: Re: What are the standard genre characteristics of contemporary women's fantasy I want to write a fantasy novel with a female protagonist, and I want to familiarize myself with reader expectations.

I would have commented for clarification but my rep doesn't allow me to. I'm curious to know if you differentiate between what a reader expects from the genre and what a reader wants from a genre. I think you've received a lot of answers which cover the latter. I can tell you that for me, what I want and what I expect are actually different. (Disclaimer: I can answer from the pov of a female fantasy reader, but I might not be contemporary enough as it's about five years since I last read a fantasy novel).

Expectations: I expect that the genre is making a shift from the more traditional Hero's Journey or Innana's Journey story-telling towards a less biased or sexist portrayal of either gender. I don't expect that this will ever be truly achieved and must be something which authors continuously strive for. If the book obviously has a single female protagonist and appears to be written by a male author; I will expect it will be a lucky-dip as to whether I will find myself reading a traditional-style fantasy or if the author will surprise me. If the same book appears to be written by a female author my expectations will be higher (and I admit that is a result of my own biases). I also expect fantasy as a genre to be set in low-tech 'medieval' worlds. I expect lycanthropy, vampirism, demonology (etc) to be a different or sub-genre such as urban fantasy.
Hopes/desires: When I pick up that book, regardless of the gender of the author, want very much for it to fulfill every condition and take on every piece of advice in the Lauren Ipsum and Armadeus answers. The best examples of that which I can think of are Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders novels (c 1998+), or possibly Mercedes Lackey's novels set in Valdemar (c 1997+).

As you can see, hopes and expectations don't always align.

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: Re: What are the standard genre characteristics of contemporary women's fantasy I want to write a fantasy novel with a female protagonist, and I want to familiarize myself with reader expectations.

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: Write what people intended to say, not the sounds of the words. We don't write character accents phonetically (hopefully). We don't add every "umâ€¦" and pause that's used in normal speech.

: How can I make a "meeting in VR" less dumb? I've written myself into a sci-fi cliche which I have never seen done well: two characters meet in virtual reality. The gist of my scene is one

: How to show a character being bored for multiple chapters without boring the reader When my protagonist is learning to use their magical skill, they must remain in hiding. Because they have

: How to get opinion freelance articles accepted? I have had a similar experience about six or seven times: I email an editor, and, after several dozen times of pitching articles to various of

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