I recently attended a writing seminar, where a list was passed out, by a published fantasy writer, I am going to type it here. I think this is a much needed list for this web cite.

"Ever since J.R.R. Tolkin and C.S. Lewis created the worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia, it seems like every windbag off the street thinks he can write great, original fantasy, too. The problem is that most of this "great original fantasy: is actually poor, derivative fantasy. Frankly, we're sick of it, so we've compiled a list of rip-off tip-offs in the form of an exam. We think anymbody considering writting a fantasy novel shoudl be required to take this exam first. Answering "yes" to any one question resluts in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once.

The Exam

1) Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?

2) Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a tend pound sledge hammer but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?

3) Is your story about a crak team of warriors that take a long a bard who is useless in a fight?

4) Are you writing prequles to yur as-yet-unfinished series of books?

5) Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?

6) Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?

7) Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?

8) Is your main character a young farmhand of mysterious parentage who is heir to the thrown but doesnt know it?

9) Does a young charater come of age, gains great power, and defete the supreme badguy?

10) Is your story a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?

11) Does a character sole purpose consist of showing up at random points and dispence information?

12) Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?

13) Do any of your female characters exist solely to be rescued? Do any of your female characters exist soely to embody feminist ideals?

14) Does your novel have a prolouge impossible to understand until you've read the book?

16) Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?

17) Are the characters from the same village named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok" Or anything remotly related?

18) Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in you favoriate RPG?

19) Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?

20) Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?

21) Does anyone in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?

22) Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?

23) Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?

24) Do you not realize how much gold actually weights?

25) Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?

26) Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?

27) Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody straight through plate armor?

28) Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?

29) Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?

30) Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?

31) Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?

32) Are there different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?

33) Does your main villain pnish insignificant mistakes with death?

34) Is "common" the official language of your world?"

Now this may seem harsh, I mean there are alot of decent novels that have been published that break a couple of these rules in the last 5 years. But the truly great, best sellers? Do they break any of these rules? Keep in mind, this came from a man who is published and his publisher. So if you are even thinking about writing for a living, consider this Exam.

Thank you and have a good day. Oh and my own story is listed below

About Rebirth:

if you have any ideas about a better title dont be shy. I hate this title. I originally started writing this story because I had to have some work of fiction to turn in for a class, and the teacher didnt accept untitled work so I just slapped something on it that would work temporaraly but this has now become the working title until I find something I like better.

Also it was originally supposed to be a short story, but it sorta kept going...mostly because my teacher decided that rather than write lots of short stories I was to only work on this one, but he didnt care about chronological order so now I have alot of story fragments that I am trying to weave together...Which will be why i might not update for a while then all of a sudden I post like five chapters at once.