: Re: Where's the middle ground between genre conventions and originality? I've long been interested in writing a fantasy novel. Over the countless iterations I've gone through, one thing has remained

@Looi5811334

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Riff on Convention Use elven aspects as a jumping off point, and then go wild with it. Really think about what makes an elf recognizable as an elf. Then use that to surprise your reader.

Generally close to nature. What does that actually MEAN? In many stories it means that they are peaceful and won't kill and eat animals. But in others it can mean something completely different. In the comic Guilded Age the elves are so into trees and plant life that they would never, ever kill one and certainly wouldn't eat plants. They are devoted carnivores. But they are still recognizable as elves because they have the close to nature characteristic. The convention isn't purely "they are vegetarians" it stems from the "close to nature" idea--in tune with the natural world. It could mean that they are feral, wild, uncivilized in human terms.
Long Lived Their long life gives them a different perspective. They could be supremely arrogant, they could instead of valuing sentient life, toss it away. If reproduction is higher than they have resources, perhaps they ENCOURAGE war because they believe in survival of the fittest as part of their philosophy and connection with nature.
Magical Magic's not all unicorns and roses you know. It takes on many different forms. It might not always be controlled and it can be really very dangerous. Maybe, because they are so long-lived, they fear death and are very interested in that aspect of magic. Boom. Elf necromancer society. In the case of that link, it's a pretty benign version of necromancy but, yeah...You can really do ANYTHING with this. Magic systems and schools have a TON of variation. Chose an aspect--emotion, death, love, life, and then run with that.

The three above are the characteristics you see most often in conventional fantasy. But as I have outlined, there's a whole WORLD of variation you can employ WITHIN those conventions and still have them recognizable as elves. I think the pointed ears are kind of a must...

Humans aren't all the same, so elves shouldn't be either. You're approaching elves as a group rather than as specific characters. Each elf comes from somewhere specific. Maybe they grew up on a ship, maybe in a city, maybe in a forest. Their own experiences color what they are, and being an elf is just an overlay, just like being human is. So each elf can sense magic maybe as a racial characteristic--but that doesn't mean that the specific elf learned to wield it. Maybe they use that sense to AVOID it...Even in Tolkien while elves were SEEN as magical, most of his elven characters never even wield magic.

Conventions vary. In some folklore, elves are tall. In D&D they are slighter than humans. You've got the vegetarian thing in your head, but it's far more general than that.

Elves Vary Too There's a range in humanity for intelligence, dexterity, perception and wisdom. The elven range for something like dexterity might be higher, but there's always folk who fall outside normal. A normal elf might be at the top percentile of what a human can do--but there are going to be elves that aren't as dexterous and fall more into the normal human range (or who are even lower than that), as there will be elves that are far above what a human could ever accomplish. So with a "normal" elf, while a human might be impressed with their dexterity, guess what? Nobody back home ever was...

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