Rules for Writing a Fantasy Novel

[afro-elf]

Rules for Writing a Fantasy Novel

1. The heroes will lose every battle, but win the war.

2. It will only rain when the heroes are exhausted and running out of food.

3. The heroes will only have horses if they are going to climb a mountain, where they won't be able to ride the horses anyway.

4. The enemies will be killed by the slightest mishap, but the heroes will live through anything.

5. The hero and heroine will fall in love on the last three pages.

6. Magic (if available) will be used intelligently by the heroes, but will be wasted by the enemies.

7. You will annoy the reader by placing numerous re-hashings of prior events in the first four chapters of the second and following books of a series.

8. Start off occasional chapters with a description of one of the main characters engaged in some activity, without using their name. The reader will feel exceptionally smart when they figure out who it is before you reveal it.

9. Racial prejudices will be ignored by the heroes, but will be a factor in the downfall of the enemy.

10. The enemy will be able to predict all of the heroes actions, but will be powerless to stop them; the heroes will foil all of the enemies plans through sheer dumb luck.

11. The heroes will be able to survive for weeks without feeling the call of nature, unless they are in a cell.

12. Should the heroes be captured, the enemy will gloat and reveal all of their plans.

13. Should the heroes be captured, they will be kept in a small cell with a bit of straw but no windows, and will only be fed bread and water at irregular intervals. Despite this, they will be able to tell how much time has passed.

14. Magic swords do not glow except when the heroes have no other source of light, or if it is dark, and they need to be captured for the plot to advance properly.

15. The heroes, after making a noise when trying to remain silent, will stand perfectly still for several minutes. The enemy will not, however, have heard it. (Alternate scenario: the enemy will hear it and search the area immediately (rather than guessing the action of the heroes, and waiting for them to move again, thereby giving themselves away). The heroes will quickly hide, their sounds masked by the noise of the enemy's search.)

16. Only describe a monster you have created once; call it by name any other time it appears, even if the character it is spotted by did not see it the first time or have it described since.

17. At least one of the heroes will be the second best in the world at something. The only person better will be one of the enemy, but they will nonetheless be defeated by the hero at the climax.

18. Everyone in a position of power is corrupt, and is subject to bribes.

19. Rulers of any large territory (eg. Kings, Emporers, etc.) are either terminally stupid or insane, and could not suppress a rebellion if their life depended on it (which it usually does).


Additional Rules for TSR Writers

1. Only under exceptional circumstances will you be allowed to write the sequel to any novel you write.

2. Use the name of the spell the character casts, rather than describing its effects. Everyone who might read the book has played AD&D, and will understand this much better.

3. Whenever possible, arrange your plot so that it fits a work of art we have already used, so that new art will not have to be commissioned.

4. You will not create any new locations; instead, use the Atlas of The Forgotten Realms or Krynn as a source (Douglas Niles excepted).

5. Be prepared to translate your novel into an adventure module, complete with rule modifications so that what you describe can actually happen. (Douglas Niles: this means you.)

6. Ignore all of the rules for creating a new character found in the Players Handbook. You can hardly expect a new character to survive anything exciting. All characters will be of at least 12th level, even if they are only 16 years old.

7. All books will be between 300 and 320 pages.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Thanks, I'll remember these. Though thankfully I don't plan to do TSR.

[Arat-Falathion]

LOL! A lot of fun reading that, and actually so very very true I'll keep them in mind while writing!

[Lief Erikson]

Those were hilarious, Afro-elf! Thanks for posting them . Some of them are very true- and a bit embarress me when I think about my own novel .

Sorry, I really like this, so I want to respond to all these different points individually.

1. The heroes will lose every battle, but win the war.

Actually, this one is commonly not correct. In LoTR, the good guys win basically every battle, and win the war.

2. It will only rain when the heroes are exhausted and running out of food.

True .

3. The heroes will only have horses if they are going to climb a mountain, where they won't be able to ride the horses anyway.

Very frequently true.

4. The enemies will be killed by the slightest mishap, but the heroes will live through anything.

This really depends what villains you're talking about. Bad guy soldiers it's always true with, and in most battles they do easily get beaten by heroes (who survive in most books) Also, in some books main characters do die.

5. The hero and heroine will fall in love on the last three pages.

[/B][/QUOTE]
Sometimes, but usually I think they realize their love a lot quicker than that.

6. Magic (if available) will be used intelligently by the heroes, but will be wasted by the enemies.

True with LoTR, but not true in my book .

7. You will annoy the reader by placing numerous re-hashings of prior events in the first four chapters of the second and following books of a series.

Not me. Though you're right, it does sometimes happen. Thinking specifically of Harry Potter here, nu?

8. Start off occasional chapters with a description of one of the main characters engaged in some activity, without using their name. The reader will feel exceptionally smart when they figure out who it is before you reveal it.

LOL!

9. Racial prejudices will be ignored by the heroes, but will be a factor in the downfall of the enemy.

Erm, this one I'd actually tend to disagree with pretty strongly. To me, racial prejudices among the good guys tend to get resolved during the course of the book (by two of different races befriending each other and drawing their societies together), but in a lot of books that's different. Take the new bad guy plan at the end of Harry Potter book 4, for example. The villain there didn't care at all about racial prejudices, and was only using them to his own advantage.

10. The enemy will be able to predict all of the heroes actions, but will be powerless to stop them; the heroes will foil all of the enemies plans through sheer dumb luck.

lol . Yep, I agree with that one!

[Lief Erikson]

11. The heroes will be able to survive for weeks without feeling the call of nature, unless they are in a cell.

Yup. Though this is rather understandable, when you think about it. We don't feel incredibly excited about breathing unless we've just been drowning or holding our breath. Being without something naturally causes us to desire it.

12. Should the heroes be captured, the enemy will gloat and reveal all of their plans.

(Star Wars and Harry Potter instantly shoot to mind) Erm, yes . . . are you trying to embarress our villains? That often does happen, but sometimes not.

13. Should the heroes be captured, they will be kept in a small cell with a bit of straw but no windows, and will only be fed bread and water at irregular intervals. Despite this, they will be able to tell how much time has passed.

Usually they don't know how much time has passed.

14. Magic swords do not glow except when the heroes have no other source of light, or if it is dark, and they need to be captured for the plot to advance properly.

(Remembers Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan and nods)

15. The heroes, after making a noise when trying to remain silent, will stand perfectly still for several minutes. The enemy will not, however, have heard it. (Alternate scenario: the enemy will hear it and search the area immediately (rather than guessing the action of the heroes, and waiting for them to move again, thereby giving themselves away). The heroes will quickly hide, their sounds masked by the noise of the enemy's search.)

I don't really recall too many instances during such searches where the good guys succeed in getting away with that noise.

16. Only describe a monster you have created once; call it by name any other time it appears, even if the character it is spotted by did not see it the first time or have it described since.

Huh.

17. At least one of the heroes will be the second best in the world at something. The only person better will be one of the enemy, but they will nonetheless be defeated by the hero at the climax.

Of course, this is a given .

18. Everyone in a position of power is corrupt, and is subject to bribes.

Not. Some are as evil as evil can be. There is a specific type of villain that is always subject to bribes, however.

19. Rulers of any large territory (eg. Kings, Emporers, etc.) are either terminally stupid or insane, and could not suppress a rebellion if their life depended on it (which it usually does).

Yes . There wouldn't be much point to the writer designing a rebellion if it was going to fail, would there?

[Dreran the Green]

Great thread. And almost all of them are always true

4. The enemies will be killed by the slightest mishap, but the heroes will live through anything.

In my book the heroine dies straight-off! Its necessary though, and she does come back, so yeah-pretty much true all the time.

17. At least one of the heroes will be the second best in the world at something. The only person better will be one of the enemy, but they will nonetheless be defeated by the hero at the climax.

Yep Strange how that always works.

19. Rulers of any large territory (eg. Kings, Emporers, etc.) are either terminally stupid or insane, and could not suppress a rebellion if their life depended on it (which it usually does).

Of course

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
Yup. Though this is rather understandable, when you think about it. We don't feel incredibly excited about breathing unless we've just been drowning or holding our breath. Being without something naturally causes us to desire it.

Not to mention the author usually doesn't tell about every time they duck behind a tree.

[Elf Girl]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
Thinking specifically of Harry Potter here, nu?

I always thought HP had surprisingly little rehashing. OotP especially had none at all.

[Adrian Baggins]

wow, so many rules, I never follow rules, I just write as it comes, if my storys don't conform to the rules, I'm very sorry and if they don't if I ever post any here, you will not be forced to read them, you can just watch for the titles

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Adrian, this is a joke. It is poking fun at the way a lot of fantasy authors do much of this.

[frodosgirlfriend]

What does TSR stand for?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I'm actually not sure...It has to do with DND fanfiction, I believe.

[Arat-Falathion]

Yeh, should it not be TFR, not TSR? As in The Forgotten Realms?

[Coney]

Originally posted by frodosgirlfriend
What does TSR stand for?

Tactical Simulation Roleplay (or summit boring like that anyway)


A-Elf you couldn't have been more spot-on..........fantasy fiction (published) is very formulaic, shame really.

[Snowdog]

This is a funny read. of course I enjoy breaking the rules....

[galadriel]

Originally posted by Elf Girl
I always thought HP had surprisingly little rehashing. OotP especially had none at all.

The first few books do. There's always little explanations about who the characters are and what Hogwarts is in the first chapter. Dunno what the point is, because even with these explanations, I think reading book 3 w/out reading the previous books would be very confusing.

You're right, in books 4 and 5, there's only occasional rehashing to refresh our memory.

[Ulfethenar]

Very interesting read and quite true and amusing at the same time. Just thought i'd add in one I'm not sure if alot of people have this or maybe it's just my dumb luck

Make at least one of any series of books near impossible to find and making it very difficult to build a complete set and read the whole thing without doing much footwork to find said book.