The main character has a vision... The dark lord is beet-red faced on the toilet, swearing to kill everyone at the protagonist's town because he had bad food from there.
The main character enters the magical store in town... He immediately notices a glowing long sword. He thought of the legends about the Hero everyone talks about and then asks the manager about it. Turns out the Hero's alive and that's a defective sword capable of glowing and dealing no damage whatsoever.
The main character receives an invitation to a magical school... It's a public school without fundings that only teaches stuff with books 150 years old with outdated or useless magic tricks for parties.
I love that in the books of Magnus Chase, by Rick Riordan, there is a glowing magical sword that at the same time is the side-kick and comic relief in most of the story
My favorite way to use the DEM store is to give them incredibly powerful artifacts/potions, but then use them in moderately inconvenient places. For example, say you purchase a potion that can heal any injury or bring someone back from the brink of death. So you travel on horseback with your party, when a horse gallops into a pothole destroying its leg and throwing its rider. After realizing that the rider is okay, the party decides to heal the horse with the potion so that they can continue on their journey. Wait about a hundred pages and then get the party into a fight, have a character mortally wounded and laying on the ground gasping for their last breathes. The party are all gathered over him crying and saying he'll be okay. Someone who forgets about healing the horse starts screaming for the potion (preferably the lover of the wounded person) when she's reminded that the potion was used on her horse, she screams in anguish. Knowing that healing her horse, essentially cost her lover his life. You make the party pay for using OP gear in a non life threatening time. It punishes your character's and distresses the audience. Win-win.
Or have them not use the OP gadget at that earlier time, coming off as a callous bastard who's just doing what will be for the best down the line. Only to later find that they didn't need to use it/it wouldn't be useful to dispatch the big bad anyway.
I don't mind the healing potion thing, I just wish it wouldn't be a "cure all the wounds" potion. I'd be quite happy to have potions that would allow us to not worry about things like infection or other medical complications while still leaving them injured. Magical schools wouldn't bother me if they didn't all feel so similar. Like, where are the night classes held in a draughty church hall because the elders couldn't afford a fully decked out castle? I've always liked magic shops with shifty keepers,people who you aren't sure if you should be trusting or not. I used to read a lot of fantasy gamebooks and they'd be full of interesting and varied shops with weird and wonderful stuff but sometimes had owners that either wanted to rip you off or would sell you stuff that may or may not contain some horrid black magic or curse.
Another way to use healing is to give both sides OP healing powers. This way, they can fight by inflicting mortal wounds while still having really long fights. An alternative to healing is also super strong bodies cause magic. One scene from Tower of God (kept vague to avoid spoilers) is when an antagonist that is next to invincible got a massive wound from an absurdly powerful attack from a side protagonist but the antagonist still wins anyway and walks normally with the huge wound. Not even strong attacks can hurt him so this is a pretty dramatic moment. Then antagonist appears before the MC who is still learning and hasn't reached his full potential and yet he still manages to wound the antagonist using an attack that no normal person can do that is still unrefined. This shows that MC's abilities still have room to develop to avoid powercreeping because the power gap between the weakest and strongest character is too big to imagine without dramatic moments to highlight the potential to get stronger.
Yeah plus Hodor is never shown to be all that strong but hagrid fought giants(even though he lost) he held his own and didn’t die. Hodor got overrun by skeletons. I personally like Hodor more but I think hagrid would win. This should be a death battle though hey
Instead of a kind giant, which I always adore and would die for, make him have a ton of scars and or have scary armour and are terrifying to watch on the battlefield with a demonic voice, but then cares for a baby bird that fell out of it's nest. 😍
Really enjoyed this and I think you actually managed to touch on a lot of Fantasy cliches that are very present but not often discussed. Nice video as always.
Love your stuff man ! Could you make a tips video in regards to improving your prose? (how to set a theme, how to write beautiful sentences etc, that kinda stuff) and if you don't want to, fuck it, just keep doing what you're doing.
I can definitely do that! I have a few writing tip videos planned, but that's something big I've been trying to improve on recently so a video would be natural
How about a magical glowing teapot. It makes excellent tea, and you can always find it in the dark. 😁 You still need to add all the normal ingredients to the teapot, and could come with a simple instruction manual for all those who have never made tea before.
Hagrid without his magic against Hodor, and as long as bran don't take control of Hodor or Hagrid, I would place my bet on Hagrid as he would just out smart Hodor. I think Hagrid would just find a way to safely incapacitate Hodor without hurting him.
@@Carbon2861996 😁 My husband is a coffee drinker, so if both the magic coffee pot and magic teapot ever come to exist jointly in a world, they best have a different coloured glow. The horror of using the wrong vessel late at night could be disastrous. 😂
Great tips! I'd call it the "plot device store" rather than the "deus ex machina store" though. Solving a problem with a pre established possibility is the opposite of a deus ex machina. The plot device store is still a cliche trope nevertheless.
Its crazy to think, so many stories have already been told in the fantasy genre its so hard to be original. I was scared my plot was too similar to LOTR, but after plot editing and youe helpful videos.. I am finally good!
I recently started plotting a magical academy type of book, and after skimming through some other books of that type (I wouldn't call it trope or cliché at this point, it's become almost a genre by now. There are SO MANY of those) of book I came to one conclusion about the bully figure: There are two major types of writers, allegedly, out there: 1. Those who never have been bullied (or probably had been the bully) and now try to add one to make it more intresting for the reader. Problem here is that they always write out of the perspective of the victim. In most of those cases the bully is believable, but the reactions of the hero are not (I read one particular book by a German self-publisher that is extremly guilty of this). 2. The author has been bullied themselves but never healed from it. This kind produces extremly believable heroes, but almost comically bad bullies (the type you described). This doesn't mean that there aren't good examples of this character type out there. I actually enjoy Draco Malfoy and his henchman for this (his turn to the evil side wasn't because he lost fame against Harry, moreso because his own family was already involved with Voldemort, which makes it all a bit more believable). For my YA books in the making (said magical academy and also a book about a horse farm and especially the bullying between teen girls) I will try to hold it as close to my own experiences (on both ends, because this can also happen!) as possible. To try and make more realistic relationships. Like, in middle school the girl that bullied me the most left class a year later. We still saw each other on school grounds, but due to not being in the same class and so the same social group anymore, the bullying just faded out over the span of another year and we came to fully ignore each other. Just as an example. Doesn't work as well in a boarding school environment, of course. But for a more open setting this would be one idea to consider.
I'm not exactly against your ideas of turning the clićhes around a bit or completely eliminating them... But you do realize that it's kinda hard to eliminate all the clićhes you've mentioned, all together, from a Fantasy Story. It's not impossible, but IT IS HARD. I enjoyed your video though! Please make more of these clićhe types so that more readers and writers may understand the importance of writing their stories a bit better! 🤗😎
Hagrid wins, no question. He spends his life wrestling strong, giant creatures. Hodor gains his strength carrying around an underfed child. No contest.
This is awesome. There are more cliches. I am good at avoiding most of them. I don't dabble with items much. So there are no shops or healing potions. I may do this in a game, but it won't trickle down to the story. I do have an easy way around this. A hero is only allowed to by potions or other items that is about as powerful as they are. In video games, this can be a matter of making the items unusable. An in story explanation is that the magical items are dangerous in the wrong hands. So shop keepers control their merchandise. Heck they can control their merchandise of swords, arrows, bows, shields and other weapons. It is the fantasy version of gun control. Maybe they can control armor the same way. It could be about not only a character's strength but what fighting style they have. So only warriors can buy swords and shields, because they got proper training for that. Only hunters can buys bows and arrows. That would be interesting. If I get really carried away, the shop keeper would refuse to sell leather clothes to mages and priests. Maybe it is a special dangerous kind of leather. The shopkeeper would gladly sell cloth robes to such customers instead. The squishy nature of cloth makes it nice and soft and safe. The one benefit to being a mage and priest is that only they are allowed to buy wands and staffs. Only they can handle such magically potent items. Cloth may sound nice for the body. However the tougher cloth is still dangerous. So only the more experienced and powerful mages and priests can wear them. Healing potions can easily be controlled the same way. There can be different potencys of potions. More potent potion have more healing effects, but also require the patient to be stronger. If you want even more exclusivity, one can get witches involved. Witches are healers first and foremost. So when a character get hurt or sick. They have to make a rough journey to find the nearest witch. The witch would examine them and brew a healing potion for them. Maybe some witches get a lot of customers, so they use a more efficient method. They write special notes to shop keepers. They explain who the customer is and exactly what kind of healing potion is required. Then the character gives the note to the shopkeeper. Only then are they allowed to get healing potions, and they only get the kind in the not. It is like a perscription. There may be over-the-counter healing potions, but they would be weaker. The character does have to pay money to the witch for her service and the shopkeeper for the potion. I have fantasy. So there are no scientist. Therefore I easily avoid mad scientist. I think this cliche is a better fit for the sci fi and horror tropes. I use magic. So there are not glowing swords. It would be cool if a magician used an athame in a fantasy story. That would give a refreshing spin on magical items. I am glad that you used the word Maguffin. I found it strangly missing in the first video. You have been learning. The only example of a magical achademy I have seen is Harry Potter. This series is a big hit, and I am a big fan. However it is new. There may be knockoffs, but I don't think it is quite as ingrained in the genre as the Tolkein formula. I don't really use this cliche. There are magic schools in my world. However they don't get as much focus. I combine the best of both worlds. My protagonist, Luspear, explores the wide open world and has adventures. That is like Lord of the Rings. Luspear also learns a lot of magic on the way. This is like Harry Potter. You did describe a cliche within of the school bully. I think that is totally Draco Malfoy. Maybe there can be other conventions that can come up. There could be a house system in the school. There can be magical sports, especially ones involving brooms and balls. There can be a hero who lives in a suburban mundane home and learns that they are a magician. There can be discrimination amoung wizards based on blood purity. There can be a dark lord villain obsessed with immortality. There can be an old bearded guy, who is the leader of the school. I could go on. If this really catches on, we can call it the Rowling formula. I tend to avoid exposition dreams. A easy work around is to have the hero be involved with a variety of events. So they have good knowlage in a more organic way. It would be refreshing to have the hero sneek on the evil minions and evesdrop the meetings. Then they can learn about what the big bad is up to. The animal sidekick is one that is really irritating. Disney alone has done this to death. Stop already. Moana is one of my favorite Disney movies. However my one nitpick is the stupid pig and the even stupider chicken. This trope is not done well very often. It is where the the relationship between human and animal is focused on and fleshed out. Examples of this are Pokemon, How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo and Stitch, Digimon and Free Willy. Even the titles of all these stories refer to the animal sidekicks. I like your idea of going beyond cats. Owls are also overused. Ironically, owls are dumb in real life. So they won't make good assistants. They have lousy nearsighted vision, so they would make lousy delivery birds. It would be great to hae a different bird for a change. I would like to have crows and ravens. They are actually intellegent birds. They have a bad reputation, but there is so much more to them. Even pidgins would be cool. They are used in psychology experiments. In classic experiments, they are shown to be smart enough to learn through operant conditioning. Pigeons are also amazing at navigation so they are useful for deliveries. If would be cool for a magician to have a magical intellegent pigeon as a companion. The pigeon can even deliver the mail. Heck pidegeons even sound like owls. The magician can even have thier pigeon have an eery call. "Coo!" I didn't know that giant thing was a cliche. Whoops. I have just made a character like this. It is Angel in my story Behind the Mask. Angel looks ugly and scary. However he is a really sweet and gentile guy. Angel is not a giant. He is a regular man with a really bad burn scar on his face. He is called the phantom of the studio. Angel is a musician. He works in a recording studio and lives in a home beneath it underground. I am not sure whether phantoms count under this cliche. I did make my own twist, by having my phantom get the girl in the end. By the way Hagrid would win in a fight over Hodor.
I have five other fantasy cliches for you. One is the polarized morality. The battle between good and evil has been done to death. I get so sick of it. There is the pure good guys that are beautiful and wear white. There is the pure evil guys that are ugly and wear black. The biggest example is Christian Bible stories. There are whole supernatural beings and whole realms devoted to good and evil. Lord of the Rings has this too. That was repeated ad nausium in fantasy. I think it carried over because Tolkein was a Catholic. So he applied Christian morality to his fantasy world. The conflict between Illuvitar and Melkor in the Simirillian is as subtle as a train wreck. Good grief. It is better to have gray morality. It is more realistic and interesting. I subvert this. I set things up by having the Light Lord as the good guy and the Dark Lord as the bad guy. Then I reveal that they are gray characters. The Light Lord has potential for evil, while the Dark Lord has a potential for good. One thing both have in common is magic. I recently imagined that they can nite to a magic faction. Then they are opposed by a nonmagic faction. Magic can be used for good or evil. So the magic vs non-magic fight can be incredibly gray. I like that. Two is Medieval Europe clone. Fantasy settings often resemble Medeval Europe, even though they technically are magical after a while. It gets tiring and boring after a while. One should do something different. I did come up with two ways around it. One is to have a magical world expand to include places like all the continents fo the world, not just Europe. World of Warcraft does this too, and it is amazing. This is an aversion. Another is to subvert things. I start out in a Medeval fantasy world. Then the world has a renaissance. They have access to a rich new group of ideas and magic. I think this would make for a great story idea. The Renaissance is one of my favorite events in history. A fantasy version of this would be awesome. I consider these first two tropes to be major cliches in the fantasy genre. Three is the Merlin clone. This is an old wizard in a grey or white beard who becomes a mentor for the hero. He often dies in the story. The main example is Merlin from Arthurian legend. He is the one that all the others follow. There are other character that are just like Merlin. There is Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. There is Dumbledore from Harry Potter. Obi Wan Kenobi from Sta Wars is a lot like this too. He doe have a difference in being a Jedi and having a short beard. It is reasonable to have a mentor, but they doesn't have to look the same way all the time. I do avert this. Soram is the deuteragoginist of my story. He is a complex mix sidekick, love interest, mentor and protagonist. A Merlin clone simply won't work for this guy. Soram is wise and an expert in magic. So that makes him work as a mentor. He is also a love interest. So he is young and good looking to make that work. He has long brown hair and absolutely no facial hair at all. The mix of wise and young seems odd. However it can work. I just make Soram a prodigy of magic. Magicians are often depicted as being old. Younger ones are a refreshing. Having a prodigy magician is a fresh new idea. There are prodigies in real life even if they are rare. There are little kids that are really good at some academic topic like math or music. I noticed that in real life there seems to be some tradeoff between being good at academics and being good at socializing. I experience this myself. I an brilliant at academics, but I suck at socializing. I did add this reality to Soram. He is not great at socializing. He prefers to keep to himself and be solitary. When he accidentally performed harmful magic as the Dark Lord, people hated him. Part of this hatred was a misunderstanding. Soram does have the animus archetype. Having a mix of love interest and mentor helps with that role. Four is the weak princess. Princesses are used a lot in fantasy. They do have a lot of appeal in how beautiful and glamorous they are. However the stereotype of the princess is overused. It is sexist. The princess tends to be overly weak an girly. They often take the role of damsel in distress, which is one of my most hated tropes. The biggest example of the princess is Disney Princess. The early princesses follow this cliche. They are Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora. Later on the feminism creeped in. So the princesses retain the glamourous appeal, but they are also strong. Mulan and Merida are great examples of this. This is a refreshing change from the princess stereotype. I have Luspear like this. She is a princess, but she is also strong. She has adventures and fights in battles. She is a tomboy. So unlike the stereotypical princesses, she isn't very girly. Five is the evil dragon. Dragons are my favorite fantasy creature, but they have fallen under a stereotype. Dragons are evil. They horde gold and capture princesses. They also raid villages from time to time. Dragons are just evil. This has been done to death. I wonder if Smaug from the Hobbit had a lot to do with the cliche getting used in modern fantasy. I like horses in fantasy too. You already covered the horse stereotype in the first fantasy cliche video. A real horse could look at the fantasy horse sterotype and call it a Mary Sue. I like to have a dragon be a good guy for a change. Having a gray morality would make for a better character. Asian dragons are a good example. They are benevelent. The best example of nicer dragons is How to Train Your Dragon. It is an amaing movie. One of the things that really impressed me is the subversion of the dragon stereotype. It is an important part of the plot and it was so incredibly moving. There are other examples. Another Dreamworks movie, Shrek has a subverted Dragon charcter. Eragon introduced to me the concept of dragon riding. I really got into it. I got my own verion. Soram is misunderstood. So a good animal for him is the dragon. He looks scarier that way. He is both a dragon and a Dark Lord. Both are stereotyped to be evil. I like to subvert it and make a character good. I am tired of the cliche of the dragon capturing and trying to eat the princess. So I make the strong princess be a dragon rider. Riding a huge powerful beast would make the princess be so much more formidable. Luspear first meets Soram at the beginning of the story. She first sees him in dragon form. So Luspear rides Soram as he flies through the sky. I have seen dragon riders done at least a few times. So I take the dragon subversion even further. Not only is that dragon a friend, but he could also be a lover. It is really wierd but I like it. Luspear soon finds out that Soram's true form is actually a man, and a very attractive one at that. So eventually Luspear and Soram get all romantic and lovey dovey. It is like Beauty and the Beast but with a dragon. I have been sketching dragon Soram and redesigning him. It is challenging, but I have even found ways to make a dragon more attractive. It helps to make him more snake-like. Interestingly Game of Thrones is good at going against all five of these tropes. There is lots of gray morality among characters. So the polarized morality goes right out the window. There is a Medeval Europeon setting. However there is a refreshing spin. The story shows the harsh and brutal reality of this setting, despite being in a fantasy world. There is no character that resemble Merlin. The closest is the maesters, but they don't look like him. Danerys is a princess, but a strong one. There are dragons but nice ones. Danerys actually rides the dragons. She is actually my favorite character, because she reminds me of Luspear. The similarities are coincidental though. Game of Thrones even has ravens as animal companoins and messengers. Bran especially is really into ravens. He is intellegent, but he isn't creepy. This is a refreshing and realistic take on the raven.
Story I'm writing has thirteen glowy weapons. The reason they glow is because they are made and enchanted by the settings deities, where as things enchanted by mortals don't glow (unless specifically enchanted to do so). The glowy weapons are also restricted to summoned Heroes (none of which are a 'That Hero' ... they're all just regular teens to went to the same school, the guys are like 'WOO! Adventure!' while most of the girls just want to go home).
A good wirter reads, or has audio books or at least watches dramma TV. You cannot get by as a writer with out it. It enriches, you, The best thng I ever did was join a writers group, full of amazing writers. And I listen to thier work and get feedback from them; from them listening to mine.
@@mariabyrne7222 I'm sure you mean well but I can't get over the fact that you automatically assume I'm a bad writer and that I know absolutely nothing about story building. It's quite a leap to assume that I don't watch TV as well. I'm quite well versed in tropes used in film and television, but book tropes are always slightly different. They are different media after all, with completely different pacing and formats. Therefor videos like this are useful for me to see what is happening in Bookland without having to spend a lot of time reading. If you're interested, you can go over to my channel and check out my video about this topic. I covered it a few months ago.
I personally don't think magical academies are bad. It kinda depends on the execution, but if there is something cool like magic, people will research it, therefore there will be an academy, where its taught. The problem is more that academies are used for every skill/trait by now, like you said with greek gods or assassins. Assassins won't have a f'n academy, nor will greek gods.
The Redwall novels had an interesting twist in the "Exposition dreams" trope. Typically whenever a character had them it was framed as the dreams were actually the spirit of Martin the Warrior (Redwall Abbey's long-dead champion) communicating with them.
Fun Fact! The "academy/school" cliche has infected other genres as well! Taking "asshole rival becomes asshole villain" with it! Be careful out there, writers...we're watching you....
With the deux ex machina store and similar things I see I only like it if the objects are used in a story more than once, like maybe once in the middle of the story and then another time at the climax.
Ooh! I like that idea. James Potter may seem like a great guy, but he did bully Severus Snape. That is in the backstory of the Harry Potter series. Harry's parents are Lily and James Potter. The past bullying does explain why Snape has a dislike for Harry. He does like Lily though. Harry looks a lot more like James than he does Lily. That doesn't help him be appealing to Snape.
For healing I make it so it’s as much pain to use it as it did to get hurt but all at once. This means no one can use it with serious injuries since they’ll die from the shock of so much pain. It also keeps people with minor injuries from using it bc the consequences aren’t worth it.
I think the potion thing could actually be humorized over it being a typical thing, in actuality they are much more complicated or more rare. I imagine the MC asking , after being hurt or one of their buds is hurt, 'hey you got one of those healing potions that can heal me/my bud?' and the response would be ' easier said than done/ don't have the ingredients.'
I had an idea about elaborating on Excalibur by making a dude go get it to kill a evil sourcer as the weapon is given to him by God himself and it is the only one to be used to kill darkness, then I realized that The Legend of Zelda (which is also based off of Arthurian legend) did the same thing.. A sword made by a God that can be used to fight more powerful things.. What should I do?
In terms of healing potions I think ability to come back from the dead should be mentioned. I have two characters who have been captured, the main villain orders for them to be killed. However one of the villains workers is actually secretly working against them and instead gives them a potion which doesn't kill them. Instead it makes the body appear dead and the characters are able to chose themselves if they want to ever wake up, should they chose not to and they truly die. All the characters - including the two who have been given the potion believe they are dying/dead until they wake up. So it's kind of like the readers are led to think they are dead until they wake up. The characters also think they are in some kind of afterlife after waking up.
In my fantasy world, there are schools for magic. BUT, you need money to get in there. They don't teach you for free. XD You could get lucky and get taken in by a temple to the god of magic of course, but that's not very likely. They normally aren't free either.
Eh! That Lovable Giant trope is cheap in my opinion. Let's face facts: There are more creative ways to subvert expectations and challenge flawed perceptions. One of my less expected favorites is a character that appears quite despicable, but everything they do is to get a moment of peace from an overbearing character that they can't rid themselves of and won't shut up otherwise. Imagine if that method of gaining peace is further twisted by personal details; good or bad. Honestly, a pure reason that has been perverted for the sake of perceived self-preservation is more profound in my opinion. It ain't right, but it makes a creepy form of sense. One story idea involves magic, so healing magic is a thing. It has caveats to it, but it is a thing. Potions, however, aren't included. That's just unnecessary filler. My main idea, thankfully, doesn't have such a school. I like the idea of characters that teach themselves everything they know with few exceptions. The annoying thing about schools is that they tend to come with excess BS that you will NEVER use. However, a character that learns as they go will use everything they know. I love that ever so much more. As for visions/dreams, what about a few short dreams (like one or two) to give a snippet of backstory so that some things make sense or tease the reader with details to setup the story?
I can't really believe people still use these, and most of the cliches you've mentioned in other videos appear to me to be lazy writing. Creativity is a requirement, and some of the cliches that have come up would seem to be either a lack of experience, or could be put down to laziness. More or less, I find most of the time when this comes up, it's normally a serious lack of experience and practice. I believe creativity is a skill, not necessarily an innate mental gift. Developing any skill requires effort and time, and if it's not priority one to practice said skill, the material will always be stale. Otherwise, the facts are apparent that if anyone uses these in any serious publication, I'd immediately disregard the work. It's not rude on my part, but I feel reading should be a pleasure, and not something to cringe at.
I think some of these fantasy cliches come from role-playing computer game mechanics (the healing potions and deus ex machina store for definite!) Which might explain why a lot of them are recent cliches - like, only exploding in the last thirty years or so. I'll even go as far as to say there are probably fantasy writers out there (not the majority, but certainly a goodly amount,) who've read very little fantasy fiction, but played A TON of computer RPGs, and consequently imagine that's how the fantasy genre works.
What if your dark lord is just an average dude just raised to use the dark side, he's not naturally evil, that's just what the protagonists view him as
Okay how tf do you booktube/authortube people read so much, I consider myself an avid reader, but I get on booktube and I look like a small child colouring outside the lines 🤷 Very nice video though(: Edit: Hodor for the win
