what pitfalls have u guys fallen into writing fantasy ?
what should people(me) watch out for when writing fantasy?
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Apr '20last reply
Apr '20- 32
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One of the biggest things I see is A) too much lore jammed into the story and B) too many POVs from characters we probably don't need to care about.
A) Too much lore -- what is the more important thing people need to understand about your story? What parts of the world should I, as a reader, know about versus other parts of the world that doesn't need to be explained. Do I need to know how that world came to be? Unless it connects to the main plot of the hero traveling to defeat the horrible dragon -- probably not. But do I need to know that history between humans and dragons are missing? Sounds likely. And even then -- I figure that side by side with the hero along the way.
B) Too many POVS -- Who are the most important characters to the story and why should I care? This happens when you get a big cast of characters and end up forgetting about half of them or trying to link them all to the task at hand. I don't need to know why the baker's son is lacking ambition if he's there for 1 scene. I do need to know why the princess wants that dragon heart if SHE is the one sending the hero out to get it.
tolkien sort of created a lot of tropes for fantasy that a plethora of authors that came after burrowed from.
some might even say he created world building which personally i think might have crippled the genre
That can depend on the story. For myself, I say more than 6 is too much. and I mean character POV as in "the character having the screen time to themselves. We're seeing things from their POV"
Because my question will always be -- "does this character need screentime? Are they important enough to add to the narrative?"
A lot of folks rightfully warn about too much world building/lore (especially if crammed into the story itself- it's totally okay to think about and develop these things without it all being explicitly being present!) but I'll offer the experience of someone on the other side of the stick, not enough world building.
A pitfall that I'm experiencing with my current comic is that the world building is rather half-baked in a lot of ways and thus I don't think I'll be continuing the series after I complete the upcoming season/arc. The reason being: I initially wrote this world simply as a vessel to tell a short one-shot and get my feet wet in webcomics, so like literally everything about the world was designed to service this specific story and I also conceptualized the whole thing in a pretty short span of time, like 2-3 weeks maybe?
But what I'm finding now as I write the next part is that there's just a lot of inconsistencies or luke-warm ideas that I imagine will only continue to stand out more the further I go. I can't help but feel as though if I had spent some more time just setting up the basic rules and concepts of this world the whole thing might feel more cohesive... but alas it was always kinda meant to be a "one and done" kind of deal lol.
So yeah, I think that's what I'll take moving forward before starting another fantasy project- even if it's for a short story- is to just spend a little more time setting up a solid foundation to build upon. I think it's still fine to explore and develop intricacies as you go- I could never be one of those authors that literally develops the entire world before getting started, I think- but you have to have solid ideas and rules in place first to make everything feel cohesive 
I totally agree with Rhonder ! Someone told me one day having a thorough lore, (even facts that are not going to appear in the story) helps a lot to avoid inconsistencies.
I don't think it's quite necessary for short stories, but for long series, it helps a lot.
And as a reader, I love lore. Not too much in one go (like Tolkien with his Shire @___@), of course, but unique lore / world can give a lot of appeal. The hardest part is building it through the whole story, or even in small details that could be ignored in a fast reading, but will reveal themselves with a second one.
Characters are still the most important I think. I don't really mind multiple POV, but some stories are more suited to it than other. The downfall side is making all of theses characters likable (in a good or bad way) for the reader. That's hard.
Be careful with what you USE in your worldbuilding. It doesn't matter how much you make, any hobby works nowadays and it's equally valid with others, but don't let it display so much in your stories that it consumes the plot and characters. No 50 page prologue detailing how the gods created the world, got betrayed by Fantasy Satan, and the various races took sides in all of it - unless it's about said gods/not-satan. Doesn't mean you can't make that story for yourself! But if it's about farmboy who learns how to shoot fireball, better to stick your plot to things getting set on fire, and making scenes that are relevant to that or the characters that get involved in it.
I like to think of it as worldbuilding is for you, the author--but not for the story. Sometimes I'll be writing a part and I'll realize "ah, my characters are just telling me, the author, what to do next by explaining my world." And that's a good sign to store that segment somewhere else and go back to writing the story.
But my advice for a fantasy comic is to limit yourself--you can keep convoluting and twisting things forever, but you do need to reign it in, or you end up with what happened to LOST and Once Upon a Time--just a complete mess that never had a good solid ending.
We'll see how things are looking in 2021 but those are my current feelings- I have loads more story ideas for the universe but I don't have as much faith in the world building recently 
Either way gonna try and knock S2 out of the park~
