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Copperfox said:
One thing to keep in mind when writing a serious story is--not to overdo it. What I mean is, when you speak as the author, using the narrator's voice, don't spend a lot of words _telling_ the reader that this is a serious situation; allow the reader to _observe_ the seriousness through the imagined events.

Victor Hugo, writing the conclusion of "Les Miserables," described the burial of Jean Valjean in simple terms; he didn't go on to lecture the reader for several more pages about how people shouldn't allow a society to be so unjust and cruel and yada yada.
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Thanks...but I meant more like my writing style is so satirical and (unintentionally:rolleyes:) humorous that even the most serious situations in my stories can't be taken seriously.

Oh, BTW, the characters in my fantasy story talk like people from the 21st century...I can't seem to write more old-fashioned-ish without it coming out stiff and weird. Is it anachronistic or something to have them say, "Okay" and other phrases of that sort?:eek:
 
"Okay," spoken anytime before the nineteenth century, is glaringly anachronistic. "All right" is more all right to say in earlier settings; but try lines like "Are you well?" and "All's well."
 
All right is all right.:p

Not that these characters say "Totally awesome, dude" or anything like that, but they seem to have a more modern speech than is usual for fantasy stories. But it's happening in a different world, where they might be ahead in speech but behind in everything else...so I guess it would be okay to say okay. Do you think it sounds TOO weird in a fantasy?
 
Even if the world of your story is technologically and sociologically like the present-day United States, "okay" will STILL sound a little wrong if the story-world is not somehow connected to our world. It should be possible for you to make up speech patterns for your characters which are easy to read, yet NOT plainly and simply OUR speech patterns.

If you read my "Emmett and Queenie" story, you will see how I emphasize differences between characters by the way they talk. Emmett, the transplanted Western gunslinger, is of course the most distinct in his speech. Now, HE can say "okay," because he actually is a native of the United States; but I don't have Narnian characters saying it.
 
Yeah is not QUITE so relentlessly modern as okay, but nearly. Try to make up some choices of utterances for your characters which will come to be accepted as natural FOR THEM. Like "garn" in LOTR.
 
When I write poems or stories, I often read them out loud to myself. I always try to write text which would flow smoothly out of the mouth if actually spoken, as by a storyteller.

One thing I do in this connection is to avoid making too many names rhyme with each other unless there is a definite reason TO have them rhyme. If there isn't a positive benefit in making names rhyme, having them rhyme (or having them START with the same letter) could cause the reader to be looking for some hidden meaning to it that isn't there. I think Tolkien simply was careless in giving such similar names to Sauron and Saruman.

In the "Homeschoolers in Highschool" roleplay which led to my "Alipang Havens" novel, Nightcrawler_Fan permitted me to supply some place names for the area of northern Virginia in which that story is set. But it was someone else who coined "Shilohsville" for the next town over from "Smoky Lake." So there we had two towns both starting with S.

Reviewing "Alipang Havens" today, I was thinking about the fact that "Doverhill," the name I had given to the fictional community college, rhymed with "Shilohsville." Then I came upon the FIRST post in which I had ever mentioned this college...and I saw that I had originally named the college DoverWOOD. This, of course, does NOT rhyme with Shilohsville. Somehow I had garbled it into Doverhill; well, the somehow was because of the long period of time I had taken writing the novel.

I have now changed every Doverhill to a Doverwood. There is a reason why it's good for authors to KEEP NOTES about their characters and plotlines. Except in purposely absurd stories, self-contradiction is never a plus.
 
...Fantasy cliches...

Which fantasy cliches are TOO cliche? Some aren't really cliche as much as a part of the fantasy genre (for example, I've seen Good vs. Evil and Hero Fights Villains classified as a fantasy cliche).

-Having to destroy an item that will enable the main evil guy to take over the world
-Protagonist finding out that he/she is really heir to the throne
-Wise old mentor with a long white beard who usually gets done in
-Dragon riders who can communicate with their dragons by means of telepathy
-Villainous minions always being stupid
-Some sort of trouble (fights, et cetera) happening in taverns
-Characters whose horses can gallop 24/7
-Ale.
-The hero falling in love with an elf
-The main bad guy being the hero's dad
-Swordfights
-Villains killing their own men for the tiniest mistakes...or just because they feel like it, or to show how evil they are, or whatever
-Slavery
-One of the main good guys turning out to be the bad guy

So....which of these are OK to use in a fantasy story, and which aren't?
 
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If you couldn't re-use basic elements, NO ONE would be able to write ANY more stories. But at least some of the examples you list could be flipped over somehow, to become a little fresher, anyway.


-Having to destroy an item that will enable the main evil guy to take over the world

Instead, the GOOD side has one crucial object which they need to regain or protect, which is threatened with destruction by evil secret operatives.

-Protagonist finding out that he/she is really heir to the throne

Instead, he or she finds out that he or she is ON the throne by fraud, and must give it up to someone else.

-Wise old mentor with a long white beard who usually gets done in

The teenage hero or heroine dies, and the mentor defeats the villain, then starts looking for a new student.

-Dragon riders who can communicate with their dragons by means of telepathy

Hopelessly overused. DO NOT bother with this one, ever, no matter what.

-The hero falling in love with an elf

Have the MALE be the long-lived one, and let HIM show true love and faithfulness by sticking with his wife and still loving her truly as SHE gets older.

-Villains killing their own men for the tiniest mistakes...or just because they feel like it, or to show how evil they are, or whatever

Have a villain who, at the start, SEEMS as if he's going to be the big-deal menace; but then, after he has murdered followers of his three or four times for trivial reasons, have the rest of the followers rise up together and kill HIM. These lesser bad guys, then, can form a bad-guy cooperative to carry on.
 
Copperfox said:
Have a villain who, at the start, SEEMS as if he's going to be the big-deal menace; but then, after he has murdered followers of his three or four times for trivial reasons, have the rest of the followers rise up together and kill HIM. These lesser bad guys, then, can form a bad-guy cooperative to carry on.[/COLOR]
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That happens a lot in the Redwall series. Especially "Taggerung".:D

I love your ideas, Copperfox. They're original and interesting. And actually, as for the heir-to-the-throne-chosen-one theme, in my story I had it turn out that they got the wrong person by mistake.;)
 
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Copperfox said:


-Protagonist finding out that he/she is really heir to the throne

Instead, he or she finds out that he or she is ON the throne by fraud, and must give it up to someone else.
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Something to this effect happens in The Safe-Keepers Secret. infant boy is taken in by a family with an infant girl already, and is grown up being told that he might secretly be the child of the king. but when the king comes to collect his supposed heir, who wants a male heir unlike the older daughter he already has, it turns out the GIRL is the kings child.
 
Copperfox said:
When I write poems or stories, I often read them out loud to myself. I always try to write text which would flow smoothly out of the mouth if actually spoken, as by a storyteller.

One thing I do in this connection is to avoid making too many names rhyme with each other unless there is a definite reason TO have them rhyme. If there isn't a positive benefit in making names rhyme, having them rhyme (or having them START with the same letter) could cause the reader to be looking for some hidden meaning to it that isn't there. I think Tolkien simply was careless in giving such similar names to Sauron and Saruman.

In the "Homeschoolers in Highschool" roleplay which led to my "Alipang Havens" novel, Nightcrawler_Fan permitted me to supply some place names for the area of northern Virginia in which that story is set. But it was someone else who coined "Shilohsville" for the next town over from "Smoky Lake." So there we had two towns both starting with S.

Reviewing "Alipang Havens" today, I was thinking about the fact that "Doverhill," the name I had given to the fictional community college, rhymed with "Shilohsville." Then I came upon the FIRST post in which I had ever mentioned this college...and I saw that I had originally named the college DoverWOOD. This, of course, does NOT rhyme with Shilohsville. Somehow I had garbled it into Doverhill; well, the somehow was because of the long period of time I had taken writing the novel.

I have now changed every Doverhill to a Doverwood. There is a reason why it's good for authors to KEEP NOTES about their characters and plotlines. Except in purposely absurd stories, self-contradiction is never a plus.
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That is very true. I kept getting Sauron and Saruman confused the first time I read LOTR. And when I wrote Baldor the Hapless, the conversations between Baldor and Aldor were a pain.
 
Somebody asked me to post instructions on how to format a screenplay, so I suppose this is the place to do it.:D I'm not a professional or anything, so I'm just saying this how I read it's supposed to be done.

Ok...you have this thing called a slugline at the top of every scene. It looks like this:

EXT. FOREST - NIGHT

or if it's inside

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

INT.and EXT. stand for "interior" and "exterior". The slugline includes the INT/EXT, the location, and the time. The time is usually just "day" or "night", but it could be more specific if it's important or you really want the scene to happen at "sunset", "twilight", "2:45 P.M.", et cetera.

There has to be at least 1 line of action after a slugline. Action being like:

ANDY runs across the table, screaming his head off and waving a supersoaker.

Some people use CAPS on important sounds or props (the LotR screenplays do this a lot.)

ANDY RUNS across the TABLE, SCREAMING HIS HEAD OFF and WAVING a SUPERSOAKER.

Some scripts put the character names in CAPS all the time, and others only do it the first time a character name is mentioned in a piece of action.

OK...
So dialogue looks like this.

ANDY
Wheeeeeeeeyaaaaaaahullaballoooolooooooo!

Not like this:
ANDY: Wheeeeeeeyaaaaaaahullaballoooolooooooo!

A parenthetical is the way someone says something, or who they say it to. For example:

ANDY
(yelling)
Wheeeeeeeeyaaaaaaahullaballoooolooooooo!

or

ANDY
(to his brother)
Wheeeeeeeeyaaaaaaahullaballoooolooooooo!

Um, that's all I can think of.:D Except the script has to be in Courier New like the examples above, but 12 point. That's all.:)
 
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Copperfox is right about not overusing trite story ideas. But I'll go a step further. Many people not only harness overused, trite ideas but they try to make them the point of the story. Every story needs a point, and the point should be something to which the reader can relate.

Look at Lord of the Rings. You have all the traditional heavies on both sides, but who gets the ring back to the crack of doom? The most humble and unlikely of all creatures...a hobbit. Someone who, like you, would worry about being able to pass the big math test or get past the bully on the playground. Tolkein was making a point about the basic decency that can exist in any of us, you see. It was a sort of statement about how the meek would inherit the Earth as ordinary people did ordinary things in extraordinary ways. The story has heart, and the gee-whiz factor only gives it colour, not its main thrust.

Perhaps one of the worst things you can do with a story is throw gadgets at it to try and make it "cool". I'd rather see a great story about two resourceful people fighting it out to the bitter end than to see the Milky Way Coalition going up against the Anadromedan Empire.
 
EveningStar said:
Copperfox is right about not overusing trite story ideas. But I'll go a step further. Many people not only harness overused, trite ideas but they try to make them the point of the story. Every story needs a point, and the point should be something to which the reader can relate.

Look at Lord of the Rings. You have all the traditional heavies on both sides, but who gets the ring back to the crack of doom? The most humble and unlikely of all creatures...a hobbit. Someone who, like you, would worry about being able to pass the big math test or get past the bully on the playground. Tolkein was making a point about the basic decency that can exist in any of us, you see. It was a sort of statement about how the meek would inherit the Earth as ordinary people did ordinary things in extraordinary ways. The story has heart, and the gee-whiz factor only gives it colour, not its main thrust.

Perhaps one of the worst things you can do with a story is throw gadgets at it to try and make it "cool". I'd rather see a great story about two resourceful people fighting it out to the bitter end than to see the Milky Way Coalition going up against the Anadromedan Empire.
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Reminds me of Second Life. Lots of "WOW!" stuff to see and do. But what keeps you coming back is your relationships with your friends. And i should know. ;) [For the uninitiated, John and I met on Second Life<3]
 
Another thing about screenplays: if you're going to print yours, put brass fasteners only in the top and bottom holes.;) Don't ask me why, but that's how they do it.:p
 
EveningStar said:
The middle hole is evil. When it is filled, disaster lurks. :p
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I found out why...it's cause when Hollywood reads your script they have to make copies, which requires removing the brads. Putting two instead of three cuts down the work by 33 1/3 %. It may not seem that much, but when you're doing a huge stack of scripts per day, it makes the job a lot easier.:)
 
SeaStar said:
I found out why...it's cause when Hollywood reads your script they have to make copies, which requires removing the brads. Putting two instead of three cuts down the work by 33 1/3 %. It may not seem that much, but when you're doing a huge stack of scripts per day, it makes the job a lot easier.:)
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That's a neat fact to know.:)
 
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