: Re: Creating a story in which the hero(es) lose So I am still in the primitive stages of creating my own world and story, if I even do it that is. I am still trying to get a feel for where

If you need to ask "would this be desirable?" then I suggest you probably shouldn't write it. If you yourself aren't going to buy into the world you're creating, you can cast-iron guarantee no-one else will.

You don't need surprise endings or twists. You just need a good story that you believe in, told well. "Sword of Shannara" was endlessly derivative of Tolkein - but Brooks had enough that was genuinely Brooks to make it work, and of course it led to "Elfstones" which was stunning. (The less said about "Wishsong" and everything since, the better; self-plagiarism is a dead end, because your original ideas went into the original version.) Conversely "Thomas Covenant" is basically the anti-Narnia - equally clearly derivative of CS Lewis, but flipped 180 degrees.

In many ways, the advantage of kicking off Tolkein is that whilst his worldbuilding was pretty good, he was really bad at writing dialogue and characters, and some of his plotting was a bit shaky too. Brooks's innovation was to retell LotR with a believable set of characters and a writing style that wasn't a pastiche of Beowulf. You do need to have something original to say though.

The 80s had a lot going on with fantasy kicking away from its origins just retelling the same story. As well as your other call-outs, you should look at David Eddings, Tad Williams, Ursula LeGuin and Raymond Feist. You should also be aware of things like Dragonlance as the ultimate stereotypes!

The reaction from there has been to go "realistic". Apart from GoT, some other authors to look into for this are Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch and Steven Erikson. If you need examples for modern fantasy, these are some of the go-to guys.

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: Re: Creating a story in which the hero(es) lose So I am still in the primitive stages of creating my own world and story, if I even do it that is. I am still trying to get a feel for where

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: I know this was asked out of simple curiosity, but there are deeper implications to your question than might be initially apparent. The difference between these manuscripts are meant to reflect

: Stripping the Main Character's Plot Armour? I have a main character, I'm attempting to disguise this fact. But it is tricky. Out of nowhere, the character rises up as a successful military leader.

: How to describe a character when writing in First Person Can someone give me ideas to describe my POV character to my reader when I am writing in First Person. I ask this because it's unnatural

: How to deal with seriously ill characters and what type of illness should I give them My heroine is seriously ill with something that can sooner or later take her life away at any moment.

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