I am a firm believer that the first step toward mastery is education. I like to gather all of the information I can about a new task in order to learn all about it.

I find this technique has two benefits. First, it gives me a good understanding of how to do that task properly, and all the history of how it has done before. Second, and I feel more importantly, when I know all there is to know about a subject I know how to break the rules properly and bend them to my needs.

That’s why it’s important for me to know WHAT the cliches in fantasy are, so that I can avoid or incorporate them as needed.

I scoured the intertubez, forums, and blogs for the most overused cliches in the fantasy genre. I took a tally of how often a particular gripe popped up, and ranked them. The result is this post.

Enjoy.

So what is a cliché?

Simply, a cliché is something that is SO overused that it shows a complete lack of originality on the part of the author. The thing with cliches in genre writing (like fantasy) is that while most cliches should be avoided, some are used so much that they’re almost expected.

The first step to being able to make the decision on whether to avoid or exploit cliché is the understand what the common cliches are.

That’s the goal of this series. I’ve done the legwork of gathering the most common fantasy cliches as ranked throughout various sites and forums and I’m going to share it with you. What works, what doesn’t, what to exploit, and what to avoid.

Fantasy Cliche #10: Prologues

Prologues pop up a lot on peoples’ most hated cliches lists. A prologue is a (hopefully) brief section before the beginning of a story proper that explains how the world got to its current state.

And it’s pretty much a complete cop out.

What a prologue usually is, in practice, is a way for an author to show off the world they’ve created ahead of time. They’re usually exposition heavy and completely devoid of any real action. I challenge you to provide an example of a prologue that actually adds anything to the main story. I’ll wait.

In general you want a story to grab the reader early and drag them into the world you’ve created. Does an entire chapter devoted to world history sound like a very effective way to make that happen?

Don’t get me wrong – if the information in your prologue is necessary to the story then it absolutely should be included in the story. Rather than including it in a big chunk in the beginning, however, consider spreading it around through bits of dialogue and scene descriptions. This will USUALLY lead to a tighter narrative than including a big, clunky prologue up front.

And it’s almost guaranteed to keep the reader more interested.

If you’re hell bent on writing a prologue, there are two ways to handle it effectively.

First, consider setting the prologue up with completely different characters than your main story. The events these “expendable” characters go through could be used to foreshadow the big bad that your main characters will face in the story proper. The movie industry uses this trick a lot, because it’s a damn effective narrative trick.

The second option is to spin the prologue out into a completely separate work. I know, I know…I said I’d give you two ways to include a prologue in your original book, and this is about the opposite of that. But here me out. If your prologue could stand as it’s own short story (or even be revved up into a full novel) then I would argue that’s exactly what you SHOULD do. This trick is full of win:

You get to write out the information that you wanted to include in the original prologue.

Your original story isn’t weighed down by the prologue – the reader gets right into the action.

You get an additional, separate work to add to your catalog. This can be leveraged into all kinds of things – free giveaways, opt-in bonuses for your email list, lead generation with the big bookstores…

Either way you go, one final thing to consider: a lot of readers completely ignore prologues. The cliché has been so overused in ALL genres of fiction that hardcore fans have come to expect the prologue to be essentially useless. If your going the traditional publishing route, agents and editors will almost universally request you remove the prologue.

Fantasy Cliche #9: Prophecy/The Chosen One

A prophesy is given in ancient times that one and only one person can slay the dragon/retrieve the sword/save the world. That person is born, learns of their destiny, and sets out on the quest that only they can complete.

The idea of a prophesied messiah or chosen one has shown up in human literature for thousands of years. That prevalence makes it one of the most used cliches in history.

Just take a minute and think of the number of times you’ve read a book/seen a movie with a chosen one…

Neo in The Matrix.

Richard in the Sword of Truth series.

Paul from Dune.

…and about six billion other stories throughout human history.

The Prophesy/Chosen One cliché pops up A LOT on forums as one of the genres most annoying cliches, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. When it comes to fantasy, especially, the chosen one is used so often its almost expected. It may be best to face the cliché head on and move on with your story.

Or, if you’re like George R.R. Martin, you could turn the cliché on its head. A Song of Ice and Fire (the books that HBO based A Game Of Thrones on) has a chosen one, a prophesied reincarnated hero. The thing is, there are quite a few characters in the series that believe that they are the chosen one. No one really knows for sure.

George R.R. Martin wasn’t the first to come up with the multiple chosen one idea, either. There was an entire plot line in the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer devoted to “potential” slayers. A bunch of girls that could inherit the slayer title and in the end SPOILER ALERT they all became slayers.

A lot of cliches become cliches simply because they work. The chosen one cliché is one of those. It’s overused for good reason and to good effect. If you MUST include a chosen one in your work, just bear in mind that you’re opening you are skirting the edges of cliché.

And if you’re going to do it, own it.

Fantasy Cliche #8: Bad Fights

As I gathered the information for this list of cliches `bad fights’ popped up in two distinct forms. I’ve decided to lump them together under one cliché, but in two separate sections.

First up, a `one on one’ fight or an individual battle. The cliched element that people complain about in the small scale battles is that, in a lot of cases, they’re just not believable.

Take a standard fantasy sword fight. A lot of authors include at least one in a high fantasy book. Two opponents enter into an epic sword duel. They fight back and forth for hours, swinging, dodging, and blocking the others attacks. Finally the superiority of one opponent is proven as they strike a decisive (and most of the time the ONLY) blow.

The complaint that readers have with this cliché, and the reason it made this list, is that it’s just not very realistic.

For one, swords are damn heavy. One of the lightest swords, the rapier, averages better than two pounds. It may not sound like much, but imagine swinging a 4 foot long, 2 pound pipe around from dusk ’til dawn. Add the effort of just swinging the thing to dodging your opponent and the constant impacts of blocking their blows, not to mention the mental focus that duelling requires, and even the most conditioned athlete would tire relatively quickly.

Second, even the BEST sometimes screw up. I’ve seen countless battles in fantasy novels where either the hero goes completely untouched by a horde of enemies. Or duels where BOTH opponents fight for hours with neither missing a step. Everyone misses once in a while.

Keeping those issues in mind we ARE dealing with fantasy here. It may be that some element of your fantasy world allows those things to happen. Maybe your hero has a helmet of +5 stamina (PLEASE don’t use that in your fiction…you’ll thank me) that allows him to battle all day without growing tired.

Just keep those elements in mind when writing small scale battles and duels.

The second cliché that I lumped under `bad fights’ is how full scale wars are depicted. There are quite a few fantasy novels set in a period of perpetual war. I’ve read some where the entire world has been at war for centuries and the effect of endless warfare on the general population has been exactly nothing. Zero. Nada.

Beware using war ONLY as a plot device. War is hell. Innocent people suffer. Resources are diverted from the population to keep the armies fighting. In a lot of real world cases the army conscripts (forces) young people to fight.

Yet most often in fantasy the war is a far off thing that people barely notice.

Please, please, PLEASE consider the effect a full scale war would have on the rest of the fantasy world. Readers will definitely appreciate it.

Fantasy Cliche #7: Homogenous Races

I’d be hard pressed to discount the effect that The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit had on the fantasy genre. So great is J.R.R. Tolkien’s influence that he can be credited as single handedly creating several of the cliches on this “best of” list.

Most prominent is probably the cliche of homogenous races; that each member of the race look alike and act alike.

Elves are all tall with fair skin and blonde hair. They are noble, always taking right action. They commune with nature and are morally superior to other races.

Dwarves are short and hairy. They love living underground and have a gruff exterior. They share a dislike of other people.

Take a look around the real world, is there ANY race where every member is exactly the same?

Members of a given race may have similar physical traits. They may even pre-disposed to similar behavioral traits. But no two people are exactly the same. Everyone has their own hopes, dreams, ambitions, and personality.

Fantasy Cliche #6: Convenient Plot Points

Fantasy authors deal in fiction that is full of unbelievable elements. Magic, gods, dragons…all mystical plot elements that pull together to form a narrative that readers can relate to. With all the fantastical elements that fantasy authors deal with, it’s relatively easy to flip the easy button within a story, have a character whip out the absolute perfect magic spell for the situation, and suddenly get him/herself out of trouble.

One of the best examples I know of a convenient plot point comes from the long running British television series Doctor Who: the sonic screwdriver. If you’ve never seen Doctor Who, the sonic screwdriver is a device with a TON of uses. It can open locks, hack computer systems, in one episode of the revised series it even reattaches barb wire.

In the original series the sonic screwdriver became like a magic key. No matter what situation the Doctor found himself in, the screwdriver could get him out. It became almost impossible to put the Doctor in a situation that the screw driver couldn’t get him out of.

It became such a cop out for the writers that the show runners at the time made the edict that they could no longer use the sonic screwdriver AT ALL. The Sixth Doctor was completely screwdriver-less.

Does this mean that we absolutely can’t use magical, mystical, or science based objects and talents to help our characters, and our plot, along? Absolutely not.

We just need to be careful of overly convenient plot elements. If the hero, who has never practiced magic a day in his life, is stuck in a dungeon he can’t suddenly come up with a spell to open the door.

This cliché is easy to avoid, but it does take some pre-planning. Worldbuilding should include some consideration for the rules of magic (fantasy) or technology (sci-fi). As long as the characters consistently abide by the rules the tale will be all the more believable.

Fantasy Cliche #5: Bad Spellings/Languages

This one comes up A LOT. So much in fact that I was surprised that it only ranked #5 on this list when I tallied my results. I know it’s a personal pet peeve of mine…

First up, spelling. Proper names are ALWAYS pronounceable. Always.

Mxyzptlk might be an amusing name for a Superman villain, but using a completely unpronounceable name like that in prose WILL cause your reader to pause and try to figure it out. When your reader pauses they disengage from the story and you have to work twice as hard to win them back. Make sure names (people AND places) can be pronounced.

When in doubt I use Behind The Name. It’s a GREAT site dedicated to names, their variations in different cultures/languages, and their meanings. Especially useful if your fantasy cultures are based on real world civilizations.

As far as made up languages go, we have J.R.R. Tolkien to thank again. Tolkien was a philologist before he was an author. The man’s job was to study languages, their construction, and their usage. He was an expert on language and it shows in that he created around 30 complete languages for the LOTR world.

Unless your name is J.R.R. Tolkien, DO NOT try to invent a language. Hell, even IF your name is J.R.R. Tolkien do not try to invent a language.

You. Are. Not. Tolkien.

Even if you are a philologist, odds are pretty good that your readers aren’t. They don’t care that the tribes from west of the river conjugate a perfect tense, while the eastern tribes don’t.

If you DO develop a language to that extent you end up with two possibilities: putting it in the main text of your story and putting a reader to sleep, or including it in appendices (like Tolkien) which 90% of your readers will never bother to read.

Beyond not inventing entire languages I would caution against even inventing words. For instance, if a character sees a rabbit, call it a rabbit, not a blark. That type of thing will launch a reader right out of your story and leave them scratching their heads.

In fantasy we’re dealing with made up worlds. In any world, ours included, there is no such thing as a single, unifying language. You SHOULD have characters from different places speaking different languages. So how do I expect you to deal with different languages if I’m telling you NOT to invent a language?

Easy. Leave it up to the reader. Something like this:

“I would like a glass of water,” she said in her native tongue.

There’s not a single made up word in that sentence, and yet the reader knows `she’ isn’t speaking the same language as the viewpoint character. It’s up to the reader’s imagination what that language sounds like. And the more a reader has to use their imagination, the more engaged they will be with your story.

Fantasy Cliche #4: Magic Without Limits

Even for a true pantser, world building is a crucial part of the writing process. As I mentioned in cliché #6, Convenient Plot Points, world building can help keep you consistent which, in turn, will help build a believable yet fantastic world. The same care during world building can help a fantasy author avoid this cliche.

I scratched my head with this one, not because I don’t know how to describe it but because so many authors actually avoid this one it was hard to find an example. I had to turn to one of my favorite TV shows when I was younger: Dragonball Z.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Within the story of Dragonball Z there is a mythical being known as a Super Saiyan. In the DBZ mythology only one super Saiyan has ever existed, and then he was only able to obtain that level of power using a very specific set of circumstances.

The hero of the story, Goku, becomes a super Saiyan during a battle with an enemy who is described as the most powerful being in the universe. Goku, as super Saiyan, handles the bad guy easily. But then an even bigger bad shows up. Goku is outmatched, so naturally he does the next logical thing – becomes a super Saiyan level 2. Eventually level 2 isn’t powerful enough, so Goku becomes level 3. That’s STILL not powerful enough, so he merges with other characters to combine their power.

DC Comics ran into the same problem with Superman through the 60’s and 70’s. Superman’s powers kept increasing in strength so that he would come out on top over whoever the baddie of the week happened to be. Superman’s powers had grown so out of control that DC completely rebooted all of it’s comics in order to reset to a more reasonable level.

In both cases a poorly defined world allowed the writers to write themselves into a corner. The only way to move the story along was to increase the power levels involved. It’s really the fans that suffer from this kind of thing; it’s not much fun rooting for someone you know will come out on top just by eating more spinach.

This is where your world building comes in.

Give thought to the origins of magic, its costs, and its limits.

Describe your characters superpowers in detail – how high can he jump? How fast can he fly?

Set rules for your world THEN STICK TO THEM.

Fantasy Cliche #3: It’s A Man’s World

This cliché is actually a summary of a couple of different cliches that all deal with how women are treated in fantasy stories. There aren’t a lot of female primary characters in fantasy, and even fewer BELIEVEABLE female primary characters.

It popped up so often during my searches that it managed to rank number 3 on this list.

And I have to say that personally I don’t necessarily see this as a problem. A LOT of actual human civilizations in the past were male dominated. The Art of Manliness” did an awesome series of posts on exactly WHY societies tend to be male dominated, but in a nutshell: men are expendable.

(I highly recommend clicking over to theartofmanliness.com to check out that series of articles. It’s well researched and well stated.)

So, if your fantasy world is based on any of the major societies throughout history you have a pretty good chance that it will end up being male-centric. That doesn’t mean you can just ignore women completely, but you should have a very clear idea of how women would be treated in your fictional society.

At the same time, remember to keep your female characters believeable within the confines of your fictional world. Remember #7 – no group of people is completely homogenous. Even a male dominated society can have strong female members.

While I don’t have any strong advice on how to avoid or exploit this cliché, just know that how you handle female characters can have a huge impact on how your readers react to the story.

Fantasy Cliche #2: Pure Good/Pure Evil

This is the Dark Lord syndrome, where the main bad guy is only evil for the love of being evil. Think Sauron in The Lord of the Rings or Darken Rahl in Wizard’s First Rule.

A similar condition exists when the main character is completely morally virtuous, where every decision they make is strictly for the sake of the greater good. The best representation of this might be the older versions of Superman, who came to be nicknamed the “big blue boy scout” because of his unwavering moral code.

Remember back to previous entries in this series – there is no such thing as a homogenous group. That applies even to ``good guy” and ``bad guy” groups.

Pure good and pure evil simply don’t exist in the real world, at least in part because they’re subjective measurements. A lot of times people that are considered ``evil” are actually the good guys in their own minds, they believe what they are doing is for the better. Similarly, historical ``good guys” can be pretty depraved individuals.

People have equal capacity for good and evil; treating your characters as wholly one or the other will run you straight into this cliché.

Now, all of that said, there ARE some people out there that are too good to be true, or bad just for the sake of being bad. And it’s ok to include these characters. It’s just one of those things that you need to be keenly aware of so that you don’t create 1-dimensional characters that your readers can’t care about.

You should keep the idea of pure good/pure evil in mind when creating magical objects and weapons, as well. Consider two fantasy swords: The Sword of Omens from Thundercats and The Sword of Truth from Wizard’s First Rule.

In the original cartoon version of Thundercats the Sword of Omens cannot be used by evil. The idea of pure good and pure evil leave some GAPING plot questions. If the bad guy thinks he’s doing the right thing, is he really evil? If Lion-O does something naughty can he not use the sword? Is there a grace period or is it a go or no go proposition?

On the surface the Sword of Truth LOOKS like it can only be used for good, but that’s not how it’s actually described. The sword can only be used against a true threat. If the user really believes that his target is an enemy or means him harm the sword will work. If the bearer has ANY doubt that his target is really a bad guy the sword will stop short and won’t harm them.

This is just one example of a way to skirt the edges of cliché and use it to the story’s advantage, and it happens to be my favorite example. No matter what aspect of your world we’re talking about, remember that believable stories exist in shades of grey.

Fantasy Cliche #1: Exposition

When I first compiled this list this cliché outnumbered the others by nearly two to one – the fans REALLY don’t like this one.

Too much exposition can be a problem for an author in any genre, but it’s especially tempting for fantasy authors. Here we sit in the midst of grand, mystical worlds that we’ve planned out to the most minute detail…and we don’t get to describe them.

The goal of any writing is to hold the reader’s attention. I don’t know about you, but any time an author spends 5 pages describing the grass in a field it tends to launch me right out of the story.

Over description is, at best, ego stroking on the part of the author: “Quick, everyone, come see how pretty my world is!”

At worst it’s a slap in the face to the reader: “You’re not smart enough to figure it out on your own, so here’s why this thing works this way.”

My personal favorite example of dead on perfect exposition is the opening scene from Robert A. Heinlein’s Beyond This Horizon:

Hamilton Felix let himself off at the thirteenth level of the Department of Finance, mounted a slideway to the left, and stepped off the strip at a door marked:

BUREAU OF ECONOMIC STATISTICS

Office of Analysis and
Prediction

Director

PRIVATE

He punched the door with a code combination, and awaited face check. It came properly, the door dilated, and a voice inside said, “Come in, Felix.”

I LOVE that scene. Heinlein doesn’t spend six pages describing the mechanism that makes a slideway work. Nor does Hamilton stop and think “Holy shit, a dilating door!” These things are everyday occurrences in this world, and Heinlein treats them as such.

If your characters wouldn’t stop to describe something in your world, you need to consider whether you should.

A corollary to this happens a lot in old science fiction, wherein one character that knows how something works explains that thing, in detail, to another character that also knows how it works. Something like this completely made up example:

“When I press this button a plasma field will generate from the ion spinner.”

“Which in turn will release the iridium vortex. Brilliant, but don’t forget…”

“The beryllium matrix. Yes, I know.”

It was painful to write that. Don’t do it. Ever.

Seriously, if you ever even FEEL like including such a scene in your writing give me a call. I’ll be more than happy to drive over and slap it out of you.

The best prose in the world is the prose that gives the reader exactly what they need to feel like they’re inside the story. No more, no less.

The next time you sit down to edit a scene think about how much exposition is really necessary to give the reader the idea. I’d be willing to bet there’s SOMETHING you can cut out, I know there are scenes I can cut out of my own work.

Conclusion

The above article took weeks of research and better than 5,000 words to articulate. If you can’t remember the whole list, I don’t blame you. So here’s a roundup:

1. Prologues
2. Prophecy/The Chosen One
3. Bad Fights
4. Homogenous Races
5. Convenient Plot Points
6. Bad Spellings/Made Up Languages
7. Magic Without Limits
8. It’s A Man’s World
9. Pure Good/Pure Evil
10. Exposition

I gathered the list during the course of researching Regent of Aldun. I wanted to know what readers felt were cliches so that I could try to avoid them. What I found was that not all of them need to be avoided, as long as I’m careful about it.

I’ve always been a firm believer that if you want to master something, like writing, you need to know the rules so that you know how to use them properly…and when to break them.

Thanks for reading.