Fantasy Stereotyped

I know, I know, this might rub a few people the wrong way, and for that I’m sorry (I guess), but it’s something I’ve kinda been thinking about both previously and lately. So here goes:
 
    Fantasy is great, ain’t it? Ain’t it grand? The wondrous escape that it provides to our desiring psyches, while at the same time (if done well) presenting viewpoints and/or troubles that we face and question in our own world in a thought-provoking manner, simply can’t be beat. So many, many, many (many many many) different fantasy tales have been written and told through the passing of the years, that it is truly impossible to keep track of them all. However, all follow a common thread or two—or five or six, depending on the author. This is all well and good; I mean, after all, there’s nothing new under the sun, right? But (there’s that word again) there is something—one of the threads I mentioned, if you will—that rather bugs me from time to time: The generic uses of certain fantasy races along with the “stereotypical” actions and attitudes thereof.
 
   What do I mean, you ask? I mean that so many people who write fantasy often—not always, but often—conform the races that inhabit their worlds to the usual depiction. For instance, elves are likely hands-down the most often used race (besides humans) in fantasy tales. How many books have you read wherein the elves that were part of the story were physically superior to humans, so veeerrryyy much more beautiful and elegant than humans, and so much wiser and more skilled in magic than humans? More often than you can remember, I doubt not.
 
   This is great for some stories, and even more than some if the story is still good enough, but when this becomes the norm, the allure of having a new race involved in your story is diminished almost at once. Just how many times are we gonna read the wise elf—always older than our protagonist (and more beautiful)—lecture and lecture about how violent and uncouth humans are, while simultaneously doing a backflip and firing four arrows off a longbow??!! This kind of thing gets repetitive, and done without or with little skill, it’s just downright annoying.
 
   Obviously, it is no small thing to stand out and be separate from the crowd, yet this is what needs to happen more regularly in fantasy with regards to fantasy races. Now, there are some folks who have done some interesting things and broken off the beaten path; in my experience, it seems to be indies who do it most. To my most recent memory, author Michael J. Sullivan had what I thought was a most welcome original concept for the elves in his story. (I know that there are others, people, he’s just the one I could readily remember.) His elves were not as strong and beautiful as elves so often are, and they were, get this, slaves to the uncouth humans of the land for some time. A nice historical background that was. By the way, now might be a good spot to mention that it isn’t elves alone who fall victim to this problem. Dwarves, dragons, gnomes (meh), and, yes, even humans, have, and are still being, what I like to call fantasy-stereotyped. (That is now copyrighted. You can’t have it.)
 
   My fellow authors, it is a struggle to be original, yet it is our lot to struggle to be as original as we can be nonetheless. You know, there was a time that I thought that fantasy writers should just ease up on using elves and dragons and dwarves for a while altogether. Give them a break and use humans or something else. Yet I have since progressed to the reality that, while it still might be a good idea to give these creatures (especially those pretty-pretty elves) a break, it is not necessarily necessary. Just use them originally. It doesn’t even have to be totally originally, just make them different somehow. Make their ears point downward instead of upward, give them dark skin (and not just so that it can make them an outcast/oddity to the other elves), make them mutate into four-foot tall frogs with rabbit ears whenever they eat the peanut-butter soup of our protagonist. Just do something different that will stand out to the reader. You don’t know how huge a favor you’ll be doing to your readers, and to all elves, dragons, dwarves, gnomes, and other victims of fantasy-stereotype out there.

Keep Strong!

A Bit On Dialogue

Hey, guys! I’m popping by today (tonight, if I’m being truthful) to say a few words on dialogue. Nothing too extensive, just a tip or two to keep in mind.

     So, in a book, dialogue between people can’t happen like it happens in the real world. I mean, apart from the fact that you can’t have your characters say ‘um’, stutter, or repeat the same word(s) (or repeat the same word(s)) like everybody in real life dialogue does when talking, you must always remember to move toward whatever point the dialogue is trying to make. Furthermore, really good dialogue conveys information to the reader without having to rely on narration. Make sense? If you were to hear two people carrying on a conversation on the street or in the mall or in a café, it would probably sound something like this:

“Yeah, so after that I told her, like, just no.”

“You said that?”

“Yeah! What else was I gonna say? She just made me so…ugh!”

“I know, I know, but to be that way about it? C’mon, you could’ve had her just—”

“No, no, you don’t know how it was. Right there, I seriously thought my brain would start oozing or something. And it’s not the first time!”

“I hear you.”

“Like, my blood was seriously close to bubbling or whatever.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And I’m not usually like that, you know? I’m not!”

“Sure.”

“But she just…man!”

As you can see, this dialogue is going nowhere and tells you nothing other than person #1 is upset with someone and is telling person #2 about it. Well, I say about it, but you don’t really know what it is, do you? This is what I meant by written dialogue can’t be like real life spoken dialogue, because you’d lose your readers the moment your characters started talking! Now most of you are probably thinking, Fool! We know this already! To which I’ll say, Great! I await reading some of your character dialogue! If you know this, good for you, but lots of folks, especially first time writers, don’t grasp this truth at first. Your dialogue can be as witty or prosy or artistic as you please, but if it doesn’t move anywhere it is a waste. You’re allowed more leniency in this when it comes to description, but dialogue is a tricky thing. Here’s the same conversation from above revisited as it might be written:

“Yeah, so after that I told her I was done. That was the last time.”

“You said that?”

“What else was I gonna say? She’s been on that stuff for too long. I don’t want to be caught up in that. This is drugs we’re talking about!”

“Well, yeah, but to be so mean about it? You could’ve—”

“Look, you weren’t there, you didn’t see her. But you do know that this isn’t the first, second, or third time! Seeing her like that, again, and arguing with her about getting the help she needs was infuriating! I refuse to fight with her about her own problem for the rest of my life.”

Katlyn didn’t say anything, but nodded her head in reluctant understanding.

Joyce shrugged and sighed. “So that’s it. I’m done.”

See the difference? The overall dialogue has been lengthened just a bit for the purpose of flow, but what were the big changes that made it readable? It moved forward, it conveyed information and key points through itself, and it was able to present, to a degree, the sentiments of both Joyce and Katlyn without resorting to the narration to do so. You weren’t told that Joyce was angry and frustrated and Katlyn was surprised at it, that was conveyed through the dialogue. And through that brief exchange, you even learned something about an unnamed third character.

     So there you have that. Just a little something to keep in mind when you’re writing conversations between your own characters. It’s such a valuable truth to keep in mind, and it saves so much time in the editing process later. (Trust me, I know.)

Keep Strong!

A Bit On Novel Characters (How Novel!)

Hey hey hey! How are you guys? Taking things well, I hope. But if not, well, you can always talk to someone about it.

Speaking of talk, I wanted to talk a bit (a bit) on book characters. Specifically, a few things about what makes potentially good characters bad. And I mean bad. There are just some things that, despite what certain folks may say, simply kill the magic and/or depth of a character. I've decided to list four--and they are in no particular order--that will hopefully warn fellow authors of these grievances. (Now y'all don't shoot the messenger!)


     Problem #1: Characters that do things for unpardonably stupid reasons, or worse, for no reason at all.

This is more properly a plot crutch/hole more so than a character flaw (well, depends on how you look at it), but because it's so close to my heart and mind, and has ruined otherwise interesting characters I was following, it gets a mention. This problem arises when your character is, say, journeying to the far far east along the clean, safe main road with no trouble in sight, and then, just for the sake of plot, they decide to turn out of their way and take a dark, dangerous side-path that has nothing to do with them, all because some punk in the last village they passed questioned their bravery and they felt that they now had something to prove to themselves. Sounds stupid, right? Well things like that get done more often than you might think, and they have to stop! Decisions like that take away any credibility from the author that the character in question is intelligent, so when they rise to become the leading hero of the story later on, it feels so (so) forced and weak, and ends up making the reader angry. Please don't fall into this trap, my dear writers. It's a common problem.


     Problem #2 Unbearably unbearable female characters.

Now before the shouts of indignation start, hear me out. How many books are we gonna read in which the female lead/hero destined to save the world treats everybody around her--especially her love interest--like the scum on her shoe no matter how nice they are to her, only to watch them die heroically (for her) and then cry and cry, and be all, Oh! they meant sooo much to me after all! I wish I had been nicer! Come on! You guys know exactly what I'm talking about. This is hands down the largest reason I'm leery of female leads in modern fantasy novels, or fiction novels in general. 90% of them (being generous here) act like this. No matter how nice their mentors, friends, parents, and first and second boyfriends are to them, they can't help but be sneery, snappy, and slappy. You'd think they'd learn better halfway through the book, but nope, they'll stay like that right up until old Vance, Shane, Peeta, or Roy dies, and then they'll-- Wait wait, what am I thinking? That's the part where they turn against the whole world (because grieving, you know?), claiming that life's just like a huge black hole that sucks up any attempt at happiness in their poor lives. Sometimes without the reader even realizing it, the author turns this stage into the girl's pity party for herself rather than for the person she was grieving for. During this stage, everybody's an enemy, except maybe a side character who, up till then, didn't seem that important, but will then become a sort of mother or sister figure for the girl to lean on.

This is a big one, guys, and it's got to come to an end. Female leads can be strong and independent without being the banes of their book's existence.


     Problem #3: Characters that have no motivation for their actions and/or attitudes.

This one is a bit more subtle, but it fits into problem #1. Look at it this way: If we were introduced to a story in which a bounty hunter was the main character, most of us would probably instantly be interested. However, if upon reading the first few pages, we discovered that this hardcore brutalizing individual had no idea why he was doing what he was, we'd definitely be inclined toward annoyance. Halfway through the book, if the bounty hunter still had no idea why he continued to bounty hunt, and there was no info on some hidden agenda (such as mind control or memory loss) we'd be exclaiming, What's going on here?! If we ever managed to make it to the end of the book to where the bounty hunter rides off into the sunset after getting the better of his numerous foes, and still we had no idea as to why he did what he did, most of us would be angry enough to write a negative review.

     Motivations are important. Without them, your character has little to no direction. What's the point of anything he or she does? Everything's got to have a reasoning behind it. More books than is proper to be allowed miss this oh-so important element in their stories.


     Problem #4: Characters that get saved (all the time) by dumb luck.

Okay, this usually has nothing to do with the characters themselves, as it's more a product of forced plot, but hey, it needs to be mentioned. Why? Because characters that ought to catch it--whether that's punishment, pain, or, yes, even death--but keep escaping for no other reason than because the author wants them to keep on living makes the reader angry with the character! Really? Yes! Through no fault of their own, the poor character (who should have been dead as a stone six chapters ago, and eight before that) find himself/herself on your bad side because they continue to defy the laws of the universe by breathing. Sometimes people get so attached to their characters, or the character constantly in danger just becomes too important to the plot to kill off, that they'll employ any and every tactic to keep them alive, moving from one totally unbelievable save to another. Now listen to me: I'm not saying your character cannot be saved by dumb luck every once in a while; that can be a good thing and is quite permissible. But every three chapters? No no no no no. By then you either have to kill them, or else stop putting them in inescapable danger. (It's a funny thing, though, that this problem is probably the most easily forgiven for some reason or another. People like to complain about it, but it doesn't often stop them from finishing a story.)



So there you have it. Four things not to do to your characters if you want to endear your readers to them. Hope you guys enjoyed. That's all for now.

Keep Strong!