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Posted By: Aldan Jan 09, 2005 - 10:55 pm

Then there is the Terry Brooks Shanarra series as well as a few others...
The way I see it, if you allow the races you choose to limit your choices, then you are doing what FZ despises. I look at stories this way: if in a movie, the music sucks and the story's not all that, but the actors do a top-notch job, it's more than watchable - it's enjoyable usually. A novel can have a weak story, crappy scenery and just be kind of weak in those areas, but if the characters are well-developed, and are consistently evolving and growing, then it will make an enjoyable book.
Now, I'm pretty sure that FZ feels that using classic racial types keep them from evolving, and that can be the case, but not for a good author, IMO.
In the story I'm writing, I have mostly classic "D&D" style races, but I have taken them in a bit of a different direction. In most of these worlds, the Dwarves and Elves are on the downslide power-wise, and humans are on the upswing. Halfling/hobbits are stay-at-homes or larcenous adventurers. In mine, the Dwarves are still extremely powerful, but are just beginning to be attacked by those who would later nearly wipe them out, the Elves are a very VERY magically powerful race that refuses to have anything at all to do with other races (and if they come onto Elven lands, they will lie there to rot), and hobbit/halflings are quite insular, but there is a group of their race that is NOT. This group is very nomadic, travelling via huge, almost jawa-like carriages and selling mostly to the different halfling communities, but also to any of the other races out there that they run into. I also have a race that I haven't yet named that doesn't fit into any of the classic fantasy racial types, but I won't deal a whole lot with them in my first novel, so I won't really say much about them other than that they are huge, intellectual beings that are almost monastic. The had lived amongst the other races, but like any quite big guy were always being singled out for fights, so they decided almost as a group to leave civilization and go into the extreme wilds so that they could study and meditate in relative peace.
Are the first three races named (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling) overused in fantasy? Probably so, and I may not use those names and may make several changes to the physical aspects of the races, but generally they would still APPEAR to be the standards, even if only by a different name. The characters in my book will not fit the stereotypes of those races, though, since I didn't want to have that hanging over my head. My dwarf is basically an honorable thief, and is quite friendly, though a bit formal. My halfling is an insane berzerk fighter that is covered in tattoos. Other than my Elven MC, the other Elf in the book is quite chaotic in nature, and can tend toward shrugging off any evil actions he might commit. He won't be easy to figure out for awhile (or at least that's what I'll try for), since he is out amongst the other races and has such negative feelings about them...

Posted By: Magus Jan 10, 2005 - 02:05 pm

That I agree with what you posted above, Aldan. A good author and good characters can carry a novel to success.

With my epic I made the Orcs different, a bit anyway. They are more agressive then most races, but they aren't evil or especially weak minded. They have a more tribal culture based around physical streangth and fighting skill, and are overly agressive by nature. But they are about the same intelligence as humans, maybe a little less but about there.

Sounds interesting, Aldan. How's it coming? Are you actually writing it now or just planning it.

Posted By: Aldan Jan 10, 2005 - 05:35 pm

Still planning, but sort of writing. It's still real sketchy, but I have inserted some conversations and such here and there. I've done that sort of stuff up through where my characters flee the first city together. It's not postable yet, but it's getting there...

Posted By: Magus Jan 10, 2005 - 06:36 pm

Well good luck at it.

Posted By: manji Feb 08, 2005 - 10:27 am

What do you get when you put ten fantasy writers, five horror writers and five action writers in a room together? Twenty writers who have no idea how bad off their genres are.
Okay, let's think about this for a moment. . .
How many times have you seen a horror movie and thought, 'Oh, great, another Jason/Evil Dead/Carrie/exorcist rip-off?
How many times have you seen an action movie and thought "Great, another pulp-fiction/Goodfellas/Lethal Weapon/Heat rip-off?"
Now, ask a writer of another genre how many times they've seen a fantasy movie/book and said 'Oh, great! Another Lord of the Rings/King Aruthur rip-off?'
Then, ask those writers about their current projects and see if you think 'Oh, great, another (Insert BS here) rip-off!'
I call it the 'Good kid' syndrome. If you have a kid, no matter what it does, it'll be your baby forever and ever. Kid punched a class-mate in kindegarten? That's not my baby! He would never do that! Kid shot the neighbor's cat with a BB gun? Not my baby! He would never do that! Smokes pot and drinks? Not my baby! He would never do that! Rapes a girl prom night? Not my baby! Etc.
The genre is your baby. You grew up with it, it was your baby sitter on rainy saturday mornings and sunday nights. When you got old enough, you started writing it. You all feel closer to the fantasy genre than some of you do towards your own families. And now someone is attacking it and you're futilely defending. Just like the mother in denial above.
I know, I know 'You're bringing up a dead topic!' but I've been away for awhile and just had time to finally post.

Posted By: Magus Feb 08, 2005 - 01:22 pm

Heh... nothing I haven't done before... in fact, I've done one's that haven't been touched for years... Ironically enough you're guilty of topic necromancy... get it?

O.K. Enough with the bad jokes by the Magus.

I agree. People feel especially close to their stories, which in tern transfers a lot over to the genre the stories are written in. I believe that we all think that our story is entirely origional, but that simply isn't the case. Nothing is going to be truly "origional".

But we should at least kind of take what Manji said and mull it over. We should take as good of a stab at true origionality as we can. We have to not blatently copy off of others and do our best not to subconciously do the same thing. There's still a great manny places such a genre like fantasy can go. We only need to recognize it and aim for what has not been done before.

Posted By: ForeverZero Feb 08, 2005 - 01:54 pm

Sure nothing can be truly original, but like I've said before that doens't mean writers have a right to just grab some overused concept and publish the crap out of it and make money.

"Oh, nothing can be completely original, so I guess I'll just not be original at all!"

That mindset makes me sick. Writing is an art form, not a business. It does not run on supply and demand. It runs on the creativity of the artist. What I see is supply and demand. I do not see the creativity of an artist. When I do, I love it, but it doesn't happen often, and thats what's horribly wrong with fiction these days. And most writers I know are contributing to this flaw as I write this very post. And most writers I know post on this forum. So maybe I am addressing "you people".

Posted By: Magus Feb 08, 2005 - 02:24 pm

I agree. It is art and should not be treated as a business.

Posted By: Manjionlaptop Feb 08, 2005 - 02:27 pm

BTW, I'd like to add something that I left out in my haste and needs said. In some above posts, forumers have cited that they feel they themselves are being attacked. Neither mine nor FZ's opinions are aimed at anyone on this board. FZ was talking about already published authors and the such, trying to warn posters that they too may fall into this genre-wide trap. However, these are not personal insults towards anyone on this board nor insults to already published authors, but observations and opinions of two people such as yourselves.

Posted By: Aldan Feb 08, 2005 - 07:54 pm

Really, any person who becomes published and strives to make a living from what was originally a hobby will end up having to write something that sells. It sucks, but if your books don't sell, the publisher will drop you like dirty trousers. One problem with writing is that we tend to write what we know or can think up, and that means that we have had to have seen something like it in our lives. THAT means that any novel we've read and enjoyed, any television show or movie we've loved or any game that we've played will naturally become a part, large or small, of what we write and how we write it. The scifi writers of the 40s-60s might have seemed to be starting the genre, but it'd been around MUCH longer than that. Jules Verne, anyone? Or how about all the Buster Crabbe epics and other such movies about space heroes like Buck Rogers? Many of those were released in the 30s.

One related topic that I'd like to bring up today is that just like at the D.I.C.E. gaming summit, where there was a certain unnamed speaker who basically told the game designers to pull their heads out of the sand and start looking at not what's selling, but at WHAT PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY. There were a million Sims games, but those were mainly bought by non-gamers, and those people aren't currently purchasing any games. However, GAMERS are.

In just the same way, we need to look at what people are reading and try to get something out of it. I'm not stating that we need to write the same books that are already being written, but rather to try to determine WHAT IT IS THAT IS SO INTRIGUING/FUN/EXCITING about those books and to then write a book using some of those things that writer did well, which speak to today's audience of readers, using what we feel would make a good story. Usually, it's not the genre or the setting or even the main plotline that grab readers, but rather it's the "filler", be it minor characters, the backgrounds, the sideplots, the witty dialogue and other such things. Most of us can create some pretty good main characters, and many of us could create a pretty compelling major plotline if we worked at it, but we need to work on those "little" things.

That's my story, and I'm sticking tuit (but I'm not telling you where).

Posted By: Magus Feb 09, 2005 - 12:50 pm

Good point Aldan. But, this may be just my opinion, that while those little points are what help flesh out a story, to develope it, you need something to huegh a form from before you add the details... plot... central characters... But you are right in what you said above, at least as goes by me.

Posted By: Aldan Feb 09, 2005 - 08:13 pm

Uh, Mag, did you mean 'huge'? Oh, and develop is without the extra 'e' unless you're in Elizabethan England... in ye olde tyme theatre or other such...

Posted By: Vienaragis Feb 09, 2005 - 11:59 pm

Originality is all well and good, quite awesome even, but if you want my opinion sometimes it's nice to have something "classic". As it's been said in this thread, we already -know- what elves, dragons, dwarves, orcs, ect. are. And sometimes human nature just prefers things that are familiar. The concepts have been around for so long that people can instantly connect or like the idea just for what they are. You can ask someone if they like dragons and get an answer, but name some obscure race you created to a complete stranger and they may have no idea what you're talking about. If you're not in the mood to take chances when it comes to dedicating a good chunk of time to reading a book, you're going to pick up the book about dragons, because you like dragons, and not the book about the original idea because you just have no clue. It may be sad, but that's how it usually works out. ("You", of course, not being directed at anyone and just used as a generalized thing-a-ma-bob.)

Though, for me, the bottom line is "Did that make me feel something?" I really don't care if you use an elf or an alien or a ninja or a dragon or a school girl or a mutant winged dog with five eyeballs and a gernade launcher attached to the top of his skull. I think people need to write about what they love, no matter how original or unoriginal it may seem, or it's just going to be forced and half-hearted.

Posted By: Magus Feb 10, 2005 - 03:26 pm

Who says that I'm not in Elizebithan England?

Posted By: Caegaraneva Feb 10, 2005 - 04:19 pm

Vienaragis, I know many people would disagree strongly with your first paragraph, but your second hits the nail right on the head. You shouldn't reject a book because it uses a familiar setting. That's what it comes down to. Good literature comes in many forms, not just fantasy, and especially not just "books that don't have elves and dragons".

Posted By: Magus Feb 10, 2005 - 04:46 pm

Yes. I strongly agree with the second paragraph. The first... not so much. I don't just fall back on the familiar. I fall back on books that I know or hear are good... books that I've read before and have enjoyed or books that I've been looking foreward to reading.

Posted By: BenJaru Feb 10, 2005 - 05:48 pm

Yeah, pretty much...

Posted By: Vienaragis Feb 10, 2005 - 08:27 pm

I don't think it's a good idea to fall back on the familiar. I was just saying that a lot of people do it, from my experience, at least. Sorry if that wasn't clear. (Or if it was and everyone still thinks it's nonsense, heh.)

Posted By: Magus Feb 11, 2005 - 03:50 am

Most of the people I know don't fall back like that. They pretty much do what I said I do as well... only most also read The Lord of the Rings at least once a year... but that's not really "falling back" I supose...

Posted By: Aldan Feb 11, 2005 - 07:39 am

So, then, we shouldn't use the name John, or George or James or Jaime or Jane or Susan or any other name that we use here in RL (if you want to call it that) in any of our novels... we shouldn't use the term 'minutes' or 'hours' or 'seconds' or any other familiar term like 'inch' and 'foot'. They are too familiar to us, too often used.

If we use this idea the way that some people seem to think it should be for EVERYONE writing, I feel that novels will quickly become a thing of the past, because only a very few people will be able to read it and make an emotional connection to it because it will just be too unfamiliar.

Now, am I saying that we must STICK TO the tried-and-true? Nope. I'm just saying to not nail the idea of NOT using familiar ideas to your chest (your career will probably bleed to death), and instead use a few familiar things to make it possible for your UNIQUE ideas to become accepted by the reader.

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