I'm in a constant state of trying to avoid the normal things. I do this through comedy but that doesn't work for everyone, so you have to find that little quirk in your writing that you can make everything about.

If we're talking fantasy, which I find to be much easier to talk about, it tends to always end up following hero's journey, because that's basically what has been taught.
The way you make it different, is by breaking off of the model and then combining it with whatever elements you like from other fiction.

Hm, thanks for the thoughts @LadyLizz ! I'll be brewing on that for a few days c:

We all talk about avoiding clichés and tropes and things we've read before. But honestly, why?

I just read a book that has two identical characters, and another character kisses the one he fancies... only for the other to walk in and he realises he's kissed the wrong one! And that's the biggest cliché of all time but do you know what? It was such a delight to read. It was just the best.

So tropes and clichés aren't necessarily bad, as long as you write them well. To me, that means character development, character development and more character development. That way when something happens, we care so much we don't even care if it's a cliché. Of course, I write character driven stories so you might be different and prefer plot driven.

Even with the oldest stories you can put your own twist on them. To continue to use my own example - my novel Silk is literally the oldest story known to humanity- Beauty and the Beast - but with a male Beauty, and a female beast who's a giant spider. Same story, but your own twist that makes people want to read it.

Wow, thanks @StellaThomas ! I was kind of thinking about that myself, and realized a lot of my favorite books have a very cliche element to them as well. I guess we have to get past the 'oh this is so cliche' and get to our own take on it.