My top 10 things I love to read in fantasy: 1.) Using language that feels at home and is relatable to me and how I would speak as the reader. 2.) Taking the time to develop the small things that don't really matter to the story. 3.) Witty humor at every turn, -specifically helpful in dissecting the harder things to read about. 4.) A magic system that isn't overly complex and I don't want to think too much about it. 5.) When a story is able to build an entire conflict that completely changes the direction of the book just from a simple miscommunication. 6.) Elaborately detailed explanations to everything so that I can really immerse myself in the world. 7.) Simple characters that have no personality. It makes it easy to project my own interpretation onto any of them. 8.) Lots of sex and violence. Like, I don't care if half the characters don't even have cloths at all in the book. 9.) Lots of simple tropes that are easy to see coming. It feels good to call something out before it happens. 10.) Lots of romantic hook-ups. Like if a character is dating one person for a week, and then another person for a day, and then another person after that, -it keeps you guessing whom they're actually going to end up with at the end.
Okay, that satire comment was actually hard to write with how much I hate some of these things. Something I actually enjoy in writing a fantasy world is trying to figure out what kind of language they would use. Like the story I'm writing is on a planet that has a moon which is tidally locked with the planet (so the same side of the planet and moon constantly face each other). This affects the language in many ways, -one of which being that "full moon" always means "midnight". On the conflict thing, I do think there is a place for building conflict through lack of communication, but it has to be done right. In Church History, there is a pretty big split over two different churches (Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox) over a single word: "Christ is IN two natures" VS "Christ is OF two natures". These things do happen in real life, and are often when our pride, agenda, and insecurities get in the way of developing human connection. But shoehorning a miscommunication just to add drama is going to make a book feel juvenile. You have to make the reader relate to the character's flaw that's causing them to avoid this conversation. If (for example) a character is a mother of a young man who is romantically interested in somebody of another race, yet she was raised in a society that is strongly against inter-race relationships, make the audience feel sympathy for her desire to support her son while fearing the societal backlash she will receive if she expresses approval. And then show her regret that she didn't do the right thing when she's old and alone with her husband dead and her son wants nothing to do with her. Last point on romantic plots. I really do actually enjoy a good romance in a story, but I am also extremely picky on them. I like relationships that take some time to develop, but also that forces the two to really rely on each other. The movie Stardust was a fitting romance for the characters, but developed too quickly for my liking, while ATLA really took their time with developing the character's relationship (which is itself controversial). Counter to my satirical post, I really hate quick date-around romances. Korah literally dated everybody in Team Avatar, and that drives me nuts. I also hate when they set a couple up at the end of one entry, then break them up immediately in the next entry (Korah again). In contrast, How To Train Your Dragon did it perfectly by showing Hiccup's and Astrid's relationship get stronger and stronger with each movie. I don't mind mundane relationships (like if two side characters have a mostly off-screen relationship that gets casually mentioned once or twice), as that will well reflect any person's friend-circle, but I don't like forced relationships that feel inorganic or just shoehorned to get that romance-sub-plot check. Lastly, I don't like a story ending with every single person finding somebody to hook-up with. Instead, most relationships should add something to the story, immerse the realism of the world, or feel like these two characters actually would be in love if they were real.
@5BBassist4Christ thanks for the clarification. Also, I'm trying to write a romance in my book, which is actually literally needed because if it didn't exist... Uhh, things wouldn't be so good... But I don't know how to make it slowly develop. Can you help me with that, or nah? Also, I know how they'd interact before the romance and while in the romance. Just don't know the in-between part.
I can see Earth cultures in distance space saying, "Busy as a bee", even if they don't remember what it actually means. We already have a lot of phrases in English that don't make sense if you think about them in modern terms.
Or "hang up the phone" even though phones haven't had to be *hung up* since like the 1930s or whatever. Before smart phones, it would've been more like "put down the phone", for instance (unless you mounted your corded phone to the wall, sure). And now it'd be more like "end the call".
@@daniellewis3330 We still had slim-line phones mounted on the wall up to the end of the land line era. We still 'dial' phones, even though almost nobody even has push buttons now.
i think an important thing about the "undercutting an emotional moment with a joke" thing is that THE CHARACTERS CAN MAKE JOKES as long as its not supposed to be funny for the reader. it could be the characters' way if pushing through a dark time or something, and it can work really well as long as its clear that the joke is for the characters, not the audience
Oh my god, I agree so much. I love when character reacts at stress with jokes trying to bring down his emotional pressure a bit, and usually it does not affect the feeling of situation. Even increases it, because you know, character needs to lower the pressure he feels, and it makes situation more heavy for him
I get that, but if the goal to have an emotionally tense or tragic moment then why ruin it with a joke? That's part of the problem I with a number of Disney films for the MCU and Star Wars. They're clearly trying to have a serious moment, but it gets ruined because a joke was thrown in for no other reason that to "lighten the mood."
@@patricklee8088 i agree with that, what i mean is a joke that the audience isnt intended to find it funny. the characters themselves are trying to lighten the mood, or ignore what's going on, or be their normal selves, and the whole point of the joke narratively is that it doesn't work, theyre still in a horrible situation that they arent getting out of soon. or, if it does land for the characters, its like a moment of solidarity with one another and the joke brings them closer together (or theyre laughing because what else can they do?) its not meant to undercut the moment, its meant to enforce it
@@patricklee8088 It's not always to "lighten the mood". It might be a defining characteristic of a character to do that whenever they find themselves in a situation they don't know how to deal with. Sometimes it is meant to specifically annoy a character in particular that's overly serious to set up conflict. Sometimes it can show the different values of a certain culture towards something that we consider heavy but they don't. I could go on for hours about this. It is a tool with applicable uses.
@@VixYW Didn't say it didn't have uses. But when it is used in media it is often during a serious or dramatic moment. That happening once or twice is fine, but it is has almost become the norm to the point I doubt we can have serious moments anymore.
Correlation is not equal to causation. When we first learn of the houses, Ron says "there's not a witch or wizard went bad that wasn't in slytherin." Which means Slytherin didn't create the bad people, but rather highlighted the character traits that could cause wizards to go bad. Such as super high ambition or a thirst for glory.
Gryffindor, meanwhile, highlights bravery which also explains why the wizards in that house are more likely to be heroes. They don't bend to fear like Wormtail and would be brave enough to stand up for what's right, like Neville.
slytherins aren't bad. They are ambitious, and can be ruthless. Those are traits found in most successful people. Of course, they are also traits found in baddies. Slughorn was a slytherin, and he fought against voldemort.
@AprilSunshine villainy takes bravery too. Arguably more because you typically don't have as many allies. Also, don't forget harry was supposed to be slytherin Ron was a pussy and Hermione was obviously ravenclaw. Not one of the main characters belonged in griffindor
I thought shallow magic systems was an interesting point. I can see why some people wouldn’t be thrilled with it. But I also think the opposite can be true, where your magic system is so complicated that no one can follow it. The tricky part, then, is finding a good balance between the two extremes.
You have to balance complexity and power. If it is too powerful it is pointless not to use it, if it is too weak why does it exist in your story. If it is too complex people will be off put by it, if it is too simple it won't be interesting
That's something I really like about the magic system in the Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. The detailed description of how it works is in an appendix, not in the actual story, so readers can choose the level of detail they can read into it.
The trick to that tricky part is to know how everything works as the author, but only show what is necessary for the reader to know and leave the rest in mystery. If you're lazy on that part, you'll risk running into a point where you get handwavy with your magic, and the reader will notice. So in the end, every magic system must be a hard magic system on the author side of things, but they can look like soft magic systems on the reader side, if the reader isn't given the mechanics of how they work. Which is ok, they just have to exist.
Developing a framework is the key, you need a map where to begin and where to STOP. Readers have to understand the basic, but they also need to understand the limit. Don't do the type moon meme and say "Rules are meant to be broken"
When it comes to soft magic systems, I much prefer it when the softness comes from a lack of understanding by the characters, rather than simply a system that can do anything. The depth should be implied, even if it isn’t well explored. As characters interact with magic more often, and gain more control over it, I think that soft magic becomes less and less appealing, since you would expect more of its hidden workings to be revealed. The whimsical magic of LOTR for example works because everything surrounding the magic is mysterious, including those who make it. The protagonists never really get a grasp of how the magic works, nor do they use it regularly, so it doesn’t feel underdeveloped.
Very good observation. Sometimes too, what appears to be magic may not be as a reader might be led to expect, so I think the method behind the intent of how the reader sees it might be something to consider too
Yeah, you just found that flaming sword, it sets baddies on fire. You don't know it's life history. It's dangerous and unpredictable. Sometimes it burns down buildings, you don't know why. You also know it's a very bad idea to insult it and that you should keep it sheathed outside battle around loved ones. Was it witches, volcanoes, careful molecular inscribing of cursed words of power from the 18 gods? You have no idea and you don't really care.
Isn't this also a cop out? That's like saying if it's used sparingly and mysterious, it's okay that it wasn't fully in depth. Which sure, it's not the worst thing in fiction. But it's still an excuse to not develop it even if mysterious and used rarely. When I first saw the LotR movie trilogy, I didn't understand what "spell" Gandalf used in movie 2 or 3 to repel the Nazgul. I jokingly called it a Patronus. But it would have helped if I understood what Gandalf did, cuz he used it only once and that made it feel like he should have used it against the Nazgul more often.
@l.n.3372 It was in the Return of the King, when he had returned as Gandalf the White. His power settings were basically all unlocked by Eru to finish what he was sent to do and he was also given a new staff by the elves that probably had a few upgrades. Gandalf wears Narya, the ring of fire and most of his powers revolve around fire and light in a literal sense. But it also enhances his primary purpose, which is to inspire people and ignite the fire in them against the forces of evil. The Istari were explicitly not sent to force their will and win wars by flaunting their powers. They were sent to teach and inspire. To offset the evil brought into middle earth. When Osgiliath fell and the fellbeasts chased the routing survivors, all of Minas Tirith was looking on in horror. Hopelessness and despair sank in, on top of what was already done magically by blotting out the sun. By scaring the nazgul away with a blast of light and allowing the soldier to return home, Gandalf showed the people of Gondor that the nazgul were not invincible and there was still light and hope in the world. He doesn't use that particular form again, because he doesn't need to. Eventually the balance tips and they are inspired to fight at exactly the right time. Nudged slightly in the direction they were meant to. The specific spell is irrelevant, it's not something any of us mere humans could grasp or wield.
@CitizenMio A) none of this is obvious in the films B) you're just making excuses about the spell being irrelevant cuz humans cannot comprehend it. Tolkien is a human author. What kind of BS excuse is THAT to claim it doesn't matter cuz people can't comprehend it??
Thank you for reiterating that all of these things - soft magic systems, slow pacing, flat-arc characters, graphic content, infodumps, familiar tropes and characters - can be done well by a sufficiently skilled writer. And most of the answers to the survey seem to acknowledge that too, specifying “I don’t like this when it’s done badly” rather than just “I don’t like this”. But I think it’s something everyone needs reminding of from time to time: just because you don’t like something or consider it overused doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad or that other people aren’t allowed to enjoy it.
Hear, hear! I found another list and the top peeves were dream sequences and italics. Like, what? Okay if she has a dream I just don't include it, but then the reader will be seriously confused when something from that dream is brought up because it's actually relevant... And italics, of all things. Emphasis and using it to indicate but not directly use foreign language in fantasy are very common. Another use is writing foreign things, and it even acts as an indicator that it's not English so you can skip over it and just think, "Ah, okay, they said something I didn't understand!" So it's like the reader is there, and they would not have understood it!
thank you for taking the words right out of my mouth. I hate it when people say they don't like slow pacing whereas it just makes a story more immersive if used wisely. If I read a book about a typical adventure party whose goal is to stop, idk, an evil lich, and at no point in time I read a chapter of them having a good time at camp, I'd hate it. And just as much as a similar story where at some point there's some unnecessary romance that's dragged in multiple chapters on end while stalling the main progression. There's always a needed balance, nothing is all black and white, and that's something way too many people tend to not understand
If you're writing according to what other people want you'll have a bad time. Much better to write what you yourself want to read. This advice is still nice to have because you can see if any of it resonates with you. Knowing what you want is not always easy after all.
"What a good advice, I will follow it from now on!" *Proceeds to write fetish furry pornography with self insert MC* I think this exact scenario happens way too frequently
I get that but writers also want to make money. Besides if you work as a carpenter and you ask the master how to do something and he says "just do want you feel like" that doesn't really help. Learning how to paint is not the same as painting what someone else tells you. Sure you can pick up a brush and start putting random color on the canvas but that's not how you paint realistic, good looking pictures. I've noticed that quite a lot with writing that when you ask for advice as a beginner, or like in my case someone who hasn't even started yet because he's still in school, and then people tell you "just do what you feel like". Im probably not even talking about you but it's something I've noticed in general. Almost like helping someone is reducing their passion or limiting their freedom
@@revengance4149 I see where you're coming from, but on the other hand, I believe that you're never going to write a great novel if you're writing what you believe other people want to read. A good novel, maybe, but if you're not invested in the plotline and only writing this plotline or trope because it's popular, you're going to struggle to write it and it will show. Personally, I live by "write what you want to read" because if I'm struggling to read back what I've already written, someone reading it for the first time has already put down the book before the end of the chapter. If you're invested in the plot, your reader will also be invested in the plot. In this case, if your reader is putting down the book before it's finished, chances are they would have put it down much more quickly with a reader-catered plot, because there is something else that is turning them off of your story. They stayed because your plot is original and passionate instead of another generic novel they've read a hundred times before.
@@revengance4149 I find this issue constantly with art too. People go out seeking specific art advice, and the people giving it are criticized because "art is subjective, there no such thing as 'fixing' art, changing anything at all is ruining the intention of the original artist" completely ignoring that it's the original artists seeking out advice in the first place. Not everything is a "stylistic choice" sometimes people need help expressing the things they want to in the ways they want to, and they need structural instructions to form a basis to work from.
One of the problems here is that a lot of people want to write but don't actually have a story they want to tell. So they take a bunch of tropes and story elements and try to mix them together but what comes out is a disjointed mess. They don't understand what they did wrong, because they threw in a bunch of things they liked in other stories. But that's like just grabbing a bunch of ingredients and throwing them in a pot, then not understanding why it doesn't taste good, even though they've never cooked before, and have no idea how to follow a recipe, just eaten other people's food and enjoyed the taste. They've never analyzed the dishes to figure out what they liked in it, why they liked it, or how to replicate it themselves at home. Now they've grabbed a bunch of ingredients from different dishes they liked and have no idea how to use them by themselves, much less how to blend them together harmoniously. Just because you know how to eat, doesn't mean you know how to cook. And just because you like to read doesn't mean you know how to write. It's and art, **and** a skill that can be developed through hard work and practice, regardless of one's natural talent or creativity. You can make a career writing the same things over and over again, so long as you do it well. No one complains that a pizza place doesn't sell burgers, they just want each pizza to be good. So long as the dough is goid, the ingredients are fresh, and the pizza is cooked properly, everyone leaves happy. You can mix and match different ingredients or even let people choose new ingredients, and so long as your base is solid, people are satisfied. Those are your tropes. People are fine with tropes. They expect to be able to get a pepperoni pizza when they go out. They expect marinara. It's part of the process. If they wanna try something a little different, like a garlic sauce or pesto instead, they still expect a decent crust, meat and cheese. If you serve apple slices and hotdogs on a soggy flatbread with plum sauce, you're gonna get complaints. Idk if this analogy is getting out of control but y'know what I mean? People expect pizza at a pizza place, and burgers at a burger place, and if they serve other foods they don't expect them to be as good as the main food. They expect variety in types, but only within a certain range. Similarly, people have expectations of different fictional genres that make them into the genres they are. Within those genres, a variety of different tropes are expected and even desired, but they are expected to be fresh and well executed every time or they will be distasteful. They expect a bit of variety around how much or how little there is, how it's scattered throughout or whether it's all in one spot, and what other tropes/ingredients they're mixed with, or they get bored or alternatively, overwhelmed. Like, and I know this is way past the point, but one of my best friends loves meat. Ask him what he wants in his pizza, it's just meat. Ask him what he wants on his burger, it's more meat. If you put tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, ketchup and mustar, he'll eat it and enjoy it, but he'll never ask for it. One time he ordered a double quarter pounder then ordered extra meat patties on it. He was so excited to eat it. Until he took a bite. Multiple layers of dry, unseasoned meat patty, no ketchup or anything between. He nearly choked trying to swallow it. It was disgusting. He ended up taking the extra meat out and dipping it in ketchup to eat by itself because the burger was inedible as is. He had to learn his lesson; balance is key.
I have a different take on modern language in fantasy stories. Certainly, descriptions and inner thoughts should be consistent with the world. For example, I once read a medieval fantasy where the character observed the "trees were as tall as skyscrapers". Not cool. But things like "okay" "what's up" and things like that I'm kinda fine with. To illustrate... In college, I was watching a movie set hundreds of years ago and one of the characters used a contraction. And I commented, "I don't think they used contractions back then." And my friend replied, "Yeah, but they didn't speak English, either." The point was that what we're watching or viewing is a bit of a translation for the viewer. The language would have been "modern" to them and if the author makes it sound "historical", it doesn't come across as contemporary for the characters.
That's a good point. But if what we're reading or hearing is a translation, it should still have the same level of formality or informality as what the characters would have been saying in their own language.
I agree. You want stories to be readable by a modern audience, so scrubbing out all the worlds invented in the last 200 years(which is how old "okay" is), makes no sense. Of course you wouldn't expect words like 'yolo' to appear, but something like "The knight saw a woman laying on a street, so he stopped to check if she was okay." makes perfect sense. We don't need people being obtuse and making things incomprehensible, by writing a fantasy story in old English.
I'm wondering, would "Not ruining a serious moment with comedy" be shown how in Puss in Boots 2 The Last Wish, they had practically all of the comedy with the villains Jack Horner and the anti-heroes the Three Bears Crime family, but that practically all of the scenes with Death were VERY serious, with the only comedic moment being after the final fight, where Death shouts angrily in Spanish "Why did I have to play with my food?" after Puss reforms, thus making it no longer necessary to kill him, which also helps further the plot, as it quite shows, along with the rest of the scene, that he was only after Puss because of his arrogance and disregard for his own lives, not because he likes to go around and kill people before their time. I think that, while comedy STRENGHTENED Jack Horner and his villainy, as he could be villainous and comedic at the same time (i.e. his literally using his minions to walk across showed how callous he was toward the lives of others.) Death, on the other hand, didn't NEED any comedy, and, in fact, having a lot would have WEAKENED him as a villain/antagonist.
And the scene where Puss has a panic attack after running from Death and the - up to this point- comic side character was completely serious in his role as a therapy dog. Like damn, what a scene. Definitely one of the best animations in the last few years.
Death has comedy in almost all of his scenes. In the bar, he's making jokes throughout the entire interaction. They only stop really sounding like jokes when Puss starts getting more disturbed to the point of fear. At near the climax of their storyline, in the cave, he's making jokes while the other lives react. Comedy isn't a thing that's opposed to seriousness. It's a tool, and the movie uses it cleverly to endear you to characters or show them as callous. It uses comedy with Death to teach Puss a lesson about how he toys with fate. He's mocking Puss with comedy, which is great because that is the origin of comedy as an art. It's used to mock the powerful or relieve tension, and it's used in both ways not only in the film, but with Death as a character.
There should be a clear distinction between "comedy" and "bathos", especially with these examples - comedy is a crucial tool for storytelling and characterization, while bathos has kinda been overused (see: every recent Marvel production)
As an author this is my pet peeve - “Forcing a character to do something for plot reasons, when that character would never psychologically choose that option if left to their own devices.” It encapsulates the ‘romance with no chemistry’ issue and several others.
That is why I hated it when the raptor trainer and the CEO woman who owned the park in Jurassic World fell in love. Why would they? The CEO only viewed the dinos as tools. Expendable, Toys to play with. The trainer had a connection with the raptors he was training. Why would he fall in love with a slimebag as her?
Oh god I get that but it's also fairly easy to fall into that first one. I am still just on the fanfic and one shot short stories level of writing. It's a hobby. But I enjoy it a lot, but I definitely catch myself sometimes messing up a maincharacter of a story, because the mc where I got it with is the entire opposite of myself. And I don't entirely understand that way of thinking or being. I often gotta talk about it to some other people. So I don't mess it up. I want my character to feel the way I imagined it. Not accidentally add my own thing and then ruin the timeline and having to start over at seventy pages of text. Still haven't entirely figured out the trick there. It's my first time writing a character that's so unlike myself.
Tropes are like chords in music. You use chords to write a song, you use tropes to write a story. I like jazz because a lot of jazz use similar chord progressions, likewise, I like fantasy because of fantasy stories have similar tropes.
Yes. I love it when there is a classic trope, seasoned with a good twist or an extra conflict. If you overdo it, it becomes frustrating. If you to it right, it's satisfying and still exciting.
I mean that's poor miscommunication. I think the best kinda miscommunication I read was a short story about a human loving an elf. And the long lived elf told the human when they where a teenager that they needed to take a short trip to home. If they really want to date they need permission from the elders. The elf didn't realize that time flows differently for humans and his short trip took ten years to return from. He was happy and excited to see his girlfriend. She in the meantime had been married to someone else with two kids already and a third on the way. Upset and heartbroken over him abandoning her. They fought at their first reunion. But eventually they talked it out. The elf instead of marrying a human became more of a family friend even though the elf felt stupid and heartbroken over his lack of consideration. He wanted to have at least some time with his short lived friend in the end. It was pretty the miscommunication was natural. It has a reason for happening. An elf can live for centuries a human barely makes it to a century. And they didn't consider it because they moved to a human town way later and weren't used to how time flows differently for humans. It was great. The miscommunication broke up a romance, there where consequences but they still made up thanks to communication and the elf repaid the human for his mistake for the rest of their life.
The Marvel thing got me, my biggest Marvel beef (which actually caused me to stop watching the rest of the movies) was in Thor: Ragnarok, right at the end. It's the scene where Bruce Banner is talking about if he turns into the hulk then he may never turn back into Bruce and the air was tense and heavy and so meaningful, then he jumps out and you knew his decision was made. But then he smacks into the bridge and skids and it all turns into a joke!!!! I was so pissed! I wanted the weight of him accepting that fact and still doing it for his friends, I didn't want comedy, there was plenty of that already!
This. I remember that scene, and I had the exact same reaction. We could finally have a real cool moment that deals with a problem Hulk was struggling with throughout the whole movie, and instead, it becomes a gag. Sadly, Marvel has become notorious for this trying to make everything a guardians level comedy movie everytime.
As someone who reads a lot of Korean and Chinese fantasy manhwas/manhuas, you can see the difference between the different webtoons too. It's also interesting seeing some succeed in some parts and fail at other parts. Like there could be a great magic system and setting, but the plot keeps changing and it leaves the reader confused. My biggest thing is plot and pacing. You can have side goals but seeing the main character triumph their goal in a fantasy book is what I enjoy. Also if the pacing is too fast it leaves the journey unsatisfied for the reader.
I don't know if this is really common, but one thing that I hate in stories is no epilogue. I'm not talking about cliffhangers. I'm thinking of stories where it just ends. I want to see if the hero's life starts to return to normal. I want to know what the aftermath looks like. Terry Brooks' Shannara books made me a little anxious because I would notice that there was only about 10 pages left of the book and they were still in the climactic battle.
I like the idea of somebody else reading the novel as historical fiction and epilogue is authors note that goes into what happened to characters in history afterwards. "Before researching this I actually didn't know so much about Syrah Soso but was thrilled to learn..... " Nancy Moser writes historical fiction and her epilogues are awesome about this
It definitely feels weird to get to know a story, get intimate with it, commit yourself to finishing it, and then not get a honeymoon. I crave me a good denouement.
There's a romance anime that I really like, where I think that the epilogue is satisfying enough in comparison to other stories in the medium, but not as satisfying as it could or should be in comparison to just how dramatic the climax is. The two main characters spend a long time building up this slow-burn friendship until things quickly snowball towards the end where they're both not only admitting their feelings, but running off to elope. Then comes the massive gut-punch where the girl just ups and runs off because she realizes what they're doing is stupid, immature, and unsustainable, and that she needs to work on her own self-reliance and familial issues. After the credits stop rolling, it's shown that she returns during the beginning of her boyfriend's last year in high-school and tries to surprise him by hiding in a locker. I was happy that there was at least a conclusion, but I wanted a little more than that for the emotional washing machine that the show just put me through.
One tip about world building and info dumping that really helped me gain a different perspective was: Remember that your characters won't know everything about their world in detail either. Just think about yourself. Could you from the top of your head name every single country on earth including their capitals and political systems? Could you in detail explain how a rocket is launched into space? What exact materials are needed, how much force, how long does it take to prepare, what exact forces are at play? Usually you and your character will mostly only have a surface knowledge of the world and only a few specific areas where you're more knowledgeable in.
This is true but also imposes an immediate problem. If this knowledge is scarce then how is the writer going to do the exposition to his characters in a lore friendly way? They'd have to go to a geography and history scholar to be properly informed.
@@reilysmith5187 you can have your characters happen upon it, a book, an artifact, an entity, a scholar or a mystic. Theres number of ways depending on what your story is about. In mine, the main party is led to a mage who is studying something theyre interested in. Then theyre informed about ruins that may also contain information they seek.
@reilysmith5187 that's my favorite part of storytelling, is seeing how authors solve problems like this. Creative solutions are the hardest to find but the most valuable
@@reilysmith5187 Characters can meet OTHER characters that are experts in their field. They might need to remind the protagonist of something, or educate them in an organic way that will simultaneously educate the reader about the world. Like how Brann Stark was learning the house mottos of all the Westerosi major houses at the start of the story. The scene was clearly made for the audience's sake, but it works because Brann is 8 and a lord in training. Obviously, as has been stated, characters can also just learn information on their own through research and exploration. Be creative with it.
For me, especially with modern stories, it's "Suddenly Sympathetic Villain" where we have the villain doing all these awful, destructive things, but then suddenly the author pivots and makes them sympathetic and relatable OR glosses over their crimes and sins. It's just insulting whenever it comes up. ie: "You killed my parents, harassed and antagonized us at every turn and now you're trying to destroy the entire universe!" "Yeah, but I'll have you know that I've had an awful life and sometimes I feel really, really sad. --Look at me pathetically crying right now! Why, I bet if you look at it from another point of view, _I'M_ the victim here, fighting for a just cause and you are the aggressor! Pretty weird when you look at it like that, isn't it?" "No."
I agree wholeheartedly. Seriously, there is _nothing wrong with an unsympathetic, purely evil villain._ Why do _so_ many authors nowadays think that there is?! It annoys me to _no_ end, I swear to Christ.
It's one thing for the villains to feel like that about themselves. We've all met people in real life who are objectively terrible, but they see themselves as victims. It's insulting when the bbeg suddenly is just misunderstood. Listen, if I harass and kill someone, my childhood has nothing to do with it by the time I'm an adult. I'm choosing to be evil, even if I think it's justified.
Like when there are genocidal rulers that slaughter millions of people, then two minutes later they are right in with the main characters! Steven Universe cough cough
@@Synthesyn342That's not a good example of a suddenly sympathetic villain at all. Literally, from beginning to end, the story was about how people are complicated and multifaceted people and how to navigate relationships as a central theme. Literally no villain was ever really without sympathy. From beginning to end it was about struggling to handle things in an ultimately positive way and seeking a restorative rather than punishment-based justice. The sympathetic position of the diamonds was built up over a lot of episodes. I think if you saw the story as them getting away with everything and not that they're going to work on fixing the damage they've done, you missed the point of everything.
I think in a way, one's own knowledge influences what feels like slight inaccuracy and what murders your willing suspension of disbelief: the more you know, the more blatant anachronisms are. Corsets in medieval settings are one (of many) berserk buttons for me, doubly so if visibly worn as outer clothing (though that would be just as bad in a victorian setting). It's just painfully lazy; there were such fascinating, weird, strange fashions around ( 'Hell's Windows' , anyone?) that simply going historical = corset is a waste of opportunity. Of course, I don't have a clue about sailing, so some ship doing something that'd turn it into soggy match sticks within minutes would probably look fine to me.
One of my berserk buttons would be High heels in plate armor. Using 19th century outfits in a what looks like a 10th century medieval europe inspired setting, kind of looks off too.
One has to be REALLY careful when people complain about medieval European settings. It's a popular thing to say now...but a lot of people don't read the stories that are not in that setting. I think there are a lot of people who still love these settings.
Word. I think alot of fantasy writers unintentionally confuse fantasy and European as synonyms when most world cultures have had fantastical stories passed down for centuries
I feel like hard magic systems take magic-something that is mysterious and transcendent-and reduces it to an equation, or something that is almost bureaucratic. Of course, if magic is just another part of the world you’re building and is meant to be mundane, like in Harry Potter , that’s fine. But I love it when magic represents more than power.
It’s a matter of perspective. It’s magical to Harry because he comes from outside the magical world, as does the reader. We share in his wonder. But to other wizards it’s just part of the fabric of their everyday existence. And it doesn’t point to anything more significant . It has no real purpose other than to act as an alternative to our science and technology. I love-love!- Harry Potter, but the magic is pretty shallow. And that’s okay.
I have the opposite perspective -- I love when magic is quantifiable. It's fine if not everything is explained to us, the readers/players/viewers/whatever, and we are left to figure parts of it out for ourselves, but I don't want a system of metaphysics that is fundamentally unknowable and unexplainable. I want to be able to figure out how the thing works. The power of a mystery is that it can be solved.
the final one I can add to. A common thing I've had writer friends tell me is that they wish authors would play the trope of two characters just having a great *friendly* relationship. That can also be played really well if done right. From what I've noticed, readers just really like progression. This isn't saying that we should just give up on the romance trope, but I'm saying that there are so many different ideas that can be played with.
A good example is Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper from the Sharpe book series and the tv show inspired by it. The two go from an Irish and an English trying to kill each other to becoming close friends despite being a sergeant and an officer
I want to add to this: great friendships between mixed genders too. A male and female character need not become a romance just cuz best friends. They don't need to fall in love. A great friendship can be better than a romance. Harry/Hermione in HP is often listed by supporters as an example of a platonic friendship that worked. Yet the shippers who wanted it lament that it should have been romance instead. But why? They never show any romantic interest to each other. They stand by each other as great loyal friends. What's wrong with a great platonic friendship? I feel like Harry/Hermione shippers just don't like Ron or Ginny, thus they ship Harry with Hermione instead.
I don't know if you've done a video about this, I'd like to see someone discuss it, but a trend I've noticed with books nowadays is both writing and marketing them around specific tropes. For example, it used to be you'd read a romance and as you're reading it you realize it's an enemy-to-lovers story. Nowadays, a lot of books will outright tell you (often through avenues like TikTok) that it's an enemy-to-lovers story, it will tell you all the tropes it has and all the ones it doesn't as a tool to attract people who like those things and signal those who don't like those tropes to avoid the book, so there's not much in the way of surprises because you know exactly the story you're getting before you read it.
Everything these days has to appease an algorithm on whatever site the boo/story is posted to. Many use mete-tags so that they can be searchable, maximize that SEO. Plus you there are a tone of readers who now have absolutely rigged "No's" for books and will leave bad reviews because there "weren't warned" of some minor bit of content.
@@loupnuit1 Gosh that all sucks. Thank you so much for telling me about all this. My books will probably be too complicated to 'trope down' though lol. :p except maybe as 'Tolkien 2.0'
About "protagonist... not offering a valid reasoning for NOT killing an antagonist." I want to read a story from a henchman's perspective taking place sort of during the end of to after the hero's journey. Hero stormed in killed a buncha guys some of whom may have been friends of this protagonist but then when he got to the big boss he lets him go for self righteous reasons. This rather upsets the protag. Bad enough the hero kills his friends, but then he lets his actual target go? For no real reason? Thus begins a revenge story. Edit. Protag could go all john wick on the hero, or he could fail since obviously the hero is strong and heros always win. Or he could figure out the heros self righteous reasoning and find it makes some kind of sense. So many ways it could go.
This is why that one star wars movie where the soldier (stormtrooper) was upset his friend was killed, decides to hijack a tie fighter and kill more of his colleagues. And somehow he's the hero? Nevermind he just pulled a major Hasan fort hood style massacre and essentially joined the terrorists/rebels.
Times have changed, we've been fed the Batman won't kill the Joker because "If you murder a murderer the number of murderers stay the same" bs for decades and it would only have held up if the villain/antagonist wasn't a genocidal mass murderer. People have realized the "If you kill him you're no better than him" as a lazy excuse when the hero would have been killing one person who has committed enough crimes that they were practically going alphabetically through the criminal code just to make sure they hit every single one. There's a difference between the hero choosing not to kill because it's their choice and the hero trying to scapegoat with a "If I kill him, I won't be able to stop" when they've never killed before and they've had total control over themselves thus far so there is no reason to believe they would have an issue with just killing this one person.
@@StevenTLawson That's a completely different issue. Batman doesn't fit here since his "don't kill" applies to the henchmen just as much as the bosses.
@@Llortnerof True, but it gets exhausting when that rule is used to allow Joker to live after he blows up a five different hospitals in a week. Batman not killing common criminals because he knows most of them are desperate people doing crime to pay the bills.
Lol I kind of fixed this problem in my stories without knowing it was a problem. The main antagonist in my series can't be killed, only locked away, and that's known from the start. And there's a sub plot where the antagonist isn't killed, but his fate is FAR worse than death. Basically locked in his own mind with his own nightmares and the nightmares of his victim, the nightmares he did to her that he is now afraid of as well. Forever. Not allowed to die. Yeah, I went a little dark, but I don't care lol.
The way to make "miscommunication as conflict" good is to give good underlying reasons for why miscommunication is happening. Characters may have incompatible value systems, ways of thinking, they have preconceived notions and traumas that prevent them from understanding each other. The characters may indee talk to each other, but they would still be miscommunicating.
Thank you for saying this, I was feeling a bit unsure because the plot isn't really stopped by miscommunication in my novel, but it does cause complications. One person is keeping secrets for reasons. Sure he could reveal them, but first he has to learn that he can trust other people
This is why I'm on board with the miscommunication at the end of Shrek, even though the set up feels heavy handed, it hinged on Shrek expecting people to let him down and Fiona's still being half sure if she follows the script she'll find happiness. So I don't really care it's predictable, cause I believe they'd do that - in a worse movie, that same scene is irritating as hell.
Yeah came here to say this. Also, looking at the conflicts happening IRL, I think 99% of them could be solved if the basic premise is that people would just talk it out. It's about the reasons why they decide not to talk even when talking could be beneficial. I would even argue that this is the foundation for the concept of negotiations.
It also hits another chord with romance because if you can't even communicate on the most basic level, how in the 7 pits of hell are you supposed to be in a relationship with each other?!
@@ieatredbears5163yes, are we to believe that there is a happy ending when a couple get agitated when they see the other talking to the opposite gender and immediately draw conclusions about infidelity?
It's very rare to see a couple in a romance who actually make sense as a couple. Usually because the man is both the peak of masculinity and an absolute simp, and the woman is a piece of wood with a face drawn in it
It's an overused trope. Misunderstandings that lead to miscommunications, lack of connection and even straight up conflicts. Really overused ngl. And the authors strongly justify such chaotic canon pairings by the heaven defying automatic chemistry and love at first sight, despite all the misunderstandings that occur between the characters. All it takes are one look, one touch, one smell after all that dog blood conflicts and separations over the lack of real talks 😂
No, another youtuber; the magic engineer, talks a lot about this, his take on Sandersons first law is that it is more an issue of foreshadowing, regardless if if your magic is hard or soft you have to tell me the hero can do x before they save the day with x.
I liked the Malazan approach myself. I dont know if the Wheel of Times one was hard or soft really, but that strikes me as the kind i would prefer too.
What I hate is when you have sequential stories where the character makes progress in each story, but in the next story they are back to square one. over and over. Like the Flynx books.
My hot take about magic systems is that I feel that a lot of modern fantasy has a problem of overexplaining how their magic works. Sure, I definitely agree that it shouldn't be used as an easy way to instantly get characters out of difficult situations by giving them unlimited power, but at the same time a lot of writers (*ahem*Brandon Sanderson*ahem*) make magic seem more like superpowers than an actual mystic force beyond the realm of mortal understanding.
Well... That's kind of the intention? At least with Brandon Sanderson's works. In the cosmere, it's intentionally designed so that, to the people of the world, it doesn't really feel like magic, because generally, it is not magic to the people of the world who we see the world from the perspective of. Rather, the invested arts are generally treated more as a science, which is how the people in the world see them, depending on the time period at least.
I agree with you. There seems to be a very strong sway to write hard magic systems nowadays, with set rules and limitations, etc. I love the idea of magic being a newly discovered force, perhaps already inherent in the world, and the characters have no idea how to use it, what it can do, and they have to progress with caution. I want my own magic systems to strike awe and wonder in the reader. We’re writing fantasy here! Let’s write fantasy then.
I personally like soft magic systems. It's not very interesting if you only use it to get your characters out of bad situations, but what if the magic just doesn't work some times. Maybe the character gets magic from a fickle deity. I've also thought about the negative effects of magic. What if your character figured out how to make gold from thin air and decides to be very generous? He could ruin a kingdom's economy.
I think the "flat character" means boring character. A passive, inactive character who never changes, things just happen to him, reacts the same for everything. A passive protagonists is one of the main reason I put down a book.
I think so too. I understand a "flat character" as a boring, two-dimensionals, bland character. Whereas a character with a flat arc can be iconic, like Indiana Jones, for example. He didn't need an arc because his adventures were exciting and he was inspiring as he was.
I like Ioh Asakura precisely for that: being a flat character. My peeve is protagonists, since I detest them with a passion and pray for their demise. Shaman King got me interested because Ioh, as opposed to, say, Shinji Ikari, has a pretty passive way to engage others, which actually moves the plot forward. Not all flat characters are made equal.
The anime, One Punch Man pretty much writes the "flat character" well. Protagonist is just super OP, but the plot revolves more around how he helps others when they're in a pinch and the camaraderie or motivations of the villains around him. As it had been said time and again, it all depends on the writer.
I was always a very creative guy ever since I was little, constantly imagining stories on my head but I never actually made anything out of them... However I came across your channel some time ago and it has motivated me to start working on my little fantasy project, and I'm having so much fun doing it. Thanks man!
If you look at slow scenes that are done well, they're not about gathering nuts, or how to set up camp. It's about the character interactions at that moment. I'm reminded of David Edding's Belgariath series where all the way in the last book the 'hero party' is traveling to the final fated encounter and they have been foretold 'one of your group won't return with you'. Just sailing things. All the characters come to the MC one by one to reminisce and say goodbye. So the fighter doing maintenance on his armor may talk about how doing this saved his life more than once, how a well maintained sword will serve you truly. Someone can draw a comparison to maintaining relationships, and now you have a set-up to deepen the characters.
For me, the issue with sex and violence is that it is often extraneous to the story. If every scene needs to progress the story, than sex and violence can't be the exception. I was a book review for decades and there were a few books that were really sex scenes interrupted by bits of plot. The notion that sex scenes and violence need to move the book forward also suggests that they themselves need to be plotted out. It can't be endless variation of tab a in slot b. If too much sex is bad, too much boring sex is worse. Same with fights. I plot out each fight/battle with the idea of a mini story structure so it creates tension the way I need it to. Which is why you need heroes who get beat up at least once and guys (or gals) who get turned down by their 'love' interest.
I personally find the idea of “every scene moving the plot forward” a bit limiting in a way. Most people’s definition of that is huge impact scenarios. Every scene should contribute to a degree, but that tends to make everyone afraid to have a moment where the characters just take a breath for a moment doing something else not focused on thw overall main plot. Don’t go SAO’a fishing arc or anything, but give them a chance to interact outside of action or solving problems scenes. Down time scenes can push it forward even by an inch.
@@KW-de9sc maybe it would better to say every scene needs a purpose. As you say it doesn’t need to be high action. Reflection and getting to know the characters moves the story. My problem is with scenes that hit pause on everything while characters do the spicy stuff. I think we’re on the same page
Good and informative video, Jed. I prefer when the author goes easy on intimacy and when he/she allows the reader to conclude what is going on behind doors.
Yeah I'm sick of hearing that, idk why it's trending. As an asian person, I'm also done with people constantly saying they want more "asian inspired" fantasy. It kinda feels like lowkey orientalism lol but it won't stop me from preferring knights and castles and such.
@@jjhh320Yeah, There is nothing wrong with non European settings but something about the insistence on it reads as an exotification of other cultures to me. I guess there is some thing shallow and perhaps ignorant in that people assume that the stereotypical England/France medieval setting or a dndish setting is all that could be done with the medieval period (which was a pretty long time and over varied countries) doesn't give me hope that Asian settings would be treated any better.
Same, a good Medieval European fantasy is simply satisfying, but what I am tired of is Medieval European fantasy where the author has done little research on what makes that period medieval at all, where most of the author’s knowledge comes from video games and webcomic, thus making the world feel filtered.
Because of that, I think it's overdone. At least in my perspective, regardless of the genres cultural origins a story need not be rooted in it. I assume that's the case with others, but then preference just is what it is.
You can always abuse the fantastical elements of your worldbuilding to push the setting firmly out of the medieval period. Dragon-mounted battlemages hurling meteors at armies of crossbowmen, riding armored clockwork chariots from trench to trench, donning plague masks to ward off poisoned clouds. Rival emperors commanding reserves of primordial fire stolen from the gods, with the power to obliterate the world several times over should they ever use it in anger. A thieves' guild sending out cursed letters en masse to hold people's memories for ransom.
Regarding hard magic systems not being mysterious….Im learning about space time, black holes, some equations, and these things are infinitely mysterious to me. I guess it’s the difference between knowing how something works a little and what something is. For me, one can keep what magical things are and where they come from nebulous but simply have a mechanistic way in which they can be used, that’s mysterious
“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” ― Richard P. Feynman, American Physicist “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” ― Albert Einstein “Money may be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever.” Louis L’Amour, Author
Matter of taste ... I think even with world-building you can have to much of it; I'm thinking of several pages about hobbit history and different kinds of hobbits. Amusingly enough, that's the sort of a thing any 'expert' on writing would black-list, but a really, really good writer can get away with it. Douglas Adams for example would forever interrupt the flow of his story with some anecdote about the only species on the universe that invented deodorant before the wheel, and I love him deeply, madly, truely.
The thing about Tolkien is he invented the whole genre of serious fantasy novels meant to be read by adults (vs children's stories). Anyone who read his work later than like the 1970s was exposed to all the elements in movies, other books, etc and doesn't realize how much work it took to get people to suspend disbelief and read a novel with dragons or dwarves in it and yet be obviously serious minded and deep.
@@dangerbook4807 The thing about Tolkien is that he was a huge literature and language nerd whose style and content was driven largely by his own amusement rather than the needs of others. (His big problem with LotR is that it was too short). Remember it wasn’t all that popular when it was first released.
I don't really agree with the magic systems, I personally love to write and read about at least one character who is highly powerful, and I also hate when people turn magic into a science, I want the magic to feel... magical. I do agree with the poor character development as that is something I personally like to focus on 🤔
Being highly powerful makes the highly powerful character a deux ex machina though. Antagonists can get away with it but the story loses much of its tension when Bob can just solve every problem with a snap. Sure, I can see the desire to keep magic mysterious, rather than explaining how it works but it should be consistent with at least one or two established rules.
@@xxlCortez My problem with this is that it's dependent on all problems being external threats and not about the characters as people. Like people always complain about Superman being too powerful but some of the very best comics are about him dealing with loss of his family, growing up feeling different as an Alien, falling in love, facing death of loved ones etc. because the powers he has can't solve interpersonal struggles and often complicated them. The character as a person should always be more important than their magic powers
Miscommunication is too often a trick in movies to cut off talking, preventing thinking things through and then raising the tension, because of what wasn't said. Too often I'm thinking so often, "yeez, just adding a few sentences, like any normal human being, would have solved this. I'm tricked!"
The example of a “bad magic system” needing more “facts” is a rabbit hole that will never satisfy all readers. “Were the witches pyromancers or eat something?” Say yes. Then someone says “well how does the magic beet/root have magic?” Etc etc. Sure, take a look at some depth but this is a fix that, well, can’t ever be fixed. It’s magic.
I think of Lord of the rings . Just watching the movie, I accept that they are wizards and have some limitations. They are not Gods ( so to speak), but they do have abilities. It just works without insane details. Having said that, I do not mind when we get more details either. I don’t think I have to have every little detail.
The two worst types of criticism, It does too much and It does too little, everyone's got an opinion on it, not a single one of them is any good, there's not one type of media that doesn't have some form of advice surrounding it based on something that's so ridiculously ingrained into the very basis of the concept itself that the idea anyone could ever suggest making it standardized based on something entirely based on taste sounds like a joke. How much "facts" matter to the magic system isn't even a writer to writer or book to book thing, it's a scenario to scenario thing, I strongly doubt that person has any books they like that follow that even to a moderate degree, or that they'd ever follow something like that if they were to make their own. Luckily at least that's one of the very few times I've heard about it relating to fantasy, it's not horror at the least, where countless creators entirely rely nowadays on "fear of the unknown" because every critic says that you need to let the reader imagine everything. Then you see these same people praising stories that use "fear of the unknown", and it ranges from: Doesn't show the monster/antagonist until the last third of the movie To We know it's hunting method, biology, breeding mechanism, what it does to humans, habitat, biology, planet of origin, and even how they think, but it doesn't tell you how they first came into being so it is fear of the unknown. (I've seen a fairly popular channel at least going off subs, saying this exact thing)
I strongly agree about romance sex and violence, a well written sex scene between two lovers before they have to part ways, possibly forever, a couple forced to work together and slowly falling for each other, or brutal violence from the antagonist can all enhance a great story further. My personal least favorite trope is the modern slang one, not only do you risk ripping people out of their immersion, you also risk sounded dated because what is hip and cool changes very frequently. No 14 year old ever thought their parents had the coolest way of speaking on the planet. If you have your knight say "That shit be rockin' bro!" you not only risk breaking immersion, you also risk sounding like someone trying and failing to be cool.
If it must be put in a book, please put behind curtains shelfed away from the kid-friendly books that older kids and even younger kids with higher reading levels can read.
@@Kaede-Sasaki There is no reason to put it behind any curtains unless it has a graphic cover. But fantasy has kid fantasy (harry potter etc), Young adult fantasy (A court of thorns and roses etc) and adult, your Joe Abercrombie, George RR Martin etc. Why would you have sex and violent gore in kids stuff? That's not what I or the video maker means, what we mean is that fantasy for adults should be able to contain adult themes.
Peaky Blinders isn't fantasy, but one of its most captivating story lines is the complicated romance between Tommy and Grace. Without it, there would not be the depth, nor would we have been able to understand the complexity of Tommy Shelby's character. So by all means include romance if it enhances understanding of or sympathy for a character, but leave it out if it doesn't.
Reminds me of Smallville as the exact opposite: Dear lord, the "Clark-Lana" romantic plot tumor. I swear the writers must have had a mayor crush on Kristin Kreuk, or projected all their 'sweet soft-spoken unthreatening fragile girl' preferences on her, but however it happened: I fervently despised every second that so-called romance took away from more interesting plot lines / characters. (I think Peaky Blinders probably also profited from having the combo of good writing & really good actors that it takes to sell all those nuances and changes.)
@@Julia-lk8jn My sister and I did a Smallville re-watch last year. We got up to season 8 but then we got COVID and canceled the re-watch. My sister was just like you. She got tired of Clark/Lana and wanted Clark/Lois to happen quicker. Idk why the show kept forcing Lana back as the romantic interest. Clark should have gotten over her in season 5 when he *spoilers* Changed time to save her life.
What is important for me is that in fantasy settings there is a clear set of rules that can be explored throughout the narrative, but breaking those rules is NOT part of a problem solution at a pivotal moment. The writer needs to respect his own system.
I'm a sucker for a Soulslike approach on a protagonist: A nobody among many working towards an impossible goal where we get to see them grow and evolve into an actual badass by the end of the story.
I heard a rule once that you shouldnt introduce more than a couple new words/names per page. The first line being "Beedlerug the Nerblemancer was traveling to Souka for the Jirmervern Congregation" is just going to confuse readers to no end
a couple things i can comment on, mainly as an avid fantasy reader but minorly as someone who likes romance and is also ace. there are points within a story where it is almost impossible for romance to not feel forced, for example: - when a man's only true female friend becomes his lover, or vice versa - when a character is introduced with far more potential storytelling-wise but gets reduced to the token love interest - when characters with no chemistry, romantic or otherwise, suddenly fall in love OR are revealed to be secretly in love from the beginning - when characters with previous platonic chemistry get together at the last moment (think 3rd act kiss) - when a love interest is introduced only to be killed off for character development (fridging, but romantic) - when a love interest is introduced only to help the character with their development (generally without providing depth of their own) truthfully, any trope can be pulled off if a skilled enough writer is put to the task. but it's very difficult to avoid these kinds of traps in writing, and just saying 'any trope can be done well' to a beginner won't make their writing any better for it. as a tidbit on the purpose of intercourse in storytelling. it's honestly one of my least favorite things to come across while reading, no matter the purpose it serves in the narrative. there's nothing generically 'wrong' about it, it's more that it's extremely hard to do well. oftentimes, there are far more interesting and less ostracizing methods to spur on a character's depth. plus, the moment it gets into details about a character's 'personal history', it just becomes unnecessarily lewd. I can understand the idea behind saying that it's not inherently bad, but it also doesn't have an intrinsic quality that outweighs the cons of cutting out your readerbase. there are far more methods that can be used in place of it that are much easier to do better *and* have a more potent effect.
Inappropriate humor abounds in the military (and amongst first responders as well). It serves to deflect the overwhelming circumstance that surrounds them in the moment. The weight of the circumstance hits home afterward, when the adrenaline-fueled situation has subsided and there is time for self-reflection. Unfortunately, it is also common among those who deal with those emotions to bury them and contributes a lot psychologically to PTSD. While tragic in real-life, exploring those facets can add a lot of impact to a story's characters. And it is something I am invested in exploring in my work.
This is another good point. I have similar things in my story where the main character tells joke to deflect from how much trauma he has suffered. But I think that because he's the only one who does that, it's okay and it fits. The problem is when all the characters suddenly have the same sense of humor and they inject it into every scene, or when it's clear the narrator or the writer is making the scene funny when it doesn't need to be.
@@ukchanak Injecting a lot of that sort of banter would be suited to say, the military, police officers or EMTs. But, as you say, it wouldn't be a fit for normal interactions. At the end of the day, it is a coping mechanism and goes hand-in-hand with deflecting having to deal with those emotions, at least externally.
one of the better television series that use humor during serious moment but at the same time knowing when to let the event play out properly. I want to say Mash did it expertly. (yes am dating myself) In the serious they are moment when its all about the gag but in other moments they let the silence tell the story.
This can definitely be the case I feel like its the difference between "undercutting an emotional scene" which Marvel is notorious for and "dry joke made to help deal with the high-pressure situation" which I think is done really well in the show 911
As a former military grunt, I can say the inappropriate humor in the military is often dark humor, but it's also relevant to what's going on. The Marvel 'humor' (as referenced in the video) just seems "let's throw something slapstick in here to lighten the mood," and not always thought out. It's not always needed, either.
I don’t think Tolkien ever went into detail about dwarven economies, not to my recollection. And I’m not sure the Griffindor=good and Slytherin=bad is a good application because Peter Petigrew was a Gryffinor and Prof. Slughorn was a Slytherin.
I think it's the part in the Hobbit where they are at the dinner party and someone talks about the history of erebor, and how they just traded for all their food instead of growing it, and other things like that.
Tolkien didn't get into the magic system either. Gandalf had mysterious and vague powers but he didn't break the tension of the story by virtue of being a busy dude who could only be in one place at any given time.
Tolkien chose his moments during natural dialogue to go into details, and mostly only with characters known to be extroverted, passionate, and talkative, in which it was polite culture to let the person keep talking. I love Tolkien, I feel he got the balance perfectly in a way most authors don't. And in Harry Potter you're right, I hate people who (most if them) say they love the books but actually only watched the films and say "Gryfindor good, Slitherin bad" when that's totally incorrect, it's just school has cliques but in adulthood good and bad is very blurred.
@@GirlOfTheTardis nah, I read the books, loved the books, lived and breathed the books, and Gryffindor=Good Slytherin=Bad. Just when she thought about giving it some nuance, she saw the fanfic and wrote it right back out. All the Slytherins were born evil and raised evil by evil parents and anyone remotely good gets auto-sorted into another house. There are also bad people in other houses, but they all display some quality that would also put them in Slytherin house. Percy is ambiguous, Wormtail, is pure-blooded and also ambitious, Umbridge is, you guessed it, also politically ambitious, as is Crouch obviously. Every awful thing a Gryffindor does is handwashed away while every normal thing a Slytherin does is painted as pure evil. The Marauders were worse bullies than Draco Malfoy ever was, actively hunting and physically assaulting other students for years and getting rewarded with leadership roles until after 5th year when they stopped bullying anyone else but Snape, only to keep Lily happy, not because they ever acknowledged doing anything wrong. 4 rich pure-blooded Gryffindors with full support from Dumbledore vs 1 poor half-blooded Slytherin with no friends or family and no support at school verbally, physically, and sexually assaulting him, for an audience, for fun. As adults they feel no shame and continue to say and do exactly the same things, taking no responsibility for their role in escalating him into evil he wasn't previously capable of. Comparatively, Draco uses rude words mostly, and rarely gets in a physical altercation, which is evenly matched with him, Crabb and Goyle vs Harry, Ron, and Hermoine, 2/3 of whom are classed amongst the best duelists in their school, with Hermoine judge6as the literal top student in their year and Harry having experience fighting grown adults who've been frontline of a war. His bullying of Neville is purely emotional and we never see him actually hurt him unprovoked. But JKR got so maf about girls writing cutesy fanfic about him she out extra effort into villainizing him, even giving him a random receding hairline in the epilogue because she couldn't stand fans actually liking him. The sudden Snape deathbed repentance is kinda the exception that makes the rule though. So random. He dedicated his life to being the evil he experienced from the world as a child then thinks he deserves forgiveness? He made a concerted effort to pass on the cycle of abuse till the day he died.
Oh man, I disagree so hard with the magic systems thing. Sure, when you're going for a hard magic system, that's how you should do it. However, I generally prefer soft magic systems. Makes the magic feel more magical.
Building with tropes is like building a cabin with log: sure, it's been done a million times, but now YOU get to do it. And there's always an audience for it.
10 out of context work use: a fantasy novel where the character "used gravity" 7 poor magic system: a fantasy novel where the MC had such good healing he would heal a wound after it was delivered in a fight. Something that anyone could theoretically do but no one did. 6 miscommunication: the quickest way for me to stop reading a book. 5: so many authors on Royal Road do info dumping to the extreme. 3: violence really depends on the story. I am reading a book called downtown druid where the MC is quite violent but is all on context and works. It works because there are no surprises. 1: romance, where two people get together because there is no better option or it happens immediately. The equivalent of marrying the person you sit next to in a bus, just so you can have romance.
I hate insufferable characters. I’m not talking evil characters or villains, but characters that are just so unlikeable that I’d leave a party if they showed up. If I’m going to bring these characters into my life for a few days or weeks, they can’t be fingernails on a chalkboard. They can have a lot of bad qualities, but they can’t be intolerable.
"That girl who can't communicate with anyone ever tugs her braid angrily yet again." I had to stop reading those, I know they're popular but I was going to end up throwing the thing at a wall and I was reading on my phone.
Yeah, I had this problem during a DnD session with a peer of mine. She made this self-insert character who had the most insufferable attitude of just starting up shit like punching my character because her character just felt like it. It was the most annoying thing to deal with.
In my experience, what makes characters insufferable is not their personalities, but how the writers treat them. It can be perfectly fine to have a smug, self-satisfied know it all who loves to lecture other characters. But it becomes annoying if the writer protects this character, have the character "win" every discussion with another character, and have the character never get called out or face any consequences when he/she is wrong.
I only use humour to undercut an emotionally tense moment in dialogue and only if it fits the character. I have one character who uses inappropriately timed humour as coping mechanism to high stress and fear.
There's a BIG difference between infodumping and worldbuilding. You can infodump a lot of things...exposition, items, abilities, interpersonal relationships, and even worldbuilding. Worldbuilding itself is about making a world that feels lived in, making it feel real to the reader. And yes, sometimes you need to take a break from nonstop action sequences to reset the "normal" for your characters.
Especially if your characters are having a rough time, a section of the book where everything is happy makes it hurt more when it's taken away again. A great way to add stakes and some emotional tension
I think miscommunication as a source of conflict actually can work... In stories about people who aren't mature, ie, teenagers. I believe this works if only for the sake of realism, as oftentimes due to emotional immaturity and hormones, teenagers will not properly speak to one another as adults would to resolve conflicts.
@@ShadowSkyX Tbf a lot of those adults have stunted mental growth for a plethora of reasons, many of which actually are things most characters go through, so you are correct, and in a way that does apply to the subject matter, but I will say that's not how most adults are SUPPOSED to develop.
Miscommunication is just an easy cop out though. I find putting them in impossible situations with no seeming way out ends up challenging me and I come up with creative solutions, tbf half my writing process these days comes from doing that and the characters make really interesting choices and it takes me somewhere I didn't plan for at all, if I relied on them just not talking properly then I'd be writing boooooring stuff
I'm also curious what could make the scene a distraction with slow pacing vs. perhaps necessary. Case in point, the Forest and Tom Bombadil scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring novel. While most of it doesn't really play into the overall story, and could have been removed, as the movie did, in fact, do, the scene in the Barrow Downs WAS necessary as those blades later helped bring down the Witch King in Return of the King, and that's where Bombadil is necessary, to save them. Then again, every scene that may build the plot in the long run doesn't always have to be action-packed all the time.
"shallow magic systems" nonsense, I'm utterly tired of fantasy trying to make a science out of magic. it's supposed to be whimsical, or mystical, or emotionally poignant, or uncanny, or unfathomable... it's not supposed to be engineering!
18:00 I think of character development like houses. Some characters are flat because we see the blueprint, and over time, see the house built following this blueprint. Character growth is when the house gets renovated-new coat of paint of new cabinets in the kitchen. Sometimes a character is actually "flat" as in boring because they're a one-room, four-walls box. A character might not change, but there is joy in seeing more and more rooms to understand their depth. I also feel like the skill of character development is necessary to master before there can be strong character growth. If the upstairs has been redecorated, but I never left the ground floor, how will I know what has changed?
Your videos are very helpful and I greatly appreciate the surveys you gave. There is so much fantasy out there that sounds like it would be interesting, but turns out to be filled with boring or annoying things.
Romantasy (romance and fantasy 50/50 plot) is a really upcoming 'genre' and its getting very populair. Especially with bookstagram and booktok. Personaly, I love it. thanks again for your awsome advice and insight!
I would actually disagree with the "shallow magic systems" point. Sometimes the magic appears shallow on the surface, but is deep symbolically, and ppl just miss it. The sword can create fire because it was forged in a volcano by witches is seemingly shallow, but perhaps the real reason is it symbolizes the uncontrollable rage of the protagonist using it, and the uncontrolled spreading of destruction as consequence. "Because it was forged in a volcano by witches" would be how the sword can create fire, not why. There's a depth there you won't see if you're looking for the wrong kind of details. As for sex and violence, I do hate this new trend where you basically take the typical romance/erotica drama and add a fantasy flavor to it. Looking at you, Fourth Wing. But I would also add to that when the author has the character swearing too much, or for the wrong reasons. Sure, something crazy happens like you fall into a magic well, or you're fighting a dragon and it's not going well, emotionally tense situations, I expect some personal expression. But the "this is an edgy character, who doesn't give a fff" who swears in every other sentence...swearing is actually a type of filler word, and the more you use them, the more I start glossing over everything they say, because I know half of what they say amounts to nothing.
I think my favorite example to illustrate the difference between a trope and a cliche - and how the difference often comes down to execution - is the first "How to Train Your Dragon" film. That movie is absolutely stuffed to the brim with very common tropes - the dorky outcast who has a crush on the popular girl, the classic bully characters, the unimpressive son who wants to impress his father and live up to his reputation, the kid who has to hide some kind of secret from his family/friends/government, etc, etc. Yet the movie still works because, despite having all of these tropes and more, it presents them in a relatable and fun way that makes the characters, setting, and events feel natural rather than just coming off as tired cliches doing the exact same thing we've seen a thousand times before. The implementation is what makes or breaks the trope, not the trope's mere presence in of itself.
I use modern speak in my fantasy novel series because it's based on TTRPG sessions I played and part of its charm is the sophomoric prose and humor at times
Subscribed. Nice content! I've been working on my fantasy saga for close to a decade and I'm always looking for solid writing wisdom. My thoughts on this video's list: The first point about modern language and anachronistic terms I'm a bit undecided on. For me I'll divide this between the two: 1. Modern language set in a fantasy setting is probably only bad if your fantasy setting is meant to mirror a historical time setting on earth. In high fantasy there's no real reason people have to talk like medieval Europe. Anachronistic terms also probably don't apply in high fantasy. 2. It's important to remember who your audience is. If you want authentic 8th century England, you have to write like Beowulf and literally nobody today can read that. So it's important to use terms and even idioms that make sense to your audience. Though less so with idioms as those are usually optional. Pacing and humor, agree 100%. Even in non-fantasy stories this is important. I never knew about pathos & bathos. I think my distaste for bathos might be why Hard magic systems. This is my pride and joy. I've got an extremely well designed magic system that's been the centerpiece of the project since day one. Miscommunication as conflict: Wow that IS specific and it really is quite an annoying one. Agree 100%. Infodumps: The art of integrating exposition into your action is challenging and worthwhile to learn. Character development, naturally important. Gratuitous sex & violence. Just don't be gratuitous -- meaning make it all relevant and appropriate to the story. Trope execution: Just skill there really. Forced romance: Nobody likes forced anything. Keep it natural.
8:40 when 90% of high fantasy magic is just based or stemmed from the 4 elements: fire, ice, wind, and the ground Nothing against elemental magic but i wanna see some practical applications for it such as lighting a campfire in the woods with your fire sword or something
#5.. Robert Jordan is an excellent example of what you said regarding wanting to read the extraneous information. I know there are many people who find his writing style to have a ton of info-dumping. Myself I loved it, his writing was done so well that I wanted to read it and I brought the images in my mind into full clarity. #4.. Joe ambercrombie is an absolute master of humanizing his characters. Even the most evil seeming, sadistic characters have moments where you can either pity them or see the glimmer of good in them.
Considering forced humor, my absolute favourite stories use both bathos and pathos - and when at their absolute peak, at the same time. My favourite film, _Everything Everywhere all at Once_ does this _masterfully._ And it can do that because one of the film's themes is just how absurd life is, without that detracting from how much it means to us. I aspire to write that well.
I love this film but even this has forced humor that I hated. I cringe at the dildo fight every time. Without that scene, I think the humor is pretty great tho.
All of these complaints are valid, and worth considering, but it is also important to acknowledge that you, as a writer, will not be able to please everyone. Don't get too wrapped up in whether people will enjoy every aspect of your story or not, just continue to write and craft your narrative.
Just wanna say I love this kinda video I appreciate it isn't just "here are some things I thought up" but actually engages the community and makes it interesting because I get to hear many people's thoughts before the expert speaks. Really fun to listen to for me
Would you consider doing a video on self-publishing? I am going to start publishing mid-late 2025, and I'd love any advice you have - particularly on growing an audience - not being just a drop in the ocean.
I've been struggling with a unique magic system for my sci-fi/fantasy. It's something i wrote wayyy back in high-school. And actually had it published thru a kind of shady publishing company. Anyway, after your "shallow magic" section it finally hit me! I have something that I believe is unique, difficult to use and has many drawbacks, as it is a devastating power to have and use!
I’m kinda ehhh on elaborate hard magic systems, it makes them far too ‘known’, controllable, subject to logical equations and science. It removes the mystique that this is a force beyond the realm of human understanding, with those who wield them being feared. When I was playing Sekiro and saw a weirdo throwing purple skulls at me, I wasn’t concerned with the hows and whys of the purple skulls, only that it was something mysterious and unknown. When it becomes a defined science I lose interest, and if you’re going to do that, just write science fiction or techno-medievalism. I’m not knocking that, a world of techno-knights? Sick af.
For me, it's the opposite! Magic being studied scientifically is literally my favorite trope in the entire fantasy genre, even if it's not something that's entirely explained to the reader, and I'm usually not as interested if it's clear that it's something we're never supposed to understand. There's a difference between the unknown and the unknowable -- the former is beautiful, the latter is frustrating. If something is beyond the realm of human understanding, the logical conclusion is that we should stop being human. This might be a difference in how different readers (and writers) perceive magic as a concept, and the fantasy genre as a whole. I wonder if it's in part a matter of different people's backgrounds and fields of study.
@@paigeepler I can't disagree more, being unknowable is what diferentiates magic from science, if it's knowable, understandable, then it's made up science. It's not bad, but it isn't magic, and shouldn't try to be something that it's not. And before you ask, I'm a chemist undergrad, so it's not a matter of "uh you just don't like science". There is nothing more fustrating than in a story than "magic" that's just fake science with rules that don't add up. I know how that's supposed to look like, and they allways get it wrong.
There are examples of "science-based" and "studied magic". Arcanism from Final Fantasy 14 Online comes to mind. They build "constructs", pets basically, with Aether by applying magic through equations. If that sounds terrible to you I totally understand. The whole magic system is based on a source rather than how to practice it, which leaves space for different applyances and also some mystery about the source itself.
The key is balance. If your magic system is just someone having god-level magic powers with no limitations or backstory, it’s probably gonna look cliche and OP. But, if it’s too detailed then yes it can just feel like you are learning psychics. So you must create fair magic system with some explanation but without delving in too deep
As an aspiring writer I love your videos. I didn't even plan to watch the whole thing, I just wanted the chapter titles so I can know, and then watch later, but I just let the video keep going. You are very engaging and your content is very helpful for anyone interested in the publishing sphere.
@@nyctotheoryPublishers want what will sell. If you get rid of the setting and tropes you would have an entire different genre, which currently doesn't have enough support to bother publishing.
One of the things I really hate is the need for some writers to over explain things. I love a bit of mystery, and just as we won't know everything in our own world during our lives, I don't need to know how everything works. I strongly prefer magic existing for the sake of existing and kept mysterious rather than having to quantify it. I also really hate taboo, which is why I don't agree with the sex comments here. It is a normal and important part of many of our lives and is part of who many of us are. People have their own preferences, but I know it is an important part of my life and integral to my relationship, so I would have no problem reading the details of an important part of a character's life as well.
I'm probably one of the few people who prefers a classic fantasy ("shallow") magic system to an overly complicated one. Some of the stuff people come up with just leaves me rolling my eyes, and I hate the general consensus that every fantasy story needs it's own unique and special magic system. Having costs and consequences to magic is fine, but when there's 10 pages of exposition explaining everything in great detail, it just puts me off. Kind of takes the magic out of it. Even Brandon Sanderson's metal based magic system had me cringing to the point it put me off reading his other books. Pacing also seems to be contentious. I see a lot of people complaining that a lot of fantasy stories are too fast paced with characters never having time to breathe. Though multiple sequential chapters of no apparent progress being made is definitely too slow. anyway, gotta go yeet the dragon and grab its swag so I can put together a new drip and rizz up. edit: I personally have an aversion to sex and things in fictional media due to how common it was at one point to have the antagonist force-sex the main character's love interest in order to establish them as A Really Bad Dude™. Kind of also ruined love triangles for me, because it seems fairly common for the person opposite the main character to be a violent abuser of some flavour. It just gives me the ick, and I've noped out of a lot of books and shows over it when a love triangle starts to rear its head, because it's almost always used as a lazy source of conflict (usually co-driven by miscommunication)
omg so happy to discover this channel! I bought Thunder Heist years ago (when my debut was released as well) and it's great to see you succeed on RUclips! Great stuff!
Miscommunication is just part of life and its so life like to see that done in a book. It can be done badly if its written badly but its so human. Maybe thats why prople dont like it because theres enough of that in real life that they dont feel like dealing with it in their fantasy books
Even irl between civilians it's pretty pathetic drama, but when people try to make an epic story from it, make it the main plot...it look like a joke, when you realize in the end people could just talk. It's not like the conflict, where no one is ready to agree with other's opinion and everyone sticks to their own view and goals even after a talk. It's realistic. But not when people did not understand eachother because they did not have a talk at all or said double-meaning word. It can be fine for secondary plot for young character to learn to talk and explain, to avoid or fix some problems they can not on their own. But not the main story. Like...a dramatic romance between people who both love eachother, but scared to let other know. Whole plot is pointless until the point someone's love becomes known. Why the hell would anyone want to read that?
@@Иная I think that's tho whole point of many romantic comedies which are usually on the lighter side. There's a whole slew of Spanish novellas that function this way and they get a lot of views. It depends what people like I think but yeah I agree if it's a smaller plot in a bigger story I usually enjoy it more.
@@Иная I’m thinking of nothing remotely related to romance. I’m thinking of every time I say something, and am then “corrected” to exactly the same thing I just said.
I've been wondering why certain parts of my book feel so slow... I've never heard of different "scene formats" before, and I've consumed a LOT of professional advice on writing! Definitely going to give my books a look and add that particular lens to the editing process. Thank you!
I like European themed fantasy, I will die on this hill. Frankly I find that weird fantasy for the sake of being different is more annoying. My interest in Roshar from Stormlight is limited because it just feels weird to be different. And I… don’t care. I like my Elves, and Dwarves. I just want them done better
I agree, I'll take familiar tropes over being different just to be different every time. If the story is good, than it's good. I don't need the characters to be staplers fighting paperclips instead of eleves and dwarves.
I really love everything that Jed Herne does on his channel. Imo, he is an invaluable resource to not only fantasy writers but to TTRPG game masters who want to offer their players more than just the "standard d&d" adventure. Bravo Jed! You do a great job!
The fact that this list contains both "extraneous worldbuilding" and "shallow magic systems" is sending me. Unless the narrative revolves around digging into the nature of your world's magic, expanding on its sources and nuances IS extraneous worldbuilding. As pointed out in the video, it can still be done well, but it goes to show that you'll never please every reader.
I agree with the sentiment of these, and also largely with the idea that it's too often these types of things done poorly that's an issue. I think many authors think that since certain things might be expected to be in a genre, it's inserted due to a feeling of obligation more than it being a meaningful part of the story. Hunger Games is a fav example of that the love-triangle sub plot added absolutely nothing to the story, which had plenty of good drama without it. Personally, I think we need more art, especially literature, where we can get the purest form of the story the author wants to tell without a checklist of 'must have features'. Yes, marketability is always a factor. But I think it always harms the product when checklist items are shoehorned in for the sake of it.
I like what I call the "From Software" approach to world building, where things are either shown not told or you piece together information over time, the Dark Souls games seemed to be very good at this
The gore thing always makes me sad in a way because it's such a normal part of life in some parts of the world and when I grew up blood was unfortunately a very common thing for me to see so I'm more used to it than most people, so when people talk about blood and gore as if it is only some fictional thing it gives off a very... naive vibe, I guess. I can understand people might not want to see it because it makes them feel sick but still. The sex part is also sad because it can be such an important thing for two people to bond and I feel like if there's two characters which are very romantic and in love they often make their relationship look really innocent, like after several years all they've done is kissed, so it makes me feel like sex is viewed as something vulgar and unromantic when it can be such a beautiful thing and also important for the characters psychological growth. I have a male character wich has seen a lot of men behaving like monsters and he was tricked by a girl at one time so the sex scenes is important for him to get past those issues meanwhile the female character gets past a lot of sexual shame because she was expected to be so pure and innocent and was taught that sex is just a disgusting act only animals engage in, but I feel like people often forget the psychological aspect of sex and romance and the importance for character growth. I can understand the frustration when it's only about smut (I don't want to read that either) but I would like to see romantic smut which is greatly tied to the story but it feels like I either have the shallow smut part or the innocent romantic stuff to choose between.
hard disagree on miscommunication as source of conflict - that has to be one of the truest, realest things in real life - and what gives it so much weight is that try as we might to talk thinks out, the rabbit hole just gets deeper, and we wonder how people every communicate, agree, or understand anything...
Miscommunication can absolutely be used well, especially in between characters with different backgrounds and world views, but people are sick of the kind of miscommunication where like 3 sentences could have prevented a large amount of conflict. I would much rather watch a character literally not be able to explain themselves and justify actions on the principle that who they are explaining to will not accept their explanation, than watch the protag not say like five words to thier love interest like, "I was visiting my sister,"(in response to him being at a another woman's house). It's dumb miscommunication people hate, not miscommunication as a whole.
Let's use Shrek 1 as an example. That entire conflict could have been avoided if Shrek asked Fiona about who she was talking about. He assumed that she thought of him as a hideous beast, but she was telling Donkey that she viewed herself as such. That's a very annoying example of a fight that could be prevented if Shrek just spoke to Fiona and listened to her. But he automatically assumes the worst so conflict can occur. Then, he decides to speak with her last minute at the wedding. That whole wedding could have been prevented had he just talked to her on their journey instead.
@l.n.3372 with Shrek at least it was more understandable because he spent his whole life being conditioned to think that so when he heard it out of context(and he has no idea of Fiona's curse) he would obviously assume it to be about him and want to isolate himself. I think his character absolutely justifies that miscommunication.
@thecyanpanda241 While it makes sense that he has poor self esteem. I don't agree that it justify the bad miscommunication writing. He spends many scenes falling in love with Fiona yet refuses to speak with her when it matters most. It was miscommunication for conflict plot.
I'm a new viewer, and in the last video of yours that I watched, you said that you had published "3 fantasy books", and I see that this is a more recent video, so congratulations on your 4th book publishing!
Next week I'll be doing a video on the top 10 things fantasy readers love! So make sure you're subscribed if you haven't already :).
Can't wait! Like your videos a lot.
In the process of writing my first book. Your videos have help me out a lot.
My top 10 things I love to read in fantasy:
1.) Using language that feels at home and is relatable to me and how I would speak as the reader.
2.) Taking the time to develop the small things that don't really matter to the story.
3.) Witty humor at every turn, -specifically helpful in dissecting the harder things to read about.
4.) A magic system that isn't overly complex and I don't want to think too much about it.
5.) When a story is able to build an entire conflict that completely changes the direction of the book just from a simple miscommunication.
6.) Elaborately detailed explanations to everything so that I can really immerse myself in the world.
7.) Simple characters that have no personality. It makes it easy to project my own interpretation onto any of them.
8.) Lots of sex and violence. Like, I don't care if half the characters don't even have cloths at all in the book.
9.) Lots of simple tropes that are easy to see coming. It feels good to call something out before it happens.
10.) Lots of romantic hook-ups. Like if a character is dating one person for a week, and then another person for a day, and then another person after that, -it keeps you guessing whom they're actually going to end up with at the end.
@5BBassist4Christ can't tell if your joking or not-
Okay, that satire comment was actually hard to write with how much I hate some of these things.
Something I actually enjoy in writing a fantasy world is trying to figure out what kind of language they would use. Like the story I'm writing is on a planet that has a moon which is tidally locked with the planet (so the same side of the planet and moon constantly face each other). This affects the language in many ways, -one of which being that "full moon" always means "midnight".
On the conflict thing, I do think there is a place for building conflict through lack of communication, but it has to be done right. In Church History, there is a pretty big split over two different churches (Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox) over a single word: "Christ is IN two natures" VS "Christ is OF two natures". These things do happen in real life, and are often when our pride, agenda, and insecurities get in the way of developing human connection. But shoehorning a miscommunication just to add drama is going to make a book feel juvenile. You have to make the reader relate to the character's flaw that's causing them to avoid this conversation. If (for example) a character is a mother of a young man who is romantically interested in somebody of another race, yet she was raised in a society that is strongly against inter-race relationships, make the audience feel sympathy for her desire to support her son while fearing the societal backlash she will receive if she expresses approval. And then show her regret that she didn't do the right thing when she's old and alone with her husband dead and her son wants nothing to do with her.
Last point on romantic plots. I really do actually enjoy a good romance in a story, but I am also extremely picky on them. I like relationships that take some time to develop, but also that forces the two to really rely on each other. The movie Stardust was a fitting romance for the characters, but developed too quickly for my liking, while ATLA really took their time with developing the character's relationship (which is itself controversial). Counter to my satirical post, I really hate quick date-around romances. Korah literally dated everybody in Team Avatar, and that drives me nuts. I also hate when they set a couple up at the end of one entry, then break them up immediately in the next entry (Korah again). In contrast, How To Train Your Dragon did it perfectly by showing Hiccup's and Astrid's relationship get stronger and stronger with each movie. I don't mind mundane relationships (like if two side characters have a mostly off-screen relationship that gets casually mentioned once or twice), as that will well reflect any person's friend-circle, but I don't like forced relationships that feel inorganic or just shoehorned to get that romance-sub-plot check. Lastly, I don't like a story ending with every single person finding somebody to hook-up with. Instead, most relationships should add something to the story, immerse the realism of the world, or feel like these two characters actually would be in love if they were real.
@5BBassist4Christ thanks for the clarification. Also, I'm trying to write a romance in my book, which is actually literally needed because if it didn't exist... Uhh, things wouldn't be so good... But I don't know how to make it slowly develop. Can you help me with that, or nah? Also, I know how they'd interact before the romance and while in the romance. Just don't know the in-between part.
“When it comes to sex, people generally don’t like it when they don’t want it” great life advice there tbh
😂
So true bro
lol And often can't get it when they do.
We all know that characters have sex. We all know that characters poo. We don't need to see/read either in the book.
We all know that characters have sex. We all know that characters poo. We don't need to see/read either in the book.
I can see Earth cultures in distance space saying, "Busy as a bee", even if they don't remember what it actually means.
We already have a lot of phrases in English that don't make sense if you think about them in modern terms.
We still roll down the windows in cars despite physical window handles haven't existed for decades.😂
Technically, it should be press down the windows.
That's what I thought too!
If the ancestors of the space habitat population have lived on Earth, they probably kept some of their old sayings.
@@Kaede-Sasaki like cameras still making the shutter noise even though they're mostly digital now.
Or "hang up the phone" even though phones haven't had to be *hung up* since like the 1930s or whatever. Before smart phones, it would've been more like "put down the phone", for instance (unless you mounted your corded phone to the wall, sure). And now it'd be more like "end the call".
@@daniellewis3330
We still had slim-line phones mounted on the wall up to the end of the land line era.
We still 'dial' phones, even though almost nobody even has push buttons now.
i think an important thing about the "undercutting an emotional moment with a joke" thing is that THE CHARACTERS CAN MAKE JOKES as long as its not supposed to be funny for the reader. it could be the characters' way if pushing through a dark time or something, and it can work really well as long as its clear that the joke is for the characters, not the audience
Oh my god, I agree so much. I love when character reacts at stress with jokes trying to bring down his emotional pressure a bit, and usually it does not affect the feeling of situation. Even increases it, because you know, character needs to lower the pressure he feels, and it makes situation more heavy for him
I get that, but if the goal to have an emotionally tense or tragic moment then why ruin it with a joke? That's part of the problem I with a number of Disney films for the MCU and Star Wars. They're clearly trying to have a serious moment, but it gets ruined because a joke was thrown in for no other reason that to "lighten the mood."
@@patricklee8088 i agree with that, what i mean is a joke that the audience isnt intended to find it funny. the characters themselves are trying to lighten the mood, or ignore what's going on, or be their normal selves, and the whole point of the joke narratively is that it doesn't work, theyre still in a horrible situation that they arent getting out of soon. or, if it does land for the characters, its like a moment of solidarity with one another and the joke brings them closer together (or theyre laughing because what else can they do?) its not meant to undercut the moment, its meant to enforce it
@@patricklee8088 It's not always to "lighten the mood". It might be a defining characteristic of a character to do that whenever they find themselves in a situation they don't know how to deal with. Sometimes it is meant to specifically annoy a character in particular that's overly serious to set up conflict. Sometimes it can show the different values of a certain culture towards something that we consider heavy but they don't. I could go on for hours about this. It is a tool with applicable uses.
@@VixYW Didn't say it didn't have uses. But when it is used in media it is often during a serious or dramatic moment. That happening once or twice is fine, but it is has almost become the norm to the point I doubt we can have serious moments anymore.
I always had a problem with gryffindor good, slytherin bad. If slytherin is always bad, then why are they allowed to exist, in school even.
Correlation is not equal to causation. When we first learn of the houses, Ron says "there's not a witch or wizard went bad that wasn't in slytherin."
Which means Slytherin didn't create the bad people, but rather highlighted the character traits that could cause wizards to go bad. Such as super high ambition or a thirst for glory.
Gryffindor, meanwhile, highlights bravery which also explains why the wizards in that house are more likely to be heroes. They don't bend to fear like Wormtail and would be brave enough to stand up for what's right, like Neville.
slytherins aren't bad. They are ambitious, and can be ruthless. Those are traits found in most successful people. Of course, they are also traits found in baddies. Slughorn was a slytherin, and he fought against voldemort.
@@AprilSunshine wh. wormtail was in Gryffindor what
@AprilSunshine villainy takes bravery too. Arguably more because you typically don't have as many allies. Also, don't forget harry was supposed to be slytherin Ron was a pussy and Hermione was obviously ravenclaw. Not one of the main characters belonged in griffindor
I thought shallow magic systems was an interesting point. I can see why some people wouldn’t be thrilled with it. But I also think the opposite can be true, where your magic system is so complicated that no one can follow it. The tricky part, then, is finding a good balance between the two extremes.
You have to balance complexity and power. If it is too powerful it is pointless not to use it, if it is too weak why does it exist in your story. If it is too complex people will be off put by it, if it is too simple it won't be interesting
That's something I really like about the magic system in the Death Gate Cycle by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. The detailed description of how it works is in an appendix, not in the actual story, so readers can choose the level of detail they can read into it.
The trick to that tricky part is to know how everything works as the author, but only show what is necessary for the reader to know and leave the rest in mystery. If you're lazy on that part, you'll risk running into a point where you get handwavy with your magic, and the reader will notice. So in the end, every magic system must be a hard magic system on the author side of things, but they can look like soft magic systems on the reader side, if the reader isn't given the mechanics of how they work. Which is ok, they just have to exist.
@@MatrixQ I am currently working on my magic system. I am going to figure out all the little intricacies of the system for that very reason.
Developing a framework is the key, you need a map where to begin and where to STOP. Readers have to understand the basic, but they also need to understand the limit.
Don't do the type moon meme and say "Rules are meant to be broken"
When it comes to soft magic systems, I much prefer it when the softness comes from a lack of understanding by the characters, rather than simply a system that can do anything. The depth should be implied, even if it isn’t well explored.
As characters interact with magic more often, and gain more control over it, I think that soft magic becomes less and less appealing, since you would expect more of its hidden workings to be revealed.
The whimsical magic of LOTR for example works because everything surrounding the magic is mysterious, including those who make it. The protagonists never really get a grasp of how the magic works, nor do they use it regularly, so it doesn’t feel underdeveloped.
Very good observation. Sometimes too, what appears to be magic may not be as a reader might be led to expect, so I think the method behind the intent of how the reader sees it might be something to consider too
Yeah, you just found that flaming sword, it sets baddies on fire. You don't know it's life history.
It's dangerous and unpredictable.
Sometimes it burns down buildings, you don't know why. You also know it's a very bad idea to insult it and that you should keep it sheathed outside battle around loved ones.
Was it witches, volcanoes, careful molecular inscribing of cursed words of power from the 18 gods? You have no idea and you don't really care.
Isn't this also a cop out? That's like saying if it's used sparingly and mysterious, it's okay that it wasn't fully in depth. Which sure, it's not the worst thing in fiction. But it's still an excuse to not develop it even if mysterious and used rarely.
When I first saw the LotR movie trilogy, I didn't understand what "spell" Gandalf used in movie 2 or 3 to repel the Nazgul. I jokingly called it a Patronus. But it would have helped if I understood what Gandalf did, cuz he used it only once and that made it feel like he should have used it against the Nazgul more often.
@l.n.3372
It was in the Return of the King, when he had returned as Gandalf the White. His power settings were basically all unlocked by Eru to finish what he was sent to do and he was also given a new staff by the elves that probably had a few upgrades.
Gandalf wears Narya, the ring of fire and most of his powers revolve around fire and light in a literal sense.
But it also enhances his primary purpose, which is to inspire people and ignite the fire in them against the forces of evil.
The Istari were explicitly not sent to force their will and win wars by flaunting their powers. They were sent to teach and inspire. To offset the evil brought into middle earth.
When Osgiliath fell and the fellbeasts chased the routing survivors, all of Minas Tirith was looking on in horror.
Hopelessness and despair sank in, on top of what was already done magically by blotting out the sun.
By scaring the nazgul away with a blast of light and allowing the soldier to return home, Gandalf showed the people of Gondor that the nazgul were not invincible and there was still light and hope in the world.
He doesn't use that particular form again, because he doesn't need to. Eventually the balance tips and they are inspired to fight at exactly the right time. Nudged slightly in the direction they were meant to.
The specific spell is irrelevant, it's not something any of us mere humans could grasp or wield.
@CitizenMio
A) none of this is obvious in the films
B) you're just making excuses about the spell being irrelevant cuz humans cannot comprehend it. Tolkien is a human author. What kind of BS excuse is THAT to claim it doesn't matter cuz people can't comprehend it??
Thank you for reiterating that all of these things - soft magic systems, slow pacing, flat-arc characters, graphic content, infodumps, familiar tropes and characters - can be done well by a sufficiently skilled writer. And most of the answers to the survey seem to acknowledge that too, specifying “I don’t like this when it’s done badly” rather than just “I don’t like this”. But I think it’s something everyone needs reminding of from time to time: just because you don’t like something or consider it overused doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad or that other people aren’t allowed to enjoy it.
THIS is what I came to say. None of these are bad in and of themselves. It's when they're done poorly that people don't like it.
Hear, hear! I found another list and the top peeves were dream sequences and italics. Like, what?
Okay if she has a dream I just don't include it, but then the reader will be seriously confused when something from that dream is brought up because it's actually relevant...
And italics, of all things. Emphasis and using it to indicate but not directly use foreign language in fantasy are very common. Another use is writing foreign things, and it even acts as an indicator that it's not English so you can skip over it and just think, "Ah, okay, they said something I didn't understand!" So it's like the reader is there, and they would not have understood it!
thank you for taking the words right out of my mouth. I hate it when people say they don't like slow pacing whereas it just makes a story more immersive if used wisely. If I read a book about a typical adventure party whose goal is to stop, idk, an evil lich, and at no point in time I read a chapter of them having a good time at camp, I'd hate it. And just as much as a similar story where at some point there's some unnecessary romance that's dragged in multiple chapters on end while stalling the main progression. There's always a needed balance, nothing is all black and white, and that's something way too many people tend to not understand
If you're writing according to what other people want you'll have a bad time. Much better to write what you yourself want to read. This advice is still nice to have because you can see if any of it resonates with you. Knowing what you want is not always easy after all.
"What a good advice, I will follow it from now on!"
*Proceeds to write fetish furry pornography with self insert MC*
I think this exact scenario happens way too frequently
I get that but writers also want to make money. Besides if you work as a carpenter and you ask the master how to do something and he says "just do want you feel like" that doesn't really help. Learning how to paint is not the same as painting what someone else tells you. Sure you can pick up a brush and start putting random color on the canvas but that's not how you paint realistic, good looking pictures. I've noticed that quite a lot with writing that when you ask for advice as a beginner, or like in my case someone who hasn't even started yet because he's still in school, and then people tell you "just do what you feel like". Im probably not even talking about you but it's something I've noticed in general. Almost like helping someone is reducing their passion or limiting their freedom
@@revengance4149 I see where you're coming from, but on the other hand, I believe that you're never going to write a great novel if you're writing what you believe other people want to read. A good novel, maybe, but if you're not invested in the plotline and only writing this plotline or trope because it's popular, you're going to struggle to write it and it will show. Personally, I live by "write what you want to read" because if I'm struggling to read back what I've already written, someone reading it for the first time has already put down the book before the end of the chapter. If you're invested in the plot, your reader will also be invested in the plot. In this case, if your reader is putting down the book before it's finished, chances are they would have put it down much more quickly with a reader-catered plot, because there is something else that is turning them off of your story. They stayed because your plot is original and passionate instead of another generic novel they've read a hundred times before.
@@revengance4149 I find this issue constantly with art too. People go out seeking specific art advice, and the people giving it are criticized because "art is subjective, there no such thing as 'fixing' art, changing anything at all is ruining the intention of the original artist" completely ignoring that it's the original artists seeking out advice in the first place.
Not everything is a "stylistic choice" sometimes people need help expressing the things they want to in the ways they want to, and they need structural instructions to form a basis to work from.
One of the problems here is that a lot of people want to write but don't actually have a story they want to tell. So they take a bunch of tropes and story elements and try to mix them together but what comes out is a disjointed mess.
They don't understand what they did wrong, because they threw in a bunch of things they liked in other stories. But that's like just grabbing a bunch of ingredients and throwing them in a pot, then not understanding why it doesn't taste good, even though they've never cooked before, and have no idea how to follow a recipe, just eaten other people's food and enjoyed the taste.
They've never analyzed the dishes to figure out what they liked in it, why they liked it, or how to replicate it themselves at home. Now they've grabbed a bunch of ingredients from different dishes they liked and have no idea how to use them by themselves, much less how to blend them together harmoniously.
Just because you know how to eat, doesn't mean you know how to cook. And just because you like to read doesn't mean you know how to write. It's and art, **and** a skill that can be developed through hard work and practice, regardless of one's natural talent or creativity.
You can make a career writing the same things over and over again, so long as you do it well. No one complains that a pizza place doesn't sell burgers, they just want each pizza to be good. So long as the dough is goid, the ingredients are fresh, and the pizza is cooked properly, everyone leaves happy. You can mix and match different ingredients or even let people choose new ingredients, and so long as your base is solid, people are satisfied.
Those are your tropes. People are fine with tropes. They expect to be able to get a pepperoni pizza when they go out. They expect marinara. It's part of the process. If they wanna try something a little different, like a garlic sauce or pesto instead, they still expect a decent crust, meat and cheese. If you serve apple slices and hotdogs on a soggy flatbread with plum sauce, you're gonna get complaints. Idk if this analogy is getting out of control but y'know what I mean?
People expect pizza at a pizza place, and burgers at a burger place, and if they serve other foods they don't expect them to be as good as the main food. They expect variety in types, but only within a certain range.
Similarly, people have expectations of different fictional genres that make them into the genres they are. Within those genres, a variety of different tropes are expected and even desired, but they are expected to be fresh and well executed every time or they will be distasteful. They expect a bit of variety around how much or how little there is, how it's scattered throughout or whether it's all in one spot, and what other tropes/ingredients they're mixed with, or they get bored or alternatively, overwhelmed.
Like, and I know this is way past the point, but one of my best friends loves meat. Ask him what he wants in his pizza, it's just meat. Ask him what he wants on his burger, it's more meat. If you put tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, ketchup and mustar, he'll eat it and enjoy it, but he'll never ask for it. One time he ordered a double quarter pounder then ordered extra meat patties on it. He was so excited to eat it. Until he took a bite. Multiple layers of dry, unseasoned meat patty, no ketchup or anything between. He nearly choked trying to swallow it. It was disgusting. He ended up taking the extra meat out and dipping it in ketchup to eat by itself because the burger was inedible as is. He had to learn his lesson; balance is key.
I have a different take on modern language in fantasy stories. Certainly, descriptions and inner thoughts should be consistent with the world. For example, I once read a medieval fantasy where the character observed the "trees were as tall as skyscrapers". Not cool.
But things like "okay" "what's up" and things like that I'm kinda fine with. To illustrate...
In college, I was watching a movie set hundreds of years ago and one of the characters used a contraction. And I commented, "I don't think they used contractions back then." And my friend replied, "Yeah, but they didn't speak English, either."
The point was that what we're watching or viewing is a bit of a translation for the viewer. The language would have been "modern" to them and if the author makes it sound "historical", it doesn't come across as contemporary for the characters.
This is a solid point and it comes into play with LotR's premise that Bilbo's Book translated through the generations is what we're "actually" reading
That's a good point. But if what we're reading or hearing is a translation, it should still have the same level of formality or informality as what the characters would have been saying in their own language.
@@Steve_StowersWell, that's what I'm saying. If it was informal to them, it shouldn't sound formal to us.
I agree. You want stories to be readable by a modern audience, so scrubbing out all the worlds invented in the last 200 years(which is how old "okay" is), makes no sense. Of course you wouldn't expect words like 'yolo' to appear, but something like "The knight saw a woman laying on a street, so he stopped to check if she was okay." makes perfect sense. We don't need people being obtuse and making things incomprehensible, by writing a fantasy story in old English.
I've been catching myself in the medieval fantasy book I'm currently writing. Ctrl+F "okay" is a lifesaver.
"Bruh, for real, no cap on a stack," said the ancient warlock atop his dragon.
"Swag," he said as he entered the cave filled with shimmering treasure. "Finna use it to rizz up my drip."
"Bet you're going to fumble so hard,l you'll lose your aura over it" he replied as they took as much as they could from the treasure
I know y’all tryna make a point and I hear you but that dialogue got me weak it would be hilarious.
"Bro that's straight fax no printer" said the subject to his king during a throne room petition.
"Don't go in there!" shouted the guard, wielding his polearm. "I'm being deadass, on god"
I'm wondering, would "Not ruining a serious moment with comedy" be shown how in Puss in Boots 2 The Last Wish, they had practically all of the comedy with the villains Jack Horner and the anti-heroes the Three Bears Crime family, but that practically all of the scenes with Death were VERY serious, with the only comedic moment being after the final fight, where Death shouts angrily in Spanish "Why did I have to play with my food?" after Puss reforms, thus making it no longer necessary to kill him, which also helps further the plot, as it quite shows, along with the rest of the scene, that he was only after Puss because of his arrogance and disregard for his own lives, not because he likes to go around and kill people before their time.
I think that, while comedy STRENGHTENED Jack Horner and his villainy, as he could be villainous and comedic at the same time (i.e. his literally using his minions to walk across showed how callous he was toward the lives of others.) Death, on the other hand, didn't NEED any comedy, and, in fact, having a lot would have WEAKENED him as a villain/antagonist.
Puss2 would definitely be a good example for wisely using comedy.
I truly believe that Puss'n Boots 2 is one of the best movies of the past 10 years
And the scene where Puss has a panic attack after running from Death and the - up to this point- comic side character was completely serious in his role as a therapy dog. Like damn, what a scene.
Definitely one of the best animations in the last few years.
Death has comedy in almost all of his scenes.
In the bar, he's making jokes throughout the entire interaction. They only stop really sounding like jokes when Puss starts getting more disturbed to the point of fear. At near the climax of their storyline, in the cave, he's making jokes while the other lives react.
Comedy isn't a thing that's opposed to seriousness. It's a tool, and the movie uses it cleverly to endear you to characters or show them as callous. It uses comedy with Death to teach Puss a lesson about how he toys with fate. He's mocking Puss with comedy, which is great because that is the origin of comedy as an art. It's used to mock the powerful or relieve tension, and it's used in both ways not only in the film, but with Death as a character.
There should be a clear distinction between "comedy" and "bathos", especially with these examples - comedy is a crucial tool for storytelling and characterization, while bathos has kinda been overused (see: every recent Marvel production)
As an author this is my pet peeve - “Forcing a character to do something for plot reasons, when that character would never psychologically choose that option if left to their own devices.”
It encapsulates the ‘romance with no chemistry’ issue and several others.
That is why I hated it when the raptor trainer and the CEO woman who owned the park in Jurassic World fell in love. Why would they? The CEO only viewed the dinos as tools. Expendable, Toys to play with. The trainer had a connection with the raptors he was training. Why would he fall in love with a slimebag as her?
Oh god I get that but it's also fairly easy to fall into that first one. I am still just on the fanfic and one shot short stories level of writing. It's a hobby. But I enjoy it a lot, but I definitely catch myself sometimes messing up a maincharacter of a story, because the mc where I got it with is the entire opposite of myself. And I don't entirely understand that way of thinking or being.
I often gotta talk about it to some other people. So I don't mess it up. I want my character to feel the way I imagined it. Not accidentally add my own thing and then ruin the timeline and having to start over at seventy pages of text. Still haven't entirely figured out the trick there. It's my first time writing a character that's so unlike myself.
Like DEANERYS STORMBORN TARGARYAN
Tropes are like chords in music. You use chords to write a song, you use tropes to write a story. I like jazz because a lot of jazz use similar chord progressions, likewise, I like fantasy because of fantasy stories have similar tropes.
exactly
excellent point. Tropes aren't inherently bad, it's how you use them.
Best analogy so far
Yes. I love it when there is a classic trope, seasoned with a good twist or an extra conflict. If you overdo it, it becomes frustrating. If you to it right, it's satisfying and still exciting.
"The obstinate reiteration of the cycle" said my music prof. 😅
100% agree with miscommunications. Drives me nuts. I’m like listen, let him finish his sentence instead of storming off and everything will be fine.
I mean that's poor miscommunication. I think the best kinda miscommunication I read was a short story about a human loving an elf. And the long lived elf told the human when they where a teenager that they needed to take a short trip to home. If they really want to date they need permission from the elders.
The elf didn't realize that time flows differently for humans and his short trip took ten years to return from. He was happy and excited to see his girlfriend. She in the meantime had been married to someone else with two kids already and a third on the way. Upset and heartbroken over him abandoning her.
They fought at their first reunion. But eventually they talked it out. The elf instead of marrying a human became more of a family friend even though the elf felt stupid and heartbroken over his lack of consideration. He wanted to have at least some time with his short lived friend in the end. It was pretty the miscommunication was natural. It has a reason for happening.
An elf can live for centuries a human barely makes it to a century. And they didn't consider it because they moved to a human town way later and weren't used to how time flows differently for humans. It was great. The miscommunication broke up a romance, there where consequences but they still made up thanks to communication and the elf repaid the human for his mistake for the rest of their life.
The Marvel thing got me, my biggest Marvel beef (which actually caused me to stop watching the rest of the movies) was in Thor: Ragnarok, right at the end. It's the scene where Bruce Banner is talking about if he turns into the hulk then he may never turn back into Bruce and the air was tense and heavy and so meaningful, then he jumps out and you knew his decision was made. But then he smacks into the bridge and skids and it all turns into a joke!!!! I was so pissed! I wanted the weight of him accepting that fact and still doing it for his friends, I didn't want comedy, there was plenty of that already!
Marvel is notoriously bad for this, to the point when a cool moment is allowed to happen it feels out of place.
@@vileluca What sucks is that movie was so good outside of that, one of the best ones for sure.
I've hated marvel movies as soon as they injected GoTG humor into everything.
This. I remember that scene, and I had the exact same reaction. We could finally have a real cool moment that deals with a problem Hulk was struggling with throughout the whole movie, and instead, it becomes a gag. Sadly, Marvel has become notorious for this trying to make everything a guardians level comedy movie everytime.
I was pissed when Bruce Banner struggles for years with hulk and his cousin had nearly zero growing arc.
As someone who reads a lot of Korean and Chinese fantasy manhwas/manhuas, you can see the difference between the different webtoons too. It's also interesting seeing some succeed in some parts and fail at other parts. Like there could be a great magic system and setting, but the plot keeps changing and it leaves the reader confused.
My biggest thing is plot and pacing. You can have side goals but seeing the main character triumph their goal in a fantasy book is what I enjoy. Also if the pacing is too fast it leaves the journey unsatisfied for the reader.
I don't know if this is really common, but one thing that I hate in stories is no epilogue. I'm not talking about cliffhangers. I'm thinking of stories where it just ends. I want to see if the hero's life starts to return to normal. I want to know what the aftermath looks like. Terry Brooks' Shannara books made me a little anxious because I would notice that there was only about 10 pages left of the book and they were still in the climactic battle.
rushed endings are definitely sort of annoying, after so much pain an epilogue can feel super rewarding
I like the idea of somebody else reading the novel as historical fiction and epilogue is authors note that goes into what happened to characters in history afterwards.
"Before researching this I actually didn't know so much about Syrah Soso but was thrilled to learn..... "
Nancy Moser writes historical fiction and her epilogues are awesome about this
It definitely feels weird to get to know a story, get intimate with it, commit yourself to finishing it, and then not get a honeymoon. I crave me a good denouement.
There's a romance anime that I really like, where I think that the epilogue is satisfying enough in comparison to other stories in the medium, but not as satisfying as it could or should be in comparison to just how dramatic the climax is. The two main characters spend a long time building up this slow-burn friendship until things quickly snowball towards the end where they're both not only admitting their feelings, but running off to elope.
Then comes the massive gut-punch where the girl just ups and runs off because she realizes what they're doing is stupid, immature, and unsustainable, and that she needs to work on her own self-reliance and familial issues. After the credits stop rolling, it's shown that she returns during the beginning of her boyfriend's last year in high-school and tries to surprise him by hiding in a locker. I was happy that there was at least a conclusion, but I wanted a little more than that for the emotional washing machine that the show just put me through.
@@lukeferguson3405 toradora?
One tip about world building and info dumping that really helped me gain a different perspective was: Remember that your characters won't know everything about their world in detail either. Just think about yourself. Could you from the top of your head name every single country on earth including their capitals and political systems? Could you in detail explain how a rocket is launched into space? What exact materials are needed, how much force, how long does it take to prepare, what exact forces are at play?
Usually you and your character will mostly only have a surface knowledge of the world and only a few specific areas where you're more knowledgeable in.
Great comment. Song, Rocket Man, "All the science I don't understand, it's just my job five days a week," so poignant.
This is true but also imposes an immediate problem. If this knowledge is scarce then how is the writer going to do the exposition to his characters in a lore friendly way? They'd have to go to a geography and history scholar to be properly informed.
@@reilysmith5187 you can have your characters happen upon it, a book, an artifact, an entity, a scholar or a mystic. Theres number of ways depending on what your story is about. In mine, the main party is led to a mage who is studying something theyre interested in. Then theyre informed about ruins that may also contain information they seek.
@reilysmith5187 that's my favorite part of storytelling, is seeing how authors solve problems like this. Creative solutions are the hardest to find but the most valuable
@@reilysmith5187 Characters can meet OTHER characters that are experts in their field. They might need to remind the protagonist of something, or educate them in an organic way that will simultaneously educate the reader about the world. Like how Brann Stark was learning the house mottos of all the Westerosi major houses at the start of the story. The scene was clearly made for the audience's sake, but it works because Brann is 8 and a lord in training.
Obviously, as has been stated, characters can also just learn information on their own through research and exploration. Be creative with it.
For me, especially with modern stories, it's "Suddenly Sympathetic Villain" where we have the villain doing all these awful, destructive things, but then suddenly the author pivots and makes them sympathetic and relatable OR glosses over their crimes and sins. It's just insulting whenever it comes up.
ie: "You killed my parents, harassed and antagonized us at every turn and now you're trying to destroy the entire universe!"
"Yeah, but I'll have you know that I've had an awful life and sometimes I feel really, really sad. --Look at me pathetically crying right now! Why, I bet if you look at it from another point of view, _I'M_ the victim here, fighting for a just cause and you are the aggressor! Pretty weird when you look at it like that, isn't it?"
"No."
I agree wholeheartedly. Seriously, there is _nothing wrong with an unsympathetic, purely evil villain._ Why do _so_ many authors nowadays think that there is?! It annoys me to _no_ end, I swear to Christ.
It's one thing for the villains to feel like that about themselves. We've all met people in real life who are objectively terrible, but they see themselves as victims. It's insulting when the bbeg suddenly is just misunderstood. Listen, if I harass and kill someone, my childhood has nothing to do with it by the time I'm an adult. I'm choosing to be evil, even if I think it's justified.
Ah, the Disney Corollary
Like when there are genocidal rulers that slaughter millions of people, then two minutes later they are right in with the main characters!
Steven Universe cough cough
@@Synthesyn342That's not a good example of a suddenly sympathetic villain at all. Literally, from beginning to end, the story was about how people are complicated and multifaceted people and how to navigate relationships as a central theme. Literally no villain was ever really without sympathy. From beginning to end it was about struggling to handle things in an ultimately positive way and seeking a restorative rather than punishment-based justice. The sympathetic position of the diamonds was built up over a lot of episodes. I think if you saw the story as them getting away with everything and not that they're going to work on fixing the damage they've done, you missed the point of everything.
Im a sucker for medieval european inspired settings. Antiquity too. Doesnt mean it has to be the exact system, designs and lifestyle.
I think in a way, one's own knowledge influences what feels like slight inaccuracy and what murders your willing suspension of disbelief: the more you know, the more blatant anachronisms are.
Corsets in medieval settings are one (of many) berserk buttons for me, doubly so if visibly worn as outer clothing (though that would be just as bad in a victorian setting). It's just painfully lazy; there were such fascinating, weird, strange fashions around ( 'Hell's Windows' , anyone?) that simply going historical = corset is a waste of opportunity.
Of course, I don't have a clue about sailing, so some ship doing something that'd turn it into soggy match sticks within minutes would probably look fine to me.
One of my berserk buttons would be High heels in plate armor.
Using 19th century outfits in a what looks like a 10th century medieval europe inspired setting, kind of looks off too.
One has to be REALLY careful when people complain about medieval European settings. It's a popular thing to say now...but a lot of people don't read the stories that are not in that setting.
I think there are a lot of people who still love these settings.
@@l.jagilamplighterwright9211 Agreed. That setting is my happy place as a reader. Always has been.
Word. I think alot of fantasy writers unintentionally confuse fantasy and European as synonyms when most world cultures have had fantastical stories passed down for centuries
I feel like hard magic systems take magic-something that is mysterious and transcendent-and reduces it to an equation, or something that is almost bureaucratic. Of course, if magic is just another part of the world you’re building and is meant to be mundane, like in Harry Potter , that’s fine. But I love it when magic represents more than power.
Some people just want everything explained. It can be quite annoying. It is magic, ffs.
Did you say that magic in Harry Potter is supposed to be mundane? Because I think that is entirely incorrect.
@@savageraccoon787In HP it was used for mundane things, I think is what he was trying to say.
It’s a matter of perspective. It’s magical to Harry because he comes from outside the magical world, as does the reader. We share in his wonder. But to other wizards it’s just part of the fabric of their everyday existence. And it doesn’t point to anything more significant . It has no real purpose other than to act as an alternative to our science and technology. I love-love!- Harry Potter, but the magic is pretty shallow. And that’s okay.
I have the opposite perspective -- I love when magic is quantifiable. It's fine if not everything is explained to us, the readers/players/viewers/whatever, and we are left to figure parts of it out for ourselves, but I don't want a system of metaphysics that is fundamentally unknowable and unexplainable. I want to be able to figure out how the thing works. The power of a mystery is that it can be solved.
the final one I can add to. A common thing I've had writer friends tell me is that they wish authors would play the trope of two characters just having a great *friendly* relationship. That can also be played really well if done right. From what I've noticed, readers just really like progression. This isn't saying that we should just give up on the romance trope, but I'm saying that there are so many different ideas that can be played with.
A good example is Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper from the Sharpe book series and the tv show inspired by it.
The two go from an Irish and an English trying to kill each other to becoming close friends despite being a sergeant and an officer
I want to add to this: great friendships between mixed genders too. A male and female character need not become a romance just cuz best friends. They don't need to fall in love. A great friendship can be better than a romance.
Harry/Hermione in HP is often listed by supporters as an example of a platonic friendship that worked. Yet the shippers who wanted it lament that it should have been romance instead. But why? They never show any romantic interest to each other. They stand by each other as great loyal friends. What's wrong with a great platonic friendship? I feel like Harry/Hermione shippers just don't like Ron or Ginny, thus they ship Harry with Hermione instead.
I don't know if you've done a video about this, I'd like to see someone discuss it, but a trend I've noticed with books nowadays is both writing and marketing them around specific tropes.
For example, it used to be you'd read a romance and as you're reading it you realize it's an enemy-to-lovers story. Nowadays, a lot of books will outright tell you (often through avenues like TikTok) that it's an enemy-to-lovers story, it will tell you all the tropes it has and all the ones it doesn't as a tool to attract people who like those things and signal those who don't like those tropes to avoid the book, so there's not much in the way of surprises because you know exactly the story you're getting before you read it.
Sounds like what's happened to american news. Everybody knows fox attracts conservatives and NBC progressives.
Everything these days has to appease an algorithm on whatever site the boo/story is posted to. Many use mete-tags so that they can be searchable, maximize that SEO. Plus you there are a tone of readers who now have absolutely rigged "No's" for books and will leave bad reviews because there "weren't warned" of some minor bit of content.
@@loupnuit1 Gosh that all sucks. Thank you so much for telling me about all this.
My books will probably be too complicated to 'trope down' though lol. :p except maybe as 'Tolkien 2.0'
*I hope
Why am I getting replies to a comment I don't have here?
About "protagonist... not offering a valid reasoning for NOT killing an antagonist." I want to read a story from a henchman's perspective taking place sort of during the end of to after the hero's journey. Hero stormed in killed a buncha guys some of whom may have been friends of this protagonist but then when he got to the big boss he lets him go for self righteous reasons. This rather upsets the protag. Bad enough the hero kills his friends, but then he lets his actual target go? For no real reason? Thus begins a revenge story. Edit. Protag could go all john wick on the hero, or he could fail since obviously the hero is strong and heros always win. Or he could figure out the heros self righteous reasoning and find it makes some kind of sense. So many ways it could go.
This is why that one star wars movie where the soldier (stormtrooper) was upset his friend was killed, decides to hijack a tie fighter and kill more of his colleagues. And somehow he's the hero? Nevermind he just pulled a major Hasan fort hood style massacre and essentially joined the terrorists/rebels.
Times have changed, we've been fed the Batman won't kill the Joker because "If you murder a murderer the number of murderers stay the same" bs for decades and it would only have held up if the villain/antagonist wasn't a genocidal mass murderer. People have realized the "If you kill him you're no better than him" as a lazy excuse when the hero would have been killing one person who has committed enough crimes that they were practically going alphabetically through the criminal code just to make sure they hit every single one.
There's a difference between the hero choosing not to kill because it's their choice and the hero trying to scapegoat with a "If I kill him, I won't be able to stop" when they've never killed before and they've had total control over themselves thus far so there is no reason to believe they would have an issue with just killing this one person.
@@StevenTLawson That's a completely different issue. Batman doesn't fit here since his "don't kill" applies to the henchmen just as much as the bosses.
@@Llortnerof True, but it gets exhausting when that rule is used to allow Joker to live after he blows up a five different hospitals in a week. Batman not killing common criminals because he knows most of them are desperate people doing crime to pay the bills.
Lol I kind of fixed this problem in my stories without knowing it was a problem. The main antagonist in my series can't be killed, only locked away, and that's known from the start. And there's a sub plot where the antagonist isn't killed, but his fate is FAR worse than death. Basically locked in his own mind with his own nightmares and the nightmares of his victim, the nightmares he did to her that he is now afraid of as well. Forever. Not allowed to die. Yeah, I went a little dark, but I don't care lol.
The way to make "miscommunication as conflict" good is to give good underlying reasons for why miscommunication is happening. Characters may have incompatible value systems, ways of thinking, they have preconceived notions and traumas that prevent them from understanding each other. The characters may indee talk to each other, but they would still be miscommunicating.
Yes!! I was surprised when it came up because I LOVE it when it is done well!
Thank you for saying this, I was feeling a bit unsure because the plot isn't really stopped by miscommunication in my novel, but it does cause complications. One person is keeping secrets for reasons. Sure he could reveal them, but first he has to learn that he can trust other people
thank you for this. I should've read further before posting my question on why miscommunication causing conflict is a problem for people.
This is why I'm on board with the miscommunication at the end of Shrek, even though the set up feels heavy handed, it hinged on Shrek expecting people to let him down and Fiona's still being half sure if she follows the script she'll find happiness. So I don't really care it's predictable, cause I believe they'd do that - in a worse movie, that same scene is irritating as hell.
Yeah came here to say this. Also, looking at the conflicts happening IRL, I think 99% of them could be solved if the basic premise is that people would just talk it out. It's about the reasons why they decide not to talk even when talking could be beneficial. I would even argue that this is the foundation for the concept of negotiations.
The miscommunication thing is also a HUGE pet peeve in romance. Just, like, TALK to each other 🙄
It also hits another chord with romance because if you can't even communicate on the most basic level, how in the 7 pits of hell are you supposed to be in a relationship with each other?!
@@ieatredbears5163yes, are we to believe that there is a happy ending when a couple get agitated when they see the other talking to the opposite gender and immediately draw conclusions about infidelity?
It's very rare to see a couple in a romance who actually make sense as a couple.
Usually because the man is both the peak of masculinity and an absolute simp, and the woman is a piece of wood with a face drawn in it
It's an overused trope. Misunderstandings that lead to miscommunications, lack of connection and even straight up conflicts. Really overused ngl. And the authors strongly justify such chaotic canon pairings by the heaven defying automatic chemistry and love at first sight, despite all the misunderstandings that occur between the characters. All it takes are one look, one touch, one smell after all that dog blood conflicts and separations over the lack of real talks 😂
It is my pet peeve in reality. Like how often do we really need to hit this exact trope in our own lives?
Am I the only one that actually _really_ likes, and even sometimes _prefers,_ soft magic systems to hard magic systems?
Yes
No, another youtuber; the magic engineer, talks a lot about this, his take on Sandersons first law is that it is more an issue of foreshadowing, regardless if if your magic is hard or soft you have to tell me the hero can do x before they save the day with x.
I liked the Malazan approach myself. I dont know if the Wheel of Times one was hard or soft really, but that strikes me as the kind i would prefer too.
@@TheMichaellathrop Thanks for that reassurance. I might have to check this RUclipsr you mentioned out. 😁.
@@mEmory______ I'm very much the same. Whilst I'm only on book 4 of Malazan, I love how the magic is done, and the foreshadowing.
What I hate is when you have sequential stories where the character makes progress in each story, but in the next story they are back to square one. over and over. Like the Flynx books.
Ace Attorney and its dumb no spoilers rule for each new game 😭😭
My hot take about magic systems is that I feel that a lot of modern fantasy has a problem of overexplaining how their magic works. Sure, I definitely agree that it shouldn't be used as an easy way to instantly get characters out of difficult situations by giving them unlimited power, but at the same time a lot of writers (*ahem*Brandon Sanderson*ahem*) make magic seem more like superpowers than an actual mystic force beyond the realm of mortal understanding.
Well... That's kind of the intention? At least with Brandon Sanderson's works. In the cosmere, it's intentionally designed so that, to the people of the world, it doesn't really feel like magic, because generally, it is not magic to the people of the world who we see the world from the perspective of. Rather, the invested arts are generally treated more as a science, which is how the people in the world see them, depending on the time period at least.
Hard vs soft magic. Brandon Sanderson likes hard magic system, Harry Potter on the other hand is soft (it has both but I would say it's soft)
I agree with you. There seems to be a very strong sway to write hard magic systems nowadays, with set rules and limitations, etc. I love the idea of magic being a newly discovered force, perhaps already inherent in the world, and the characters have no idea how to use it, what it can do, and they have to progress with caution. I want my own magic systems to strike awe and wonder in the reader. We’re writing fantasy here! Let’s write fantasy then.
I personally like soft magic systems. It's not very interesting if you only use it to get your characters out of bad situations, but what if the magic just doesn't work some times. Maybe the character gets magic from a fickle deity. I've also thought about the negative effects of magic. What if your character figured out how to make gold from thin air and decides to be very generous? He could ruin a kingdom's economy.
@@Lark88 Fun fact! This type of economic issue doesn't even require magic. Mansa Musa did that with his wealth in real life.
I think the "flat character" means boring character. A passive, inactive character who never changes, things just happen to him, reacts the same for everything. A passive protagonists is one of the main reason I put down a book.
I think so too. I understand a "flat character" as a boring, two-dimensionals, bland character. Whereas a character with a flat arc can be iconic, like Indiana Jones, for example. He didn't need an arc because his adventures were exciting and he was inspiring as he was.
I think flat means 2d, ones who have nothing more than you can see in instant
I like Ioh Asakura precisely for that: being a flat character. My peeve is protagonists, since I detest them with a passion and pray for their demise. Shaman King got me interested because Ioh, as opposed to, say, Shinji Ikari, has a pretty passive way to engage others, which actually moves the plot forward.
Not all flat characters are made equal.
The anime, One Punch Man pretty much writes the "flat character" well. Protagonist is just super OP, but the plot revolves more around how he helps others when they're in a pinch and the camaraderie or motivations of the villains around him. As it had been said time and again, it all depends on the writer.
I was always a very creative guy ever since I was little, constantly imagining stories on my head but I never actually made anything out of them... However I came across your channel some time ago and it has motivated me to start working on my little fantasy project, and I'm having so much fun doing it. Thanks man!
That's awesome!
If you look at slow scenes that are done well, they're not about gathering nuts, or how to set up camp. It's about the character interactions at that moment. I'm reminded of David Edding's Belgariath series where all the way in the last book the 'hero party' is traveling to the final fated encounter and they have been foretold 'one of your group won't return with you'. Just sailing things. All the characters come to the MC one by one to reminisce and say goodbye.
So the fighter doing maintenance on his armor may talk about how doing this saved his life more than once, how a well maintained sword will serve you truly. Someone can draw a comparison to maintaining relationships, and now you have a set-up to deepen the characters.
For me, the issue with sex and violence is that it is often extraneous to the story. If every scene needs to progress the story, than sex and violence can't be the exception. I was a book review for decades and there were a few books that were really sex scenes interrupted by bits of plot.
The notion that sex scenes and violence need to move the book forward also suggests that they themselves need to be plotted out. It can't be endless variation of tab a in slot b. If too much sex is bad, too much boring sex is worse. Same with fights. I plot out each fight/battle with the idea of a mini story structure so it creates tension the way I need it to. Which is why you need heroes who get beat up at least once and guys (or gals) who get turned down by their 'love' interest.
I personally find the idea of “every scene moving the plot forward” a bit limiting in a way. Most people’s definition of that is huge impact scenarios. Every scene should contribute to a degree, but that tends to make everyone afraid to have a moment where the characters just take a breath for a moment doing something else not focused on thw overall main plot. Don’t go SAO’a fishing arc or anything, but give them a chance to interact outside of action or solving problems scenes. Down time scenes can push it forward even by an inch.
@@KW-de9sc maybe it would better to say every scene needs a purpose. As you say it doesn’t need to be high action. Reflection and getting to know the characters moves the story. My problem is with scenes that hit pause on everything while characters do the spicy stuff. I think we’re on the same page
We all know that characters have sex. We all know that characters poo. We don't need to see/read either in the book.
We all know that characters have sex. We all know that characters poo. We don't need to see/read either in the book.
I guess, sex scenes with bits of plot can be a thing too... In their own genre. Which is p*rn. 😂
Good and informative video, Jed. I prefer when the author goes easy on intimacy and when he/she allows the reader to conclude what is going on behind doors.
No matter how much I’ve read it, I’m still a sucker for a good chosen one story.
Can’t wait for next week to see what people said!
I dont understand not liking a medieval Europe setting. The genre is based on medieval European history and mythology.
Yeah I'm sick of hearing that, idk why it's trending. As an asian person, I'm also done with people constantly saying they want more "asian inspired" fantasy. It kinda feels like lowkey orientalism lol but it won't stop me from preferring knights and castles and such.
@@jjhh320Yeah, There is nothing wrong with non European settings but something about the insistence on it reads as an exotification of other cultures to me. I guess there is some thing shallow and perhaps ignorant in that people assume that the stereotypical England/France medieval setting or a dndish setting is all that could be done with the medieval period (which was a pretty long time and over varied countries) doesn't give me hope that Asian settings would be treated any better.
Same, a good Medieval European fantasy is simply satisfying, but what I am tired of is Medieval European fantasy where the author has done little research on what makes that period medieval at all, where most of the author’s knowledge comes from video games and webcomic, thus making the world feel filtered.
Because of that, I think it's overdone. At least in my perspective, regardless of the genres cultural origins a story need not be rooted in it. I assume that's the case with others, but then preference just is what it is.
You can always abuse the fantastical elements of your worldbuilding to push the setting firmly out of the medieval period. Dragon-mounted battlemages hurling meteors at armies of crossbowmen, riding armored clockwork chariots from trench to trench, donning plague masks to ward off poisoned clouds. Rival emperors commanding reserves of primordial fire stolen from the gods, with the power to obliterate the world several times over should they ever use it in anger. A thieves' guild sending out cursed letters en masse to hold people's memories for ransom.
Regarding hard magic systems not being mysterious….Im learning about space time, black holes, some equations, and these things are infinitely mysterious to me. I guess it’s the difference between knowing how something works a little and what something is. For me, one can keep what magical things are and where they come from nebulous but simply have a mechanistic way in which they can be used, that’s mysterious
“I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” ― Richard P. Feynman, American Physicist
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” ― Albert Einstein
“Money may be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is yours forever.” Louis L’Amour, Author
Tolkien was a master. It wasn't Info- dumping. It was world building.
The true master of this was Mervyn Peake. The Gormenghast trilogy was a masterpiece of world building.
@@StoicTheGeek I never heard of it.
Matter of taste ... I think even with world-building you can have to much of it; I'm thinking of several pages about hobbit history and different kinds of hobbits.
Amusingly enough, that's the sort of a thing any 'expert' on writing would black-list, but a really, really good writer can get away with it.
Douglas Adams for example would forever interrupt the flow of his story with some anecdote about the only species on the universe that invented deodorant before the wheel, and I love him deeply, madly, truely.
The thing about Tolkien is he invented the whole genre of serious fantasy novels meant to be read by adults (vs children's stories). Anyone who read his work later than like the 1970s was exposed to all the elements in movies, other books, etc and doesn't realize how much work it took to get people to suspend disbelief and read a novel with dragons or dwarves in it and yet be obviously serious minded and deep.
@@dangerbook4807 The thing about Tolkien is that he was a huge literature and language nerd whose style and content was driven largely by his own amusement rather than the needs of others. (His big problem with LotR is that it was too short). Remember it wasn’t all that popular when it was first released.
I don't really agree with the magic systems, I personally love to write and read about at least one character who is highly powerful, and I also hate when people turn magic into a science, I want the magic to feel... magical. I do agree with the poor character development as that is something I personally like to focus on 🤔
Being highly powerful makes the highly powerful character a deux ex machina though. Antagonists can get away with it but the story loses much of its tension when Bob can just solve every problem with a snap.
Sure, I can see the desire to keep magic mysterious, rather than explaining how it works but it should be consistent with at least one or two established rules.
Couldn't agree about the magic feeling magical thing.
Big part of what makes a lot of anime boring.
@@xxlCortez My problem with this is that it's dependent on all problems being external threats and not about the characters as people. Like people always complain about Superman being too powerful but some of the very best comics are about him dealing with loss of his family, growing up feeling different as an Alien, falling in love, facing death of loved ones etc. because the powers he has can't solve interpersonal struggles and often complicated them. The character as a person should always be more important than their magic powers
Miscommunication is too often a trick in movies to cut off talking, preventing thinking things through and then raising the tension, because of what wasn't said. Too often I'm thinking so often, "yeez, just adding a few sentences, like any normal human being, would have solved this. I'm tricked!"
The example of a “bad magic system” needing more “facts” is a rabbit hole that will never satisfy all readers. “Were the witches pyromancers or eat something?” Say yes. Then someone says “well how does the magic beet/root have magic?” Etc etc.
Sure, take a look at some depth but this is a fix that, well, can’t ever be fixed. It’s magic.
I think of Lord of the rings . Just watching the movie, I accept that they are wizards and have some limitations. They are not Gods ( so to speak), but they do have abilities. It just works without insane details. Having said that, I do not mind when we get more details either.
I don’t think I have to have every little detail.
The two worst types of criticism, It does too much and It does too little, everyone's got an opinion on it, not a single one of them is any good, there's not one type of media that doesn't have some form of advice surrounding it based on something that's so ridiculously ingrained into the very basis of the concept itself that the idea anyone could ever suggest making it standardized based on something entirely based on taste sounds like a joke. How much "facts" matter to the magic system isn't even a writer to writer or book to book thing, it's a scenario to scenario thing, I strongly doubt that person has any books they like that follow that even to a moderate degree, or that they'd ever follow something like that if they were to make their own.
Luckily at least that's one of the very few times I've heard about it relating to fantasy, it's not horror at the least, where countless creators entirely rely nowadays on "fear of the unknown" because every critic says that you need to let the reader imagine everything. Then you see these same people praising stories that use "fear of the unknown", and it ranges from:
Doesn't show the monster/antagonist until the last third of the movie
To
We know it's hunting method, biology, breeding mechanism, what it does to humans, habitat, biology, planet of origin, and even how they think, but it doesn't tell you how they first came into being so it is fear of the unknown. (I've seen a fairly popular channel at least going off subs, saying this exact thing)
I was looking for this comment...as someone that struggles as a writer not diving into the well...bc it only gets deeper.
I strongly agree about romance sex and violence, a well written sex scene between two lovers before they have to part ways, possibly forever, a couple forced to work together and slowly falling for each other, or brutal violence from the antagonist can all enhance a great story further.
My personal least favorite trope is the modern slang one, not only do you risk ripping people out of their immersion, you also risk sounded dated because what is hip and cool changes very frequently. No 14 year old ever thought their parents had the coolest way of speaking on the planet.
If you have your knight say "That shit be rockin' bro!" you not only risk breaking immersion, you also risk sounding like someone trying and failing to be cool.
We all know that characters have sex. We all know that characters poo. We don't need to see/read either in the book.
If it must be put in a book, please put behind curtains shelfed away from the kid-friendly books that older kids and even younger kids with higher reading levels can read.
Sounds like your knight is from Monty python 😂
We all know that characters have sex. We all know that characters poo. We don't need to see/read either in the book.
@@Kaede-Sasaki There is no reason to put it behind any curtains unless it has a graphic cover.
But fantasy has kid fantasy (harry potter etc), Young adult fantasy (A court of thorns and roses etc)
and adult, your Joe Abercrombie, George RR Martin etc.
Why would you have sex and violent gore in kids stuff? That's not what I or the video maker means, what we mean is that fantasy for adults should be able to contain adult themes.
Peaky Blinders isn't fantasy, but one of its most captivating story lines is the complicated romance between Tommy and Grace. Without it, there would not be the depth, nor would we have been able to understand the complexity of Tommy Shelby's character. So by all means include romance if it enhances understanding of or sympathy for a character, but leave it out if it doesn't.
Reminds me of Smallville as the exact opposite: Dear lord, the "Clark-Lana" romantic plot tumor. I swear the writers must have had a mayor crush on Kristin Kreuk, or projected all their 'sweet soft-spoken unthreatening fragile girl' preferences on her, but however it happened: I fervently despised every second that so-called romance took away from more interesting plot lines / characters.
(I think Peaky Blinders probably also profited from having the combo of good writing & really good actors that it takes to sell all those nuances and changes.)
@@Julia-lk8jn
My sister and I did a Smallville re-watch last year. We got up to season 8 but then we got COVID and canceled the re-watch.
My sister was just like you. She got tired of Clark/Lana and wanted Clark/Lois to happen quicker. Idk why the show kept forcing Lana back as the romantic interest. Clark should have gotten over her in season 5 when he *spoilers*
Changed time to save her life.
What is important for me is that in fantasy settings there is a clear set of rules that can be explored throughout the narrative, but breaking those rules is NOT part of a problem solution at a pivotal moment. The writer needs to respect his own system.
I'm a sucker for a Soulslike approach on a protagonist: A nobody among many working towards an impossible goal where we get to see them grow and evolve into an actual badass by the end of the story.
I heard a rule once that you shouldnt introduce more than a couple new words/names per page. The first line being "Beedlerug the Nerblemancer was traveling to Souka for the Jirmervern Congregation" is just going to confuse readers to no end
a couple things i can comment on, mainly as an avid fantasy reader but minorly as someone who likes romance and is also ace.
there are points within a story where it is almost impossible for romance to not feel forced, for example:
- when a man's only true female friend becomes his lover, or vice versa
- when a character is introduced with far more potential storytelling-wise but gets reduced to the token love interest
- when characters with no chemistry, romantic or otherwise, suddenly fall in love OR are revealed to be secretly in love from the beginning
- when characters with previous platonic chemistry get together at the last moment (think 3rd act kiss)
- when a love interest is introduced only to be killed off for character development (fridging, but romantic)
- when a love interest is introduced only to help the character with their development (generally without providing depth of their own)
truthfully, any trope can be pulled off if a skilled enough writer is put to the task. but it's very difficult to avoid these kinds of traps in writing, and just saying 'any trope can be done well' to a beginner won't make their writing any better for it.
as a tidbit on the purpose of intercourse in storytelling. it's honestly one of my least favorite things to come across while reading, no matter the purpose it serves in the narrative. there's nothing generically 'wrong' about it, it's more that it's extremely hard to do well. oftentimes, there are far more interesting and less ostracizing methods to spur on a character's depth. plus, the moment it gets into details about a character's 'personal history', it just becomes unnecessarily lewd.
I can understand the idea behind saying that it's not inherently bad, but it also doesn't have an intrinsic quality that outweighs the cons of cutting out your readerbase. there are far more methods that can be used in place of it that are much easier to do better *and* have a more potent effect.
Thank you for these tips! I really like the way that you present everything in such a thorough way, it's helping me a lot in my writing process🙂
Inappropriate humor abounds in the military (and amongst first responders as well). It serves to deflect the overwhelming circumstance that surrounds them in the moment. The weight of the circumstance hits home afterward, when the adrenaline-fueled situation has subsided and there is time for self-reflection. Unfortunately, it is also common among those who deal with those emotions to bury them and contributes a lot psychologically to PTSD.
While tragic in real-life, exploring those facets can add a lot of impact to a story's characters. And it is something I am invested in exploring in my work.
This is another good point. I have similar things in my story where the main character tells joke to deflect from how much trauma he has suffered. But I think that because he's the only one who does that, it's okay and it fits. The problem is when all the characters suddenly have the same sense of humor and they inject it into every scene, or when it's clear the narrator or the writer is making the scene funny when it doesn't need to be.
@@ukchanak Injecting a lot of that sort of banter would be suited to say, the military, police officers or EMTs. But, as you say, it wouldn't be a fit for normal interactions. At the end of the day, it is a coping mechanism and goes hand-in-hand with deflecting having to deal with those emotions, at least externally.
one of the better television series that use humor during serious moment but at the same time knowing when to let the event play out properly. I want to say Mash did it expertly. (yes am dating myself) In the serious they are moment when its all about the gag but in other moments they let the silence tell the story.
This can definitely be the case I feel like its the difference between "undercutting an emotional scene" which Marvel is notorious for and "dry joke made to help deal with the high-pressure situation" which I think is done really well in the show 911
As a former military grunt, I can say the inappropriate humor in the military is often dark humor, but it's also relevant to what's going on. The Marvel 'humor' (as referenced in the video) just seems "let's throw something slapstick in here to lighten the mood," and not always thought out. It's not always needed, either.
I don’t think Tolkien ever went into detail about dwarven economies, not to my recollection.
And I’m not sure the Griffindor=good and Slytherin=bad is a good application because Peter Petigrew was a Gryffinor and Prof. Slughorn was a Slytherin.
I think it's the part in the Hobbit where they are at the dinner party and someone talks about the history of erebor, and how they just traded for all their food instead of growing it, and other things like that.
Read Peter griffin 😂
Tolkien didn't get into the magic system either. Gandalf had mysterious and vague powers but he didn't break the tension of the story by virtue of being a busy dude who could only be in one place at any given time.
Tolkien chose his moments during natural dialogue to go into details, and mostly only with characters known to be extroverted, passionate, and talkative, in which it was polite culture to let the person keep talking. I love Tolkien, I feel he got the balance perfectly in a way most authors don't.
And in Harry Potter you're right, I hate people who (most if them) say they love the books but actually only watched the films and say "Gryfindor good, Slitherin bad" when that's totally incorrect, it's just school has cliques but in adulthood good and bad is very blurred.
@@GirlOfTheTardis nah, I read the books, loved the books, lived and breathed the books, and Gryffindor=Good Slytherin=Bad. Just when she thought about giving it some nuance, she saw the fanfic and wrote it right back out. All the Slytherins were born evil and raised evil by evil parents and anyone remotely good gets auto-sorted into another house. There are also bad people in other houses, but they all display some quality that would also put them in Slytherin house. Percy is ambiguous, Wormtail, is pure-blooded and also ambitious, Umbridge is, you guessed it, also politically ambitious, as is Crouch obviously.
Every awful thing a Gryffindor does is handwashed away while every normal thing a Slytherin does is painted as pure evil. The Marauders were worse bullies than Draco Malfoy ever was, actively hunting and physically assaulting other students for years and getting rewarded with leadership roles until after 5th year when they stopped bullying anyone else but Snape, only to keep Lily happy, not because they ever acknowledged doing anything wrong. 4 rich pure-blooded Gryffindors with full support from Dumbledore vs 1 poor half-blooded Slytherin with no friends or family and no support at school verbally, physically, and sexually assaulting him, for an audience, for fun.
As adults they feel no shame and continue to say and do exactly the same things, taking no responsibility for their role in escalating him into evil he wasn't previously capable of.
Comparatively, Draco uses rude words mostly, and rarely gets in a physical altercation, which is evenly matched with him, Crabb and Goyle vs Harry, Ron, and Hermoine, 2/3 of whom are classed amongst the best duelists in their school, with Hermoine judge6as the literal top student in their year and Harry having experience fighting grown adults who've been frontline of a war. His bullying of Neville is purely emotional and we never see him actually hurt him unprovoked. But JKR got so maf about girls writing cutesy fanfic about him she out extra effort into villainizing him, even giving him a random receding hairline in the epilogue because she couldn't stand fans actually liking him.
The sudden Snape deathbed repentance is kinda the exception that makes the rule though. So random. He dedicated his life to being the evil he experienced from the world as a child then thinks he deserves forgiveness? He made a concerted effort to pass on the cycle of abuse till the day he died.
Oh man, I disagree so hard with the magic systems thing. Sure, when you're going for a hard magic system, that's how you should do it. However, I generally prefer soft magic systems. Makes the magic feel more magical.
Thank you for the advice and videos
Building with tropes is like building a cabin with log: sure, it's been done a million times, but now YOU get to do it.
And there's always an audience for it.
10 out of context work use: a fantasy novel where the character "used gravity"
7 poor magic system: a fantasy novel where the MC had such good healing he would heal a wound after it was delivered in a fight. Something that anyone could theoretically do but no one did.
6 miscommunication: the quickest way for me to stop reading a book.
5: so many authors on Royal Road do info dumping to the extreme.
3: violence really depends on the story. I am reading a book called downtown druid where the MC is quite violent but is all on context and works. It works because there are no surprises.
1: romance, where two people get together because there is no better option or it happens immediately. The equivalent of marrying the person you sit next to in a bus, just so you can have romance.
I'm glad you went over trope and it's functionality, thank you; great video!
I hate insufferable characters. I’m not talking evil characters or villains, but characters that are just so unlikeable that I’d leave a party if they showed up. If I’m going to bring these characters into my life for a few days or weeks, they can’t be fingernails on a chalkboard. They can have a lot of bad qualities, but they can’t be intolerable.
"That girl who can't communicate with anyone ever tugs her braid angrily yet again."
I had to stop reading those, I know they're popular but I was going to end up throwing the thing at a wall and I was reading on my phone.
So you h8 jarjarbinking.
Good post. But in my work experience I'm surrounded by insufferable people. More previous jobs, but still.
Yeah, I had this problem during a DnD session with a peer of mine. She made this self-insert character who had the most insufferable attitude of just starting up shit like punching my character because her character just felt like it. It was the most annoying thing to deal with.
In my experience, what makes characters insufferable is not their personalities, but how the writers treat them. It can be perfectly fine to have a smug, self-satisfied know it all who loves to lecture other characters. But it becomes annoying if the writer protects this character, have the character "win" every discussion with another character, and have the character never get called out or face any consequences when he/she is wrong.
I only use humour to undercut an emotionally tense moment in dialogue and only if it fits the character. I have one character who uses inappropriately timed humour as coping mechanism to high stress and fear.
There's a BIG difference between infodumping and worldbuilding. You can infodump a lot of things...exposition, items, abilities, interpersonal relationships, and even worldbuilding. Worldbuilding itself is about making a world that feels lived in, making it feel real to the reader. And yes, sometimes you need to take a break from nonstop action sequences to reset the "normal" for your characters.
Especially if your characters are having a rough time, a section of the book where everything is happy makes it hurt more when it's taken away again. A great way to add stakes and some emotional tension
I think miscommunication as a source of conflict actually can work... In stories about people who aren't mature, ie, teenagers. I believe this works if only for the sake of realism, as oftentimes due to emotional immaturity and hormones, teenagers will not properly speak to one another as adults would to resolve conflicts.
Miscommunication happens a lot to adults too but it needs to be more layered
Please, plenty of adults still communicate for shit
@@ShadowSkyX Tbf a lot of those adults have stunted mental growth for a plethora of reasons, many of which actually are things most characters go through, so you are correct, and in a way that does apply to the subject matter, but I will say that's not how most adults are SUPPOSED to develop.
Miscommunication is just an easy cop out though.
I find putting them in impossible situations with no seeming way out ends up challenging me and I come up with creative solutions, tbf half my writing process these days comes from doing that and the characters make really interesting choices and it takes me somewhere I didn't plan for at all, if I relied on them just not talking properly then I'd be writing boooooring stuff
I'm also curious what could make the scene a distraction with slow pacing vs. perhaps necessary.
Case in point, the Forest and Tom Bombadil scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring novel. While most of it doesn't really play into the overall story, and could have been removed, as the movie did, in fact, do, the scene in the Barrow Downs WAS necessary as those blades later helped bring down the Witch King in Return of the King, and that's where Bombadil is necessary, to save them.
Then again, every scene that may build the plot in the long run doesn't always have to be action-packed all the time.
The Wheel of Time, multiple 800pg books spent on men and women absolutely REFUSING to talk to one another.
And very often each other.
Boring series. I couldn't even get through the first book.
"shallow magic systems" nonsense, I'm utterly tired of fantasy trying to make a science out of magic. it's supposed to be whimsical, or mystical, or emotionally poignant, or uncanny, or unfathomable... it's not supposed to be engineering!
18:00 I think of character development like houses. Some characters are flat because we see the blueprint, and over time, see the house built following this blueprint. Character growth is when the house gets renovated-new coat of paint of new cabinets in the kitchen. Sometimes a character is actually "flat" as in boring because they're a one-room, four-walls box. A character might not change, but there is joy in seeing more and more rooms to understand their depth.
I also feel like the skill of character development is necessary to master before there can be strong character growth. If the upstairs has been redecorated, but I never left the ground floor, how will I know what has changed?
Your videos are very helpful and I greatly appreciate the surveys you gave. There is so much fantasy out there that sounds like it would be interesting, but turns out to be filled with boring or annoying things.
Don’t follow his advice. He thinks he knows it all but really knows nothing about fantasy readers.
@@alexandrawinsor881 I will follow it if I want. Follow whoever helps your writing.
Romantasy (romance and fantasy 50/50 plot) is a really upcoming 'genre' and its getting very populair. Especially with bookstagram and booktok. Personaly, I love it. thanks again for your awsome advice and insight!
Girl porn is weird
The miscommunication thing drives me insane. It's nice to see I'm not the only one.
Thank you, Jed. Your videos are immensely helpful. I've learned quite a few things in just the few videos of yours I've watched.
I would actually disagree with the "shallow magic systems" point. Sometimes the magic appears shallow on the surface, but is deep symbolically, and ppl just miss it. The sword can create fire because it was forged in a volcano by witches is seemingly shallow, but perhaps the real reason is it symbolizes the uncontrollable rage of the protagonist using it, and the uncontrolled spreading of destruction as consequence. "Because it was forged in a volcano by witches" would be how the sword can create fire, not why. There's a depth there you won't see if you're looking for the wrong kind of details.
As for sex and violence, I do hate this new trend where you basically take the typical romance/erotica drama and add a fantasy flavor to it. Looking at you, Fourth Wing. But I would also add to that when the author has the character swearing too much, or for the wrong reasons. Sure, something crazy happens like you fall into a magic well, or you're fighting a dragon and it's not going well, emotionally tense situations, I expect some personal expression. But the "this is an edgy character, who doesn't give a fff" who swears in every other sentence...swearing is actually a type of filler word, and the more you use them, the more I start glossing over everything they say, because I know half of what they say amounts to nothing.
I think my favorite example to illustrate the difference between a trope and a cliche - and how the difference often comes down to execution - is the first "How to Train Your Dragon" film. That movie is absolutely stuffed to the brim with very common tropes - the dorky outcast who has a crush on the popular girl, the classic bully characters, the unimpressive son who wants to impress his father and live up to his reputation, the kid who has to hide some kind of secret from his family/friends/government, etc, etc.
Yet the movie still works because, despite having all of these tropes and more, it presents them in a relatable and fun way that makes the characters, setting, and events feel natural rather than just coming off as tired cliches doing the exact same thing we've seen a thousand times before. The implementation is what makes or breaks the trope, not the trope's mere presence in of itself.
I use modern speak in my fantasy novel series because it's based on TTRPG sessions I played and part of its charm is the sophomoric prose and humor at times
Subscribed. Nice content! I've been working on my fantasy saga for close to a decade and I'm always looking for solid writing wisdom.
My thoughts on this video's list:
The first point about modern language and anachronistic terms I'm a bit undecided on. For me I'll divide this between the two:
1. Modern language set in a fantasy setting is probably only bad if your fantasy setting is meant to mirror a historical time setting on earth. In high fantasy there's no real reason people have to talk like medieval Europe. Anachronistic terms also probably don't apply in high fantasy.
2. It's important to remember who your audience is. If you want authentic 8th century England, you have to write like Beowulf and literally nobody today can read that. So it's important to use terms and even idioms that make sense to your audience. Though less so with idioms as those are usually optional.
Pacing and humor, agree 100%. Even in non-fantasy stories this is important. I never knew about pathos & bathos. I think my distaste for bathos might be why
Hard magic systems. This is my pride and joy. I've got an extremely well designed magic system that's been the centerpiece of the project since day one.
Miscommunication as conflict: Wow that IS specific and it really is quite an annoying one. Agree 100%.
Infodumps: The art of integrating exposition into your action is challenging and worthwhile to learn.
Character development, naturally important.
Gratuitous sex & violence. Just don't be gratuitous -- meaning make it all relevant and appropriate to the story.
Trope execution: Just skill there really.
Forced romance: Nobody likes forced anything. Keep it natural.
8:40 when 90% of high fantasy magic is just based or stemmed from the 4 elements: fire, ice, wind, and the ground
Nothing against elemental magic but i wanna see some practical applications for it such as lighting a campfire in the woods with your fire sword or something
Or getting grilled pork when you kill a boar with the fire sword? 😛
#5.. Robert Jordan is an excellent example of what you said regarding wanting to read the extraneous information. I know there are many people who find his writing style to have a ton of info-dumping. Myself I loved it, his writing was done so well that I wanted to read it and I brought the images in my mind into full clarity.
#4.. Joe ambercrombie is an absolute master of humanizing his characters. Even the most evil seeming, sadistic characters have moments where you can either pity them or see the glimmer of good in them.
Considering forced humor, my absolute favourite stories use both bathos and pathos - and when at their absolute peak, at the same time.
My favourite film, _Everything Everywhere all at Once_ does this _masterfully._ And it can do that because one of the film's themes is just how absurd life is, without that detracting from how much it means to us. I aspire to write that well.
I love this film but even this has forced humor that I hated. I cringe at the dildo fight every time. Without that scene, I think the humor is pretty great tho.
Totally agree on the miscommunication as conflict, that drives me insane.
All of these complaints are valid, and worth considering, but it is also important to acknowledge that you, as a writer, will not be able to please everyone. Don't get too wrapped up in whether people will enjoy every aspect of your story or not, just continue to write and craft your narrative.
Just wanna say I love this kinda video
I appreciate it isn't just "here are some things I thought up" but actually engages the community and makes it interesting because I get to hear many people's thoughts before the expert speaks. Really fun to listen to for me
Would you consider doing a video on self-publishing? I am going to start publishing mid-late 2025, and I'd love any advice you have - particularly on growing an audience - not being just a drop in the ocean.
I've been struggling with a unique magic system for my sci-fi/fantasy. It's something i wrote wayyy back in high-school. And actually had it published thru a kind of shady publishing company. Anyway, after your "shallow magic" section it finally hit me! I have something that I believe is unique, difficult to use and has many drawbacks, as it is a devastating power to have and use!
I’m kinda ehhh on elaborate hard magic systems, it makes them far too ‘known’, controllable, subject to logical equations and science. It removes the mystique that this is a force beyond the realm of human understanding, with those who wield them being feared. When I was playing Sekiro and saw a weirdo throwing purple skulls at me, I wasn’t concerned with the hows and whys of the purple skulls, only that it was something mysterious and unknown. When it becomes a defined science I lose interest, and if you’re going to do that, just write science fiction or techno-medievalism.
I’m not knocking that, a world of techno-knights? Sick af.
For me, it's the opposite! Magic being studied scientifically is literally my favorite trope in the entire fantasy genre, even if it's not something that's entirely explained to the reader, and I'm usually not as interested if it's clear that it's something we're never supposed to understand. There's a difference between the unknown and the unknowable -- the former is beautiful, the latter is frustrating. If something is beyond the realm of human understanding, the logical conclusion is that we should stop being human.
This might be a difference in how different readers (and writers) perceive magic as a concept, and the fantasy genre as a whole. I wonder if it's in part a matter of different people's backgrounds and fields of study.
@@paigeepler I can't disagree more, being unknowable is what diferentiates magic from science, if it's knowable, understandable, then it's made up science. It's not bad, but it isn't magic, and shouldn't try to be something that it's not.
And before you ask, I'm a chemist undergrad, so it's not a matter of "uh you just don't like science". There is nothing more fustrating than in a story than "magic" that's just fake science with rules that don't add up. I know how that's supposed to look like, and they allways get it wrong.
There are examples of "science-based" and "studied magic".
Arcanism from Final Fantasy 14 Online comes to mind. They build "constructs", pets basically, with Aether by applying magic through equations. If that sounds terrible to you I totally understand.
The whole magic system is based on a source rather than how to practice it, which leaves space for different applyances and also some mystery about the source itself.
The key is balance. If your magic system is just someone having god-level magic powers with no limitations or backstory, it’s probably gonna look cliche and OP. But, if it’s too detailed then yes it can just feel like you are learning psychics. So you must create fair magic system with some explanation but without delving in too deep
As an aspiring writer I love your videos. I didn't even plan to watch the whole thing, I just wanted the chapter titles so I can know, and then watch later, but I just let the video keep going.
You are very engaging and your content is very helpful for anyone interested in the publishing sphere.
The sales numbers say that most readers DO want medieval European settings and D&D tropes.
What it actually says is that PUBLISHERS want this. Try shopping around a fantasy story not set in here and you get rejection notices.
@@nyctotheoryPublishers want what will sell. If you get rid of the setting and tropes you would have an entire different genre, which currently doesn't have enough support to bother publishing.
D&D tropes😴😴💤💤
@@maxpowers9129 There are many fantasy stories that have little to do with the Tolkien style or even Sword & Sorcery style.
I’m just getting into creative writing and I am so glad I stumbled upon this video. THANK YOU!
One of the things I really hate is the need for some writers to over explain things. I love a bit of mystery, and just as we won't know everything in our own world during our lives, I don't need to know how everything works. I strongly prefer magic existing for the sake of existing and kept mysterious rather than having to quantify it. I also really hate taboo, which is why I don't agree with the sex comments here. It is a normal and important part of many of our lives and is part of who many of us are. People have their own preferences, but I know it is an important part of my life and integral to my relationship, so I would have no problem reading the details of an important part of a character's life as well.
Really enjoyed the breakdown of these and hearing people’s thoughts. I would agree with a lot of these.
I'm probably one of the few people who prefers a classic fantasy ("shallow") magic system to an overly complicated one. Some of the stuff people come up with just leaves me rolling my eyes, and I hate the general consensus that every fantasy story needs it's own unique and special magic system. Having costs and consequences to magic is fine, but when there's 10 pages of exposition explaining everything in great detail, it just puts me off. Kind of takes the magic out of it. Even Brandon Sanderson's metal based magic system had me cringing to the point it put me off reading his other books.
Pacing also seems to be contentious. I see a lot of people complaining that a lot of fantasy stories are too fast paced with characters never having time to breathe. Though multiple sequential chapters of no apparent progress being made is definitely too slow.
anyway, gotta go yeet the dragon and grab its swag so I can put together a new drip and rizz up.
edit: I personally have an aversion to sex and things in fictional media due to how common it was at one point to have the antagonist force-sex the main character's love interest in order to establish them as A Really Bad Dude™. Kind of also ruined love triangles for me, because it seems fairly common for the person opposite the main character to be a violent abuser of some flavour. It just gives me the ick, and I've noped out of a lot of books and shows over it when a love triangle starts to rear its head, because it's almost always used as a lazy source of conflict (usually co-driven by miscommunication)
omg so happy to discover this channel! I bought Thunder Heist years ago (when my debut was released as well) and it's great to see you succeed on RUclips! Great stuff!
Miscommunication is just part of life and its so life like to see that done in a book. It can be done badly if its written badly but its so human. Maybe thats why prople dont like it because theres enough of that in real life that they dont feel like dealing with it in their fantasy books
Maybe I should use my personal frustrations in miscommunication as a reference point for these plots. It would be incredibly relatable to many people.
Even irl between civilians it's pretty pathetic drama, but when people try to make an epic story from it, make it the main plot...it look like a joke, when you realize in the end people could just talk. It's not like the conflict, where no one is ready to agree with other's opinion and everyone sticks to their own view and goals even after a talk. It's realistic. But not when people did not understand eachother because they did not have a talk at all or said double-meaning word. It can be fine for secondary plot for young character to learn to talk and explain, to avoid or fix some problems they can not on their own. But not the main story. Like...a dramatic romance between people who both love eachother, but scared to let other know. Whole plot is pointless until the point someone's love becomes known. Why the hell would anyone want to read that?
@@Иная I think that's tho whole point of many romantic comedies which are usually on the lighter side. There's a whole slew of Spanish novellas that function this way and they get a lot of views. It depends what people like I think but yeah I agree if it's a smaller plot in a bigger story I usually enjoy it more.
@@Иная I’m thinking of nothing remotely related to romance. I’m thinking of every time I say something, and am then “corrected” to exactly the same thing I just said.
@@Иная Also why an epic plot? I was thinking a simple office drama.
I've been wondering why certain parts of my book feel so slow... I've never heard of different "scene formats" before, and I've consumed a LOT of professional advice on writing! Definitely going to give my books a look and add that particular lens to the editing process. Thank you!
I like European themed fantasy, I will die on this hill.
Frankly I find that weird fantasy for the sake of being different is more annoying. My interest in Roshar from Stormlight is limited because it just feels weird to be different. And I… don’t care. I like my Elves, and Dwarves. I just want them done better
I agree, I'll take familiar tropes over being different just to be different every time. If the story is good, than it's good. I don't need the characters to be staplers fighting paperclips instead of eleves and dwarves.
Yep. Some people being tired of elves and dwarves or soft magic system or whatever don't make a writing rule.
I really love everything that Jed Herne does on his channel. Imo, he is an invaluable resource to not only fantasy writers but to TTRPG game masters who want to offer their players more than just the "standard d&d" adventure. Bravo Jed! You do a great job!
The fact that this list contains both "extraneous worldbuilding" and "shallow magic systems" is sending me. Unless the narrative revolves around digging into the nature of your world's magic, expanding on its sources and nuances IS extraneous worldbuilding. As pointed out in the video, it can still be done well, but it goes to show that you'll never please every reader.
I agree with the sentiment of these, and also largely with the idea that it's too often these types of things done poorly that's an issue.
I think many authors think that since certain things might be expected to be in a genre, it's inserted due to a feeling of obligation more than it being a meaningful part of the story.
Hunger Games is a fav example of that the love-triangle sub plot added absolutely nothing to the story, which had plenty of good drama without it.
Personally, I think we need more art, especially literature, where we can get the purest form of the story the author wants to tell without a checklist of 'must have features'. Yes, marketability is always a factor. But I think it always harms the product when checklist items are shoehorned in for the sake of it.
The graphic violence and gore stay on during the dark urban fantasy sesh, I agree with the rest though.
I like what I call the "From Software" approach to world building, where things are either shown not told or you piece together information over time, the Dark Souls games seemed to be very good at this
The gore thing always makes me sad in a way because it's such a normal part of life in some parts of the world and when I grew up blood was unfortunately a very common thing for me to see so I'm more used to it than most people, so when people talk about blood and gore as if it is only some fictional thing it gives off a very... naive vibe, I guess. I can understand people might not want to see it because it makes them feel sick but still. The sex part is also sad because it can be such an important thing for two people to bond and I feel like if there's two characters which are very romantic and in love they often make their relationship look really innocent, like after several years all they've done is kissed, so it makes me feel like sex is viewed as something vulgar and unromantic when it can be such a beautiful thing and also important for the characters psychological growth. I have a male character wich has seen a lot of men behaving like monsters and he was tricked by a girl at one time so the sex scenes is important for him to get past those issues meanwhile the female character gets past a lot of sexual shame because she was expected to be so pure and innocent and was taught that sex is just a disgusting act only animals engage in, but I feel like people often forget the psychological aspect of sex and romance and the importance for character growth. I can understand the frustration when it's only about smut (I don't want to read that either) but I would like to see romantic smut which is greatly tied to the story but it feels like I either have the shallow smut part or the innocent romantic stuff to choose between.
Thank you SO MUCH for mentioning Terry Pratchett!
hard disagree on miscommunication as source of conflict - that has to be one of the truest, realest things in real life - and what gives it so much weight is that try as we might to talk thinks out, the rabbit hole just gets deeper, and we wonder how people every communicate, agree, or understand anything...
Miscommunication can absolutely be used well, especially in between characters with different backgrounds and world views, but people are sick of the kind of miscommunication where like 3 sentences could have prevented a large amount of conflict. I would much rather watch a character literally not be able to explain themselves and justify actions on the principle that who they are explaining to will not accept their explanation, than watch the protag not say like five words to thier love interest like, "I was visiting my sister,"(in response to him being at a another woman's house). It's dumb miscommunication people hate, not miscommunication as a whole.
Let's use Shrek 1 as an example. That entire conflict could have been avoided if Shrek asked Fiona about who she was talking about. He assumed that she thought of him as a hideous beast, but she was telling Donkey that she viewed herself as such. That's a very annoying example of a fight that could be prevented if Shrek just spoke to Fiona and listened to her. But he automatically assumes the worst so conflict can occur. Then, he decides to speak with her last minute at the wedding. That whole wedding could have been prevented had he just talked to her on their journey instead.
@l.n.3372 with Shrek at least it was more understandable because he spent his whole life being conditioned to think that so when he heard it out of context(and he has no idea of Fiona's curse) he would obviously assume it to be about him and want to isolate himself. I think his character absolutely justifies that miscommunication.
@thecyanpanda241
While it makes sense that he has poor self esteem. I don't agree that it justify the bad miscommunication writing. He spends many scenes falling in love with Fiona yet refuses to speak with her when it matters most. It was miscommunication for conflict plot.
I'm a new viewer, and in the last video of yours that I watched, you said that you had published "3 fantasy books", and I see that this is a more recent video, so congratulations on your 4th book publishing!