: Re: Classic fantasy races lazy or boring? In my fantasy world there are other other sentient races besides humans. Some of them are "original", or at least not as common in mainstream stories. On

Personally, I would always counsel erring on the side of originality. There are plenty of other books people can read about elves in.

I would give two exceptions to this advice, however. 1) If your characters are so obviously and so exactly the standard conception of elves, that every reader will just wonder why you didn't go ahead and call them "elves." 2) If you want people to start from the standard conception of elves just so that you can subvert or alter their expectations in some way.

It's worth noting here that there are two main conceptions of elves. The older conception comes out of folklore and is more or less everyone's intellectual property. The other conception was invented by Tolkien as a composite of the idea of elves and fairies, as combined with his own innovations. Especially if you are writing Tolkien elves, I would go ahead and make something new instead. There is relatively little that has been written about Tolkien elves that hasn't been hopelessly derivative.

Load Full (0)

: Just wanted to mention The Novel Factory here, as keeping track of characters was one of the main reasons it was developed. Disclosure - I am the creator of this software. This is a screenshot

@Samaraweera193

Load Full 0 Comments

: For what it is worth, this seems quite effective to me. It is always difficult to write in first person, and when the narrator is challenged in some way, it also challenges the writer.

@Samaraweera193

Load Full 0 Comments

: I find myself giving versions of the same advice over and over, but it's applicable to so many situations. I call it the Sturgeon/Delany rule. Work out every last detail and implication

@Samaraweera193

Load Full 0 Comments

: What to do with first writing Assume I have just written my first short story. I showed it to a few friends and they seem to like it. For the next step I want to find out if my work

: Re: Classic fantasy races lazy or boring? In my fantasy world there are other other sentient races besides humans. Some of them are "original", or at least not as common in mainstream stories. On

More posts by @Samaraweera193

: Just wanted to mention The Novel Factory here, as keeping track of characters was one of the main reasons it was developed. Disclosure - I am the creator of this software. This is a screenshot

: For what it is worth, this seems quite effective to me. It is always difficult to write in first person, and when the narrator is challenged in some way, it also challenges the writer.

: I find myself giving versions of the same advice over and over, but it's applicable to so many situations. I call it the Sturgeon/Delany rule. Work out every last detail and implication

: What to do with first writing Assume I have just written my first short story. I showed it to a few friends and they seem to like it. For the next step I want to find out if my work

Login to post a comment!

0 Comments

Back to top