Fantastic. I love not only your insights, but the elaboration your points receive. I'm a new writer, and I have never thought of most of these things. The one central idea I detect is the idea of a "reality filter." People rarely think of something and then view how it would really turn out in real life to see if it would make more sense than shingling a doghouse with pancakes. In any case, this is awesome. Let's hear it for snarky literary advice.

Awesome. Just awesome. Very good points and tips. Thank you! :D

I find it telling that the name of this essay/diatribe/thing is "My Little Black Heart." I frequently see a lot of people on the Internet who admire and want to play this character of the bitter, snarky, smartass. They play up their crabbiness for the crowd and display it as a badge of honor, a mark of their superior intellect. It's really a cheap trick, a fallacy; in our emotional weakness we tend to defer to the opinions of the loud angry guy just because we don't want him hurling his snarky insults at us. By the same token, if someone is courteous and unassuming, he/she must be weak and lack conviction.

Now that I've voiced my qualms with your tone, I want to say something about the content of your lectures.

In a word, doctrinaire.

My main complaint is that you posit very general laws aimed at very specific targets, and the results are disastrous. Your line of reasoning seems to be: "well these crappy fantasy/ sci-fi pulp and fan fiction stories do it, so it must be mutually exclusive with good writing."

Focusing on the negative isn't just grating, it can also lead to flawed logic.

I can name several writers who consistently violate your rules: Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Dickens, Poe, Camus, off the top of my head. A big problem seems to be that many of your rules for writing seem more concerned with imitating real life and the minutiae of cavalry warfare than with actual poetics. Your strict adherence to the idea of show>tell and your ideas about the way action should be depicted action imply a dogmatic bias towards mimesis, which to me suggests a narrow view of literature.

Rules and restrictions do not make better writers; ideas and inspiration do. I don't say that for sentimental reasons; I say it because it's true. And if you disagree with that -- if you truly are more influenced by negative than positive examples -- well then, I feel sorry you.

What are you trying to say in this essay of yours. I'm kinda lost.

I wanted to leave you with my thanks for posting this entire set of chapters. Most of them helped me a LOT. I am always concerned about my writing and whether it fits the cliche narrative or, on a level even more basic, whether it makes sense. I will definitely reference back to this as I write. Your opinions are extremely helpful!

Wonderful essays. I think I agree with you on most of your points. It'll be useful for me and many aspiring writers here on FP to follow your tips.

I have the feeling, however, that many commercial authors nowadays write such cliche, childish things because of their target audience's preference. Take "Harry Potter" for instance; it seems like Rowling was writing for a bunch of kids who neither has the maturity nor the wish to delve into political matters, but instead, want to simply imagine themselves as the teenage hero who would save the world from whatever evil thingy majigy threatening to destroy Earth for no particular reason. It makes me wonder if it is the authors who are just too lazy to have a tad bit of logic in their stories, or is it the readers who won't pick up anything other than repetitive high fantasy, that has created this huge abundance of unoriginal books.

Sorry that I sidetracked a little. Either way, I do think you offer a lot of thoughtful advice for fiction writers and I believe many of us on FP would appreciate your efforts.

Keep writing!

~Dex

Thanks a ton for doing this! I'm using it as a helful guide, and I'm sure others are too.

Agreed on many points, particularly the romances.

In a fit of extreme boredom, I thought I'd have some fun trawling through your archived LJ rants and came across a link to this piece. Great fun so far, and should be required reading for all aspiring fantasy authors. I only wish I could say my own fiction is flawless by this standard.

One correction:

"Instinctively, she knows she shouldn’t step on this door lentil lest an alarm goes off."

That should be "lintel", which is a part of a door frame, not "lentil", which is a legume. But it's awful hard to step on a lintel: it's the part *above* the opening. The thing one might step on to set off an alarm is likely the threshold.

(I hope this damned thing preserves my formatting. If it all comes out as a run-together paragraph, that's not how I typed it.)

Although I know where you're coming from, I do have to disagree with you, at least partially. The reason so many alien cultures are just humans in funny suits is because that's how humans work. We anthropomorphize things, without which it would be really hard to understand. And, I know, people should be smarter and all, but they aren't and it's rather stupid to write to such a narrow audience, if you're trying to make money, anyway.

*Shakes her head disapprovingly*

In this post you have - by all means - seriously offended me.

HARRY POTTER IS COOL.

Don't go dissing him, okay? Will you just tell me whether you like the genre or not? In the summary you state that you do like fantasy, but here it seems the opposite.

Another review. Sorry. Hope it doesn't bother you so much.

Well, I've got something to say. I find I am skipping some paragraphs. Is it too much to ask if you cut down those big chunky ones? Please?

You know what, I reckon you don't even like one-tenth of the books in a library, according to your ranting and criticism.

But that's okay - same thing goes with me. Many, many, many times I have picked up a book, read the first few chapters, and returned it within twenty-four hours. The number of books I have actually completed is slowly decreasing to an all time minimum for me, as I start to realise - by going on - that all this cliche is stupid. Come on, JK Rowling can't be the only one who can come up with something so original.

Oh, god, I love you. I cannot say how much I love you - I'VE FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE WHO'S AGREED WITH ME!

The same, predictable, boring, repetitive, typical romance - the couple destined to be with each other. I would rather peel my skin than read that.

I've come across so many fantasy stories with this type of romance in it, and it puts me off totally, just when the fantasy bit of it was getting good. Argh! I hate it so much! They have it in at least a hundred movies nowadays, and don't get me started on the TWILIGHT movie - someone just bring me a bucket.

Well, thanks. :)

Hey, there. Long time reader, don't-think-I've-ever-reviewed-er. I'm usually too spineless to ever raise a word against someone with such a mastery over language and the inclination to use it mercilessly to crush author-ling egos (:P) but as I'm between classes with nothing to do, I thought I may as well comment.

I want to start by saying I totally see your central point. Alien cultures, appearances, and concepts are usually left to . . . well, aliens, and that the stereotypical fantasy race is limited to basic human qualities with minor variations in height and temperment. I don't think people should be condemned for utilizing these quasi-humans, though, and not just because I do it myself. Putting something like a hive-mind into a fantasy requires a lot of patience and planning that simply doesn't justifty the "originality for the sake of originality" mindset if the writer doesn't want to run the risk of losing interest in his or her work. Even then, *most* different races behave very similarly to humans, whether it be in sci-fi or fantasy, written by brilliant authors or hacks. Terry Pratchett's trolls are silicon based (!) but in essence are collosal, stupid, humans that can't be killed anywhere but very far offscreen (>..

This is perfect. I plan on sitting down and slapping myself a few times while I read this so that I won't do any of this stuff. This will be a great, not to mention funny, resource for me. =)