# "Generic European Fantasy"



## Deleted member 4265 (Aug 20, 2016)

[Post Removed]


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

Western European medieval history has been the basis for fantasy for decades. It's therefore understandable for people to get sick of it. Ofcourse this does not mean that Western European medieval history is any less interesting than the history of any other period and place. Think of it like this: Grilled cheese sandwiches are really, really good right? (No is not acceptable). But Grilled cheese everyday, quickly becomes boring and "Generic". Same thing with fantasy.

Not for me though. I'm a history lover and a Grilled cheese aficionado.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 20, 2016)

Strongly feeling that this was in response to what I said earlier, haha. 

What i meant by "generic European" wasn't that Eurpoean-based fantasy is always generic. I'm just tired of seeing Middle Ages stasis type stuff with elves and dwarves and magic swords and bearded wizards and quests and MacGuffins and evil lords and prophecies and farm boys and--sigh, all of it. A story can be done well and entertain me while still including every one of these things. (maybe not the prophecy; that i can barely forgive. You're a hero because It Is Your Destiny. Not because you chose to be a hero.) Thing is, these things have been done and subverted and re-subverted over and over again and it's a very narrow slot to squeeze yourself into because fantasy allows you to do _literally anything._ 

That's not to say that making a story look non-European will fix it. I have read and heard of plenty of equally generic "Asian-flavored" and "Romanesque" fantasy that drives me equally bonkers. There is so much willy-nilly mixing of Japanese and Chinese cultures, so much misusing of foreign words to make the text more exotic. Name people Ping, reference kimonos and rice balls and chopsticks and bamboo and We'll Bring Honor To Us All...it's that easy, right?  Non-European based fantasy is trendy in YA right now, but still the settings and cultures seem so painfully generic. I recently read (well, attempted, I quit) a book that was supposedly based on the Roman Empire. I'd heard so much praise for the world-building, but...where? Where was it? The names were Roman-sounding. There was an emperor. That's it. 

Now, i'm a huge history buff. What i want is a fantasy based on Vietnamese history. (I'm reading about it in history and there is some truly awesome stuff in there.) A fantasy infused with Appalachian history and heritage. Inuit mythology is awesome and why isn't anyone doing it?? Why isn't there Ice Age era fantasy? Pre-Columbian American fantasy? I will admit that i find French and English history really, really, REALLY boring. All those kings! All those wars! Kill me now! But what about vikings? What about the black death? and all those people that AREN'T French or English? They have stories worth telling too.

I'm obsessed with alternate history. Recs would be appreciated. 

Anyway--my posts were about fantasy in general being generally confined to a small range of inspirations. When something is done and overdone constantly, it starts to be generic. I realize now that it isn't accurate to say 'European' to mean that, since european history itself is so diverse, but...I think Tolkien set a precedent that continues to define fantasy. A very narrow and (at least to me) boring precedent. It's just so frustrating that people don't step outside of it when they have literally infinite freedom. There are so many books i wish someone would write. 

Well, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself...right?


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## Deleted member 4265 (Aug 20, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Strongly feeling that this was in response to what I said earlier, haha.



Actually I've been hearing the sentiment a lot. I read a lot of writing advice about putting diversity in fantasy and while I'm all for more diversity a lot of them seem to be saying that European fantasy is boring. Like I said, I do believe in the importance of writing non-European fantasy (just as I believe in the importance of writing LGBTQ+ and PoC characters) but European fantasy being boring is not one of them.



> Now, i'm a huge history buff. What i want is a fantasy based on Vietnamese history. (I'm reading about it in history and there is some truly awesome stuff in there.) A fantasy infused with Appalachian history and heritage. Inuit mythology is awesome and why isn't anyone doing it?? Why isn't there Ice Age era fantasy? Pre-Columbian American fantasy? I will admit that i find French and English history really, really, REALLY boring. All those kings! All those wars! Kill me now! But what about vikings? What about the black death? and all those people that AREN'T French or English? They have stories worth telling too. I'm obsessed with alternate history. Recs would be appreciated.
> 
> Anyway--my posts were about fantasy in general being generally confined to a small range of inspirations. When something is done and overdone constantly, it starts to be generic. I realize now that it isn't accurate to say 'European' to mean that, since european history itself is so diverse, but...I think Tolkien set a precedent that continues to define fantasy. A very narrow and (at least to me) boring precedent. It's just so frustrating that people don't step outside of it when they have literally infinite freedom. There are so many books i wish someone would write.
> 
> Well, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself...right?



This was sort of my point. Personally I love English history, but there is so much more out there. I'm tired of generic Tolkien inspired fantasy and I want something new. It just irks me when European fantasy is painted over with a large brush. People are quick to call out generic non-European fantasy for its crimes, but they seem to expect that fantasy in a European setting is going to be boring and that annoys me so much. Its not generic because its European fantasy. Its generic because its bad. 

I guess maybe all of this is a little silly coming from me considering none of the stories I have lined up to write draw on European history (well my WIP has some Russian and Romani inspired people but I don't think they really count because of how little they feature in the story)


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

Devouring Wolf said:


> Well I'm vegan so I'm not a fan of anything with cheese (I know, the horror) But back to the actual discussion. I don't feel like this is necessarily true. Dragons, wizards, and farm boys have been staples of fantasy for a long time but people aren't getting tired of them (except the farm boys but I would argue the reason people hate that trope has less to do with the fact its overdone and more to do with the fact that it causes some serious believably issues)
> 
> A lot of people now days find elves and dwarves to be cliche, but are they really or is it just that people too often write them poorly without giving them much development and culture of their own? The same can be said, I think, for European fantasy. I honestly don't read a lot of it because a lot of it is quite generic so I understand what I rebel against is the notion that its inherent of the genre.
> 
> I like to think that nowadays when people write non-European fantasy, they do so with the intention of doing those cultures justice and representing them well. I wish more people would take the same mindset when writing European fantasy because it doesn't have to be the same thing over and over again.



First of all, I am very impressed by your incredible restraint. Teach me how to be able to not crave cheese. 

Onto the topic. Cultures are done badly by lots of fantasy writers, that is no unique to western european culture. Just look at a lot of fantasy set in China or Japan. Besides that I also don't think your last paragraph really stands. The leading fantasy books and series are written in a western European setting. LotR and ASoIaF being the best examples.

Repetition is boring. Repetition is boring. Repetition is boring. Repetition is boring.

It is simply that you are especially interested in History, so am I, but many others aren't. After long exposure to something, it becomes a bit boring. I am also sure that outside the fantasy writing community, this problem doesn't exist that much. Casual readers will likely not be as passionate about this repetition as anyone here.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 20, 2016)

Banten said:


> First of all, I am very impressed by your incredible restraint. Teach me how to be able to not crave cheese.



I am completely obsessed with cheese. How much I enjoy a food mainly depends on how much cheese it contains. Shredded cheese to cream cheese to Parmesan cheese, I will eat it straight or put it in anything. It's the food that came down from heaven. 

I could completely do without meat, I just don't like it, but cheese makes life worth living, and that's why I'm not vegetarian. (That and I love seafood.)


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 20, 2016)

Devouring Wolf said:


> Maybe you're right, it might just be that I love history, but then I find it hard to fathom fantasy fans who don't love history. I mean I'd always assumed what drew people to fantasy was the complicated, in-depth worldbuilding full of richly imagined history, but maybe that's just me. Maybe its really all about the epic battles and dragon riding (nothing wrong with that).



For me it's the lack of reality's limitations, which is why i find it so deeply frustrating when fantasy writers don't get out there and explore the possibilities, instead self-imposing limitations (like the medieval stasis elves and dwarves stuff i was talking about.) For a genre with so much opportunity to do things in a way that is incredibly new, different and original, fantasy seems to have a very narrow set of ideas associated with it.

That said, once i'm done with the series i'm writing, i want to go over to historical fantasy, alternate history or historical fiction, because i love history.


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

Devouring Wolf said:


> Maybe you're right, it might just be that I love history, but then I find it hard to fathom fantasy fans who don't love history. I mean I'd always assumed what drew people to fantasy was the complicated, in-depth worldbuilding full of richly imagined history, but maybe that's just me. Maybe its really all about the epic battles and dragon riding (nothing wrong with that).



Thought so too originally, but in reality there are a lot of different things that attract people to fantasy. History, linguistics and culture attracted me to the genre, but others come for the mythological creatures, the mentioned epic battles, the grand intrigue, the magic, the unique type of characters possible only in this genre and ofcourse the STORY.

I think for those people it just becomes boring to have a fairly similar background everytime.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 20, 2016)

What i mean by restraints and possibilities is, why use elves and dwarves, trying to put a new spin on them eternally, when you can make up your own fantasy races? Why use medieval Europe as an inspiration when 60% of other fantasy stories do as well and medieval Europe is .01% of the cultures and times out there you could use as inspiration? Why have vampires when you can have blood-sucking hummingbird androids that infect their victims with a mysterious plague? When there are so many ideas and possibilities that could be conceived, why repeat and repeat and repeat the same vanishingly small percentage of them ad nauseum?


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> blood-sucking hummingbird androids that infect their victims with a mysterious plague?



Remember that one. Maybe make a cyberpunk story out of it. Put a nice cheesy name on it like "Bloodhacking" "Mechanic Humming" or "Deadly Error" and you will soon make lots of money.


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## Garren Jacobsen (Aug 20, 2016)

Where's my Revolutionary War setting fantasy novel!!


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## skip.knox (Aug 20, 2016)

I don't think people are tired of pseudo-medieval European fantasy at all. Sure, some folks will arbitrarily decide they won't read certain types of fiction. For me, for instance, it's urban vampires. If you write a brilliant urban vampire book, little short of direct intervention will get me to give it an even break. So there's that.

But for the most part, people simply don't like bad writing. What I see is that poor writers, and beginning writers, will imitate more readily and will reach for the familiar more readily than will a skilled writer. So they grab not actual medieval European history but their own stereotypes of it. Same goes for elves and dragons and magic and farm boys. The results are overwhelmingly tone-deaf and ham-handed. But it's not the writers who get the bad rap--they simply get forgotten--it's the trope that gets the rap.

This is hardly peculiar to fantasy. It goes for police procedurals, detective novels, 18thc Scottish romance, and a wagonload of other areas. The genre is not responsible for the sort of people who choose to write it.


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## ThinkerX (Aug 21, 2016)

'Generic European Fantasy.'

Strangely, that is how my primary world originated.  Back then, I was into AD&D very heavily.  TSR (now 'wizards of the coast,' unless the name changed again) came out with a series of 'historical supplements' for the game, mostly focused on different portions of Europe at different points in history (Rome, ancient Greece, Vikings, Crusades, Celts, and so on.)  At about that time, there were also a few 'magical Europe' novels that intrigued me.

I spent a lot of time going over those books, did some additional reading, and began to wonder: maybe I could merge the described settings into a coherent whole?  Create a sort of mangled version of Europe where a Charles the Great type figure really did reunite the Roman Empire, replace human realms with nations of elves and dwarves (again, very heavy AD&D influence.)  I wrote up notes, did extensive world building...

...then I went on to other projects for a long time, most of them not literary.  

When I returned to writing, I chose that setting because it was relatively detailed.  It became more detailed as I wrote first 'Labyrinth: Journal' and a series of short stories for 'Iron Pen' and other challenges on this site.  It also changed quite a bit from both my original conception and the 'generic European setting.'  There are some familiar elements (well, quite a few, get right down to it) but ultimately I took that setting and made it mine.  

I combined the 'Rome' and 'Charlemagne's Paladins' handbooks to use as the distant base for Solaria, a sort of revitalized Roman Empire.  

The ancient Greece handbook became the foundation for 'Carbone,' the empires artistic/intellectual center.  That province barely appears in my stories.

Some of the material - mostly names - in the 'Crusades' book went into the worldbuilding for southern Solaria.  

I made some use of the 'Vikings' handbook to create Gotland, a northern realm of fjords, forests, bold seafarers, and dark elves, but again, that realm is mostly an outlier.  It's also mostly post Viking era.

'Equitant,' a almost industrialized province, received some inspiration from the last of the handbooks, 'A Mighty Fortress,' describing a sort of arcane 16th-17th century Europe.  In my world, this provinces technological marvels have spawned social revolution across the empire, something many of my characters grapple with.  (What use armored knights in a world of gunpowder?)   

Elves still exist.  A large standoffish nation to the north of a realm that vaguely resembles the Roman Empire.  Elves appear in few tales; I kept them mostly because I had a few solidly established half-elf characters and because I needed a source for weird things.

Dwarves still exist, but they're basically short people.  Some enclaves, often scattered throughout cities.  They have reputations as merchants, managers, and fine artisans, but combat - not so much.

Instead of Orcs, I went with Goblins and the 'improved' version, Hobgoblins. I wanted to justify their perpetual antagonism with something beyond 'they're evil,' so I added a biological component, and made them literal aliens.  Goblin males outnumber females 100 to 1, hence the males are under great pressure to cull rivals and do grand things to impress the ladies.  They're also 'hatched' from leathery eggs, not 'born' in groups of two to two dozen.  These groups become 'packs' a key element in their society.  

Then I went and added a hefty dose of Lovecraft to the mix, along with other sources.


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## FifthView (Aug 21, 2016)

World building is hard.

But let me backtrack.  There are two ways of thinking about world building.  One is simply building a world in one's own head, and this seems to be what we focus on when discussing world building.  "I'm trying to build a world for my current project."  The other is building a world for the reader, i.e. execution.

I suppose that the continual reappearance of medieval European settings may be a result of this.  After all these years of those settings, in books and movies and our own attachment to the history of western Europe, coming up with something as basic as the terminology, for instance, is simpler for people.  We don't have to explain it to readers.  We don't have to explain to our readers what we mean by portcullis or abbey.

Kings, queens, princes, dukes, barons.....I have a story, put on the back burner, that I wanted set in a combo Chinese/SE Asian type of world but that I simultaneously don't wan't to seem as if it's derivative. I wanted it to have a vaguely Chinese/SE Asian feel, but not be those cultures with a thin layer of paint.  At the same time, lately I often approach fantasy worlds as if they are exoplanets in our own universe.  They've developed peculiar systems of government and terminology for the hierarchy that are not Earth-based. I didn't want to simply borrow terminology from China, for instance.  But creating such a system from scratch is harder than simply defaulting to the common titles, methods of address, and so forth from European history.

I'm not arguing for or against the use of medieval Europe as a model.  I personally don't mind it whatsoever, and I usually like it.  Heck, I liked it in _Dune_, but I'm not sure I'd call that example an unfortunate consequence of any sort of stasis.

Plus...here's me going out on a limb...From what I've gathered from the presentations others have made (movies, some books, games, some documentaries), it seems as if multiple cultures have passed through similar phases in their history.  Medieval Europe had taverns and various lords and ladies, but so did China and Japan.  Travel by horse, way stations, walled cities, warfare, sieges, various crafts and craftsmen....Lots of similarity between cultures, even if the terminology/language was different.  So I wonder if the complaint centers more around important cultural markers like religion, philosophy, artistic sensibilities, and customs peculiar to different cultures.  But what's interesting is that lots of fantasy using what appears to have a medieval European base also happens to include peculiarities in those areas that are fantastic, i.e., not what existed in medieval Europe.


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## Gurkhal (Aug 21, 2016)

I think that the dominance of medieval setting is mostly a set of ease and predecent that leads people to write in Medieval Europe. Both in that in most European countries there are, to my knowledge, lots of available research and facts that can be digested to create the world and inspired a writer, but also that when people read mostly medieval based fiction, we get inspiration, images and the brain starts to work along the lines of Medieval Europe, especially when a genre like fantasy reach back decades with predecent upon predecent upon predecent of using mostly Medieval Europe for the inspiration.

Personally I'm divided. While I accept that I find non-European settings draw me and makes me desire to know more, I also know that when reading more Medieval based fiction I can relate more to their personal struggle as I've digisted enough history and history-based fiction to have a clue about what things are about.


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## Peat (Aug 21, 2016)

People don't write in medieval Europe. They write in medieval north-western European pastiches and that's a big difference. I have zero problems with that but the spade is not a motorbike.

I'd also point out that the majority of works coming out these days are renaissance European pastiches. Even Song of Ice and Fire is "set" in a time period that is call the early renaissance. 

I don't think I've read a realistic late Medieval/early Renaissance army in all of fantasy. Very few that want to include a model where the majority of scholarship is by ecclesiastics. Nobody ever wants to reproduce an accurate model of nobility titles. Rampant disease - how many characters have a sibling who died of a childhood disease? And on and on. And again, I don't object. I'd like to think I have a reasonably firm handle on medieval history but I'm not going to produce faithful to the age stuff.

Just pretty much no one else is either.

The average fantasy world owes more to D&D than it does to Medieval History. And D&D has shoved the surface elements of half a dozen interesting parts of mainly medieval European history into a blender with Tolkien's races. Its why so many settings have vikings next to plate-clad knights.

edit:



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> What i mean by restraints and possibilities is, why use elves and dwarves, trying to put a new spin on them eternally, when you can make up your own fantasy races? Why use medieval Europe as an inspiration when 60% of other fantasy stories do as well and medieval Europe is .01% of the cultures and times out there you could use as inspiration? Why have vampires when you can have blood-sucking hummingbird androids that infect their victims with a mysterious plague? When there are so many ideas and possibilities that could be conceived, why repeat and repeat and repeat the same vanishingly small percentage of them ad nauseum?



Because people like them and people write what they like. There's no reason they shouldn't.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 21, 2016)

You could say the same thing about Manga and Anime having too many "Asian" samurai stories that glorify the Edo Period. Might as well say that Sci-Fi has too many aliens, spaceships and too much advanced technology.


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## AElisabet (Aug 21, 2016)

Honestly, is there really that much actual "Medieval European Fantasy?"  Or is it just, (as has been insinuated) "D & D based Fantasy"?

I would really, really love to see more fantasy that either a) takes the mythos of the historical Medieval period and puts a new spin or insight on it (like Catheryn Valente's _Dirge for Prester John_ or ) or b) creates a secondary world that is inspired by a Medieval culture and is rich and well realized beyond just "Swords, Castles, and Kings."  There is some of this out there, but I think there is less than people think.

A lot of what gets called "Medieval European Fantasy" is neither of the above.

And there are so many different pre-modern European cultures to draw from, including Eastern and Northern European cultures, when creating a fantasy world.

And why write it?  Because it is worth exploring?  It is fun and interesting to read?  Why write anything?


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## Chessie (Aug 21, 2016)

Miskatonic said:


> You could say the same thing about Manga and Anime having too many "Asian" samurai stories that glorify the Edo Period. Might as well say that Sci-Fi has too many aliens, spaceships and too much advanced technology.


+ 1. There are certain ingredients that make up genre. You wouldn't prepare cake batter without eggs and oil (sorry vegans, just for simplicity's sake). In the same way you wouldn't write a *fantasy genre* story without magic, wizards who practice that magic, and mythological creatures. 

And no story has been told the same way either. The prose isn't the same. The characters, albeit similar, aren't the same. Scenes will be told differently by an array of characters all unique to the individual who created them. Writers will be at different places in their craft when they write books with kings, queens, and dwarves. The artistic intricacies woven into story by individual authors will never, ever, ever be the same as another peer's.

To say that books with similar inspiration for their worlds are all rehashed versions of each other isn't taking into account the hard work we put into creating stories from our hearts. It doesn't give fellow writers credit for their creativity and basic endurance needed in order to get a story idea to finished book. And not just a first draft...but a manuscript that's been polished as good as it can be and reaches its final destination (whether that's some form of publication or here on MS). 

There are specific elements that make up the fantasy genre. Orcs and wizards= dead body in the library whodunnit. And for those of us who enjoy writing about elves sipping brandy by their fancy fireplaces, there are plenty of readers out there who dig that sort of thing. Being done before means nothing given that storytelling has existed for thousands of years.

_Quietly returns to her writing cave._


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## FifthView (Aug 21, 2016)

Well over various threads we've moved from

_Using medieval European settings?  Shame, shame, shame!_

to 

_Not using authentic medieval European settings?  Shame, shame, shame!_

Seriously, damned if we do, damned if we don't!

No world built for any fantasy novel that has been ever written was complete.  Never.  Not a single one of them.

Because whole worlds aren't used.  We write slices of worlds.  That's what a story is.

I also think that overmuch is being made of D&D influences.  And Tolkien influences, for that matter.  Perhaps this is an anti-elf, anti-dwarf, anti-wizard argument in disguise.  Before fantasy was a genre as such, novels appeared that were set in medieval and Renaissance Europe.  Heck, I don't mean only European-based fairy tales, although those, too, have a tradition longer than what we normally characterize as the fantasy genre.  Shakespeare wrote _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ in the late 16th C.  And it goes back to Beowulf, although that was perhaps a contemporary tale told with fantastic elements.

This idea of writing slices of worlds....So we use some tropes that are common, but unfortunately we don't write accurate historical fiction.  So?  These are fantasies.  So naturally some elements might be based on historical realities but others are not.

I think I'm losing the trail here.


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## Ireth (Aug 21, 2016)

FifthView said:


> No world built for any fantasy novel that has been ever written was complete.  Never.  Not a single one of them.



Agreed. Even Tolkien's universe, masterfully crafted as it is, has huge gaps in the timeline, especially in the ages before the Sun. And that's just one example. I'm sure others can think of more.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 21, 2016)

FifthView said:


> Well over various threads we've moved from
> 
> _Using medieval European settings?  Shame, shame, shame!_
> 
> ...



I can definitely get behind the notion of there being too much D&D type fantasy. I've never been interested in that style, even though I'm a child of the 80's that grew up with all that. There may be a lot of medieval European trappings in fantasy stories but saying it's a 1:1 with actual authentic European history and culture is usually inaccurate. It's usually based more on stereotypes/tropes introduced by a previous generation of authors that are assumed to be based on actual European history and culture during the middle ages by the next generation. 

Just take the notion of an Inn for example. In fantasy stories and role playing it's the fully furnished building with wood floors, a huge hearth, a counter for patrons to sit at the bar and drink, room for tons of people etc. In reality a lot of inns were more often than not somebody's house where they would rent out a bed (people often shared beds) and maybe get something to eat and drink. Dirt floors, small room, not what we would normally picture. In big cities it might be a bit different but the idealized fantasy Inn is not based on actual history.

If you take Europe as a whole, there is a lot of medieval history that has yet to be dealt with in the fantasy world, especially as you go further east. The middle ages isn't just what happened in Britain or France.


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## FifthView (Aug 21, 2016)

I suppose the confusion I feel arises from the fact that when I read Hobb's Farseer books, I don't feel I'm in Tolkien's world or Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner world or GRRM's ASOIAF world or Raymond Feist's Magician world or....

Yes, there are inns of a certain type, swords and daggers, horses everywhere, and queens, and....too many things to list.  So, which will you remove, and what have you gained by removing one but not the others?

Edit:  OH, and there's magic.  Horrible trope; everyone uses it!  And usually, it's _nothing_ like magic in historical Europe.


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## FifthView (Aug 21, 2016)

Miskatonic said:


> If you take Europe as a whole, there is a lot of medieval history that has yet to be dealt with in the fantasy world, especially as you go further east. The middle ages isn't just what happened in Britain or France.



In one recent thread I mentioned an epic fantasy trilogy based on ancient Indian culture, _The Archer's Heart_ by Astrid Amara.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  But my enjoyment of fantasies that build off a medieval European model or that include traditional tropes from fantasy literature is not contingent on the existence of or dearth of fantasy novels set in non-traditional settings.  This is just me personally.


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## Peat (Aug 21, 2016)

FifthView said:


> _Not using authentic medieval European settings?  Shame, shame, shame!_



Who actually said that? Because I didn't see anyone say that.

Pointing out that talking about medieval European fantasy is inaccurate is not saying people should use authentic medieval European settings.


As for D&D influences - frankly, it would be surprising if it wasn't hugely influential. 250,000 copies of the game were sold prior to 1980; in summer 1980 they're selling 12,000 copies a month; they sold a million copies in 1989 alone. Very, very few fantasy books have touched that sort of numbers and we're talking a game that pre-dates the majority of authors trucking around today. Quite a lot of authors have known gaming histories too (Feist, Erikson, Kerr, to pick three off of the top of my head). For me, D&D collected together a group of fantasy tropes and turned them into a set packager, and a bunch of authors produced works very heavily influenced by them. Other fantasy authors copied from those authors and from there, its all snowballed. And I see it in more than elves, dwarves and wizards; there's a slant on religion that is very D&D-esque. Monsters too.

There's a lot of fantasies that have big old dirty D&D fingerprints all over them.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 21, 2016)

I suppose I'm the only one who's completely tired of the classic tropes. What we mean when we say 'generic European fantasy' or 'Tolkien/D&D-esque" fantasy doesn't often have much to do with either, admittedly, but it can't be denied that there's a set of ubiquitous tropes in fantasy that are so prevalent many people don't comprehend the idea that fantasy can exist outside their parameters. 

I can't be completely free of hypocrisy when saying this, since i am unashamedly obsessed with dragons--but I have a distaste for reusing the same ideas over and over, whether simply reusing or trying to put a 'new spin' on it. I can't argue with the fact that people enjoy the classic fantasy tropes, reading and writing about them, but they aren't all there is--they are not what fantasy _is_.

By the definition many people here profess, i'm not even a real fantasy writer. But my works sure don't belong anywhere else, so...


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## Masronyx (Aug 21, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Strongly feeling that this was in response to what I said earlier, haha.
> 
> What i meant by "generic European" wasn't that Eurpoean-based fantasy is always generic. I'm just tired of seeing Middle Ages stasis type stuff with elves and dwarves and magic swords and bearded wizards and quests and MacGuffins and evil lords and prophecies and farm boys and--sigh, all of it. A story can be done well and entertain me while still including every one of these things. (maybe not the prophecy; that i can barely forgive. You're a hero because It Is Your Destiny. Not because you chose to be a hero.) Thing is, these things have been done and subverted and re-subverted over and over again and it's a very narrow slot to squeeze yourself into because fantasy allows you to do _literally anything._
> 
> ...



This. The "generic" fantasy stuff that made me freeze on my works for so long. I'd reject a potential story because it had those elements. 
Not necessarily a bad thing if you're into that, but no. Not me. 
If anything it made me rethink my ideas and broaden my horizons in my interests and what I read. I am a reenactor in the American Revolutionary war period, mainly a white woman who's been assimilated into a Native American tribe from the Great Lakes region. But I also try to interpret today's social norms and not so norms and try to assimilate that into my writings. I try to focus more on the characters and how they function in any society who's generations' old norms are changing in the blink of an eye while staying focused on the conflict the characters must face. 

I wouldn't mind a fantasy based on the history of native Americans and white contact. It's not so much the concept but the execution. 
What about flintlock fantasy? I'm reading a book by Django Wexler. He's based his on the Napoleon campaigns of the early 19th century. Richard Sharpe for the fantasy lovers.


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## Peat (Aug 21, 2016)

*scratches ear* I'm probably going to say this wrong but there we go. Gotta try.

There's a huge amount of ground between saying "I find the criticisms of fantasy tropes to be misguided" and "I think everyone should stick to the same type of fantasy that Tolkien, Jordan and Martin did" forever. And you appear to be saying you're hearing the latter but I don't think anyone's saying it. Although frankly I think there's a lot of people in this thread answering criticisms that no one actually made.

Similarly, there's a huge amount of ground between "I am a-okay with more conventional fantasy and find the criticism of to be misguided" and "I only ever want that and think there's nothing wrong with there being nothing but that." I will back the former strongly; I absolutely would not back the latter. My stance would be "I am a-okay with more conventional fantasy and find the criticism of it to be misguided but equally think there's a lot of opportunities for non-conventional fantasy that would be awesome".

And I do think the criticism is misguided. Its certainly as cliche as the things it criticises and a lot of it boils down to "This isn't my taste why are people not adhering to my taste". To which the answer will always be "Because that's not their taste".

However, lets get objective. Take farmboys. Song of Ice and Fire is farmboy free. Ditto Discworld and Harry Potter. If the three current 800 lb gorillas in the room don't have it, is it actually a cliche of the genre? I guess the fact everyone thinks it is means it is and there's a lot of influential works featuring it, but the genre's moved on. Incidentally, no remotely Tolkien-esque elves either. I think there's an incredible width and breadth to the genre, even allowing for the clustering of the majority in one narrow corner. Redwall and The Dresden Files, exist in the same genre. The Dancers at the End of Time vs Camber of Culdi. Etc.etc.

As for the idea that many can't comprehend the idea the fantasy can exist outside their parameters - I can only speak for myself, but hogwash and piffle.

Can I suggest that you take a step back, have a think, then decide what you want to be the conversation to be about.

If you want it to be about the fact you dislike a lot of the current tropes, then people will continue to talk about how the current tropes are good.

If you want it to be about the potential left untapped in the genre, or why people like them, or new ways to twist them, the conversation will likely be different.


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## FifthView (Aug 21, 2016)

Peat said:


> For me, D&D collected together a group of fantasy tropes and turned them into a set packager, and a bunch of authors produced works very heavily influenced by them.



Hard to have it both ways.  If D&D collected those tropes, those tropes predate D&D.

I've just been looking through a pdf file of _Brazenhead the Great_, by  Maurice Hewlett, a novel set in 15th C. Europe, published in 1911, many parts of which could fit in some fantasy novels written nowadays–if the language were updated to a modern idiom and writing style.   There's an ambush in an alleyway, swords, a cloak used as a shield, and the MC losing the fight and being hauled off to the "donjon."  There's a tavern scene we'd recognize, 

There were three capuchins sipping old ale; there were, upon the knees of these worthies, three damsels of mechanical smiles and very shrill laughter; there was an old cheese-wife called Joyeuse; there were two apprentices who ought to have known better, and one chantry-priest who did not. In the midst was a very tall man masked, and leaning upon a naked sword, who, the moment he saw the newcomers, fixed his piercing eyes (one saw them like smouldering beacons through the holes) upon Meg Mallow and never took them off her for a single instant....

<snip>

Never was so humble an entry of so splendid a person. Captain Brazenhead, after a few moments of effort which started the sweat in every gland, gave over and leaned against the wall. Before the enquiring serving-maid he was speechless: it was Meg Mallow who ordered sheep's trotters in vinegar, black bread and beer; and it was she who ate most of this rare provand when it came.​
The tall man continues to stare at her.  A group of soldiers arrive, bursting through the door.  Well the tall man is their leader; but he barks an order and they leave, along with everyone else but Captain Brazenhead, the tall man, and the woman.  The tall man strides forward and orders the woman to follow him, which she does,  leaving Brazenhead alone in the tavern. 

All of this predating D&D.

I've found no elves or dwarves or wizards, but those things can be found in other examples of literature predating D&D.

I've not suggested that D&D has had no influence, but only that I think its influence has been overstated.  Writers may have borrowed some things, from D&D and from the sources D&D used and from other writers who were influenced by these things, but then added to these tropes their own elements, their own original creations.  Most novels are not simply unwashed versions of D&D campaigns.  Although, some of those do exist.


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## Steerpike (Aug 21, 2016)

There is plenty of fantasy without any magic or supernatural elements. Yes, those things are a mainstay of the genre, but you certainly don't need them to write fantasy.


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## Steerpike (Aug 21, 2016)

D&D was heavily influenced by fantasy that predated it. That's where the whole idea of Vancian magic came from. See Appendix N of the 1E DMG for a small sampling of influences.


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## Peat (Aug 21, 2016)

Well of course D&D's tropes predate D&D. Just like Odin predates Gandalf and the sacred and unpredictable priest-mage-king of Indo-European religion predates Odin. We don't talk about modern wizards being influenced by Odin/the Indo-European deity that influenced him though, we talk about them being influenced by Gandalf, because he's the version of the story that is casting the shadow. He's the thing they're copying.

Likewise, D&D's tropes mostly started elsewhere, but D&D's statement of them casts the shadow. D&D is what people are copying. A hell of a lot more people know about Vancian magic than ever read Vance. Adventurers in taverns pre-date D&D but some of them being elves and dwarves is a D&D'ism. And, of course, these kitchen sink pastiches of roughly-medieval North-Western Europe... well, maybe those were common before hand, but if so, I've missed them.

Also, some are mostly D&D started. Like Wizards commonly being very powerful good guys. Paladins.

If anyone wants to come up with a single envisioning of fantasy that's been more influential, by all means name it.


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## Steerpike (Aug 21, 2016)

Given that D&D takes inspiration from the works of dozens of authors at the core of modern fantasy and puts them all in one place, of course it is going to be a single repository for a lot of such material. That's an arbitrary dividing line in terms of influence on the genre as a whole. A lot more of D&D than you probably imagine came straight out of the fantasy books that preceded it, including weird curses, magic items, creatures, and the like. D&D-style Paladins came from Poul Anderson's works, as did some of the basis for D&D alignment system (which grew out of other source material as well). 

Further, the genre is substantially larger than the D&D-type fantasy in the marketplace. A lot of fantasy draws very little, if anything, from D&D.


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## Peat (Aug 22, 2016)

Well yes. I just said how much I'm impressed with the width and breadth of the genre.

But this is a thread about Generic European Fantasy. We were talking about what has influenced that, not the genre as a whole.

Do you think a lot of Generic European Fantasy draws very little, if anything, from D&D? That would be the question actually at hand here. Fair enough if you do but its not something I would agree with.


And you probably imagine my knowledge and information wrong, particularly given I've already said their tropes mostly started elsewhere. 

The fact that I disagree about the relevance of a book's influences when judging the influence of the book does not mean I am ignorant of the influences. 

It means I place a greater emphasis on being seen as the definitive version of something. If this is just going to be people saying "But D&D was inspired by something else, so it can't be that influential" over and over, I'll bow out now on agree to disagree grounds.

I'll admit I don't know everything about fantasy fiction preceding the 70s (or indeed fantasy fiction full stop) but I have tried to dig away as best I can at what has influenced modern fantasy. If though, there is a fantasy trope that only existed in a few sources that D&D have hugely expanded on though then yes, I'll give a lot of credit to D&D. Like the Paladin.


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## FifthView (Aug 22, 2016)

Peat said:


> If anyone wants to come up with a single envisioning of fantasy that's been more influential, by all means name it.



The thing is, people were reading historical adventure (novels like _Brazenhead the Great_) and historical romance set in medieval and renaissance Europe long, long before D&D appeared.

People were already well aware of the legend of King Arthur, Merlin, Excalibur and the Grail.  _Le Morte d'Arthur_, for example, was published in 1485; but naturally, many variations appeared before that in folklore and after that in literature before D&D appeared.  I know I was aware of King Arthur long before I ever played D&D in the 80's.  I was aware of Merlin before I'd ever encountered the name Gandalf.  (But then, I was aware of Dr. Strange before Gandalf, as well.)

Similarly, tales of Robin Hood.

I'd say that Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, and Greek mythology (and Roman mythology) in general were far more influential than D&D.  My first experience of various monsters in Greek mythology came before I had ever opened a D&D monster manual and found the versions there, and I imagine this is true for many people.  Those tales never stopped being influential and have affected the fantasy genre to this day.  (Interventionist gods and goddesses, as helpers/guides or antagonists?  Monsters? Hero trials?  The Hero's Journey?)

Robert E. Howard's Conan stories were being read long before D&D appeared.  D&D owes a lot to Howard and other early writers of sword & sorcery.

Magazines like _Weird Tales_, first appearing in 1923, were influential—








[1948]​
—and published tales of Conan and Lovecraft tales.

And of course, Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were influential.  If we are adding to D&D's influence those writers influenced by D&D, then we could add to _Beowulf_'s influence the fact that Tolkien knew it intimately. [It was used by a handful of others as well, pre-D&D, but I'd imagine not widely known.]

Add in centuries of folklore, fairy tales, and general knowledge of European history.

So.  Writers discovering D&D when it was released didn't simply begin their entry to the fantasy genre with D&D.  Many would have already been influenced by these other sources.  Even after D&D's appearance, these other sources didn't simply vanish; anyone first experiencing fantasy through D&D play could pick up a novel that had been greatly influenced by something other than D&D.

I do believe D&D has been _greatly_ influential—in gaming.  Ability stats, health/hit points, leveling up, inventory space, dungeon crawls...So much of what we experience in modern video games exists because of D&D's influence.

But to say that D&D has had more influence on fantasy literature than anything else, we'd need to a) isolate what, in particular, D&D added to the genre, or how it shaped the genre, and b) look at the fantasy being written to see to what degree those changes have affected the current market.  I.e., its reach, its level of influence.


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## Steerpike (Aug 22, 2016)

Peat said:


> I'll admit I don't know everything about fantasy fiction preceding the 70s (or indeed fantasy fiction full stop) but I have tried to dig away as best I can at what has influenced modern fantasy. If though, there is a fantasy trope that only existed in a few sources that D&D have hugely expanded on though then yes, I'll give a lot of credit to D&D. Like the Paladin.



No doubt those things exist. It's not always easy to pinpoint them. And of course statements that X or Y constitute such things are rarely falsifiable, so it becomes people batting around opinions. One thing that I think leads to the over-emphasis on D&D today, though it was certainly important, is that people look at those older SF/F authors and tend to think of them as obscure because many/most of them simply aren't well known today. But at the time, they were the mainstays in the genre. It wasn't just Gygax and Arneson being influenced by these works, it was everyone coming up in the genre, including future SF/F authors. So while the landscape would look different in some of the genre without D&D (particularly with respect to fantasy works that are directly influenced by the game), it's tough to say exactly how much different or in what ways.

In any event, most of the time when I see this come up people are only vaguely aware of how these elements existed before D&D. It's sort of like encountering people who think Warhammer style, artwork, and other elements were copied from WoW rather than the other way around.


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## Peat (Aug 22, 2016)

Steerpike said:


> No doubt those things exist. It's not always easy to pinpoint them. And of course statements that X or Y constitute such things are rarely falsifiable, so it becomes people batting around opinions. One thing that I think leads to the over-emphasis on D&D today, though it was certainly important, is that people look at those older SF/F authors and tend to think of them as obscure because many/most of them simply aren't well known today. But at the time, they were the mainstays in the genre. It wasn't just Gygax and Arneson being influenced by these works, it was everyone coming up in the genre, including future SF/F authors. So while the landscape would look different in some of the genre without D&D (particularly with respect to fantasy works that are directly influenced by the game), it's tough to say exactly how much different or in what ways.
> 
> In any event, most of the time when I see this come up people are only vaguely aware of how these elements existed before D&D. It's sort of like encountering people who think Warhammer style, artwork, and other elements were copied from WoW rather than the other way around.



See, I've barely seen anyone else talk about D&D's influence on fantasy fiction. Lot of talk about Tolkien, someone shouts "Hey what about Howard or Moorcock", somebody goes back to Dunsany, nobody mentions Anderson or Leiber, and this is roughly the conversation. Obviously I've not been party to the same conversations to you.

Fair point that all those guys in the 80s/early 90s did know who those people are. Would we have the same mish-mash of fantasy that D&D had though? Who else was mashing Swords & Sorcery pulp together with LotR High Fantasy at that time? I feel like Eddings was sort of independently coming to the same place but would we have followed him, or followed Brooks' LotR revival? When talking Generic European Fantasy, I feel like we're talking this exact mish-mash. Would we have so many groups of characters that eerily resembled an Adventure Party? Would Wizards be simultaneously so benevolent (well, capable of being) and powerful?

I also think that once you strip out Dragonlance, Feist's Riftwar and Discworld, fantasy does start to look a little different. If you accept Malazan being based off a GURPS campaign by a guy who discovered fantasy through D&D as counting, and Wheel of Time (Jordan did used to DM and I feel like there's quite a few D&D feeling flourishes among the Dune worship), then quite a bit different.

Although I'd add that fantasy seems to be drifting off from that and towards the political/military side of Wheel of Time/Song of Ice and Fire (Martin is a known gamer, but SoIaF doesn't feel that RPG based). I also think pulp's making a bit of a come back with self-publishing.

One day I'll find the time to do more research on this, try and get a cast iron grip on who did what when. But at the end of the day, I look at a bunch of Generic European Fantasy around and ask myself what it most resembles, the answer is D&D. But then the amount of GEF is getting diluted too.


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## Steerpike (Aug 22, 2016)

Peat said:


> See, I've barely seen anyone else talk about D&D's influence on fantasy fiction. Lot of talk about Tolkien, someone shouts "Hey what about Howard or Moorcock", somebody goes back to Dunsany, nobody mentions Anderson or Leiber, and this is roughly the conversation. Obviously I've not been party to the same conversations to you.



Most of the people I know irl who read fantasy are also into D&D and other RPGs. I'm sure that's not a majority of fantasy readers as a whole, but is the case among the people I know, so the topic comes up quite a bit. 

I've never played GURPS, but I have to think it is easier to address the magic system in the Malazan books using something other than 1e AD&D, which is what I think Erikson, Esslemont, and company were playing before GURPS. 

D&D certainly has had a substantial impact. I like D&D-style fantasy well enough (I like to play it, pen and paper or electronic), but I don't find most of it written well enough to hold my interest. I'm not opposed to reading more of it in principle, but I'm glad the genre has a lot more diversity to it.


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## Deleted member 4265 (Aug 24, 2016)

Miskatonic said:


> You could say the same thing about Manga and Anime having too many "Asian" samurai stories that glorify the Edo Period. Might as well say that Sci-Fi has too many aliens, spaceships and too much advanced technology.



My point is precisely that generic-ism isn't solely a problem effecting European fantasy so people should equating the two. Setting a story in a vaguely Edo period Japan or a vaguely futuristic world without any deeper thought put into it is equally inexcusable and yet when's the last time you heard someone say "I'm tired of all these generic Asian fantasy settings."

I'm not hating the conventions of the genre, I personally like classic fantasy, I'm annoyed by how lazy some of the world building is. This is sort of like the world building equivalent to the romantic subplot. Romantic subplots get shoehorned into stories that don't need them all the time because the author sees that a lot of best selling books have romantic subplots so then they try to add one in without understanding exactly why is worked so well for those best selling books.

Its like people go "oh I'm going to write a fantasy book and all the really popular ones take place in medieval European settings so I'm going to do that" without understanding why those stories are set there (this can certainly happen to non-European fantasy too). Setting is more than simply a place where the story happens. There's a reason LOTR takes place in middle earth. There's a reason GRRM's books have the settings they do. 

I love a good romantic subplot and I don't mind a fantasy set in vaguely medieval English county side so long as the writer has a reason for putting it there besides "that's what everyone else does". I don't demand books have in depth world building, but any author worth their salt knows how to use their story's setting as a benefit to their story.

Also I apologize in advance if this post comes off rude or nonsensical. I haven't slept in two days.


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## Peat (Aug 24, 2016)

Idle thought that in no way should be taken as contradiction of my agreement with the rest of that post -

It is possible that if I lived in Japan, I would hear that a lot. Or in China, wonder why its always wuxia. Or whatever else is popular in other countries.

This is, insofar as I'm aware, a group predominantly from the Anglosphere talking about fiction predominantly from the Anglosphere. That the majority of them reach back to our shared cultural past is perhaps unsurprising, maybe even inevitable. Are we the only language group that constantly goes back to the same well unthinkingly? Or is this a common failing?

In any case, world building that comes off as lazy is rarely welcome, whatever the reason or culture.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 24, 2016)

Peat said:


> In any case, world building that comes off as lazy is rarely welcome, whatever the reason or culture.



Precisely. Defaulting to a pseudo medieval Europe because you have no real interest in world building beyond the basics has to do more with the author than the subject matter.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 24, 2016)

Devouring Wolf said:


> My point is precisely that generic-ism isn't solely a problem effecting European fantasy so people should equating the two. Setting a story in a vaguely Edo period Japan or a vaguely futuristic world without any deeper thought put into it is equally inexcusable and yet when's the last time you heard someone say "I'm tired of all these generic Asian fantasy settings."
> 
> I'm not hating the conventions of the genre, I personally like classic fantasy, I'm annoyed by how lazy some of the world building is. This is sort of like the world building equivalent to the romantic subplot. Romantic subplots get shoehorned into stories that don't need them all the time because the author sees that a lot of best selling books have romantic subplots so then they try to add one in without understanding exactly why is worked so well for those best selling books.
> 
> ...



A lot of what passes as "medieval European" in fantasy stories is not really based on history, just a lot of cliches. If it's got a castle, knights, an Inn or two and some dragons it gets associated with medieval England or something like that.


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## Chessie (Aug 24, 2016)

Peat said:


> In any case, world building that comes off as lazy is rarely welcome, whatever the reason or culture.


Wow. So, so true. Although can it be masked by an amazing story? I've read fantasy books that were light on the world building but had strong stories and they still sucked me in. Also, not all world building details come through in the story. There are things we need to sacrifice for the sake of character and plot.


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## Steerpike (Aug 24, 2016)

Chesterama said:


> Wow. So, so true. Although can it be masked by an amazing story? I've read fantasy books that were light on the world building but had strong stories and they still sucked me in. Also, not all world building details come through in the story. There are things we need to sacrifice for the sake of character and plot.



There are great fantasy stories where there is sparse, or minimal world-building. I feel like I can tell the difference between an author who intentionally leaves the details of the world vague, having thought through and provided only the important elements, and an author who was just too lazy to think about it.


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## FifthView (Aug 24, 2016)

Steerpike said:


> There are great fantasy stories where there is sparse, or minimal world-building. I feel like I can tell the difference between an author who intentionally leaves the details of the world vague, having thought through and provided only the important elements, and an author who was just too lazy to think about it.



I think I'd rather read a tale that's set in an obviously generic world than those stories in which the author throws out many odd references to aspects of the world without exploring them or making them relevant to the story in some way.

Sometimes I run into that.  Characters, in their thoughts or through dialogue, mention a hundred extraneous details of the world, but none of those details will matter.

I suppose I'm more annoyed by the bait-and-switch feel of that kind of perfunctory "world building."  Whereas, if the story's obviously set in a somewhat generic medieval world, I can accept more as a given and focus on the story in front of me.


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## Chessie (Aug 24, 2016)

Right. Because it's about story above all else. But with fantasy/sci-fi our worlds are characters. The genre is known for its world building vs setting. When I write historical romance, I literally just pick a date in history and a place (or maybe make one up), make sure the historical details are correct, and just start to work on developing the story. It takes me minutes. With my fantasy stories, I've written them all set in a world that took me a year to create. So while story is very important, I also think that in this genre readers expect to be thrust into a different world. It's honestly the one thing that bugs me about _any_ fantasy set in London. For the love of everything holy, nooooooooooooooo!


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## Steerpike (Aug 24, 2016)

FifthView said:


> I suppose I'm more annoyed by the bait-and-switch feel of that kind of perfunctory "world building."  Whereas, if the story's obviously set in a somewhat generic medieval world, I can accept more as a given and focus on the story in front of me.



Use of extraneous, irrelevant details clutter a manuscript and detract from what is going on, _so I clearly cannot focus on the story in front of you..._

However, use of lush detail also supports a certain writing style, and a certain level of immersion for those who like to be lost in their fantasy world in addition to just following the characters through their stories, _so I clearly cannot focus on the story in front of me..._

Ha ha! Ha! Ha! -- *falls over dead*


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 24, 2016)

Steerpike said:


> Use of extraneous, irrelevant details clutter a manuscript and detract from what is going on, _so I clearly cannot focus on the story in front of you..._
> 
> However, use of lush detail also supports a certain writing style, and a certain level of immersion for those who like to be lost in their fantasy world in addition to just following the characters through their stories, _so I clearly cannot focus on the story in front of me..._
> 
> Ha ha! Ha! Ha! -- *falls over dead*



You're an awesome human being.


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## FifthView (Aug 24, 2016)

Chesterama said:


> Right. Because it's about story above all else. But with fantasy/sci-fi our worlds are characters. The genre is known for its world building vs setting. When I write historical romance, I literally just pick a date in history and a place (or maybe make one up), make sure the historical details are correct, and just start to work on developing the story. It takes me minutes. With my fantasy stories, I've written them all set in a world that took me a year to create. So while story is very important, I also think that in this genre readers expect to be thrust into a different world. It's honestly the one thing that bugs me about _any_ fantasy set in London. For the love of everything holy, nooooooooooooooo!



Sometimes the "different world" feeling doesn't require a great divergence, although I'm curious about what level of divergence, and what type of divergence, people seek.  I'd guess the answer to that curiosity would be "it varies from person to person."

I'm happy with little divergence if the type of divergence is something that interests me.  I think.  I'll have to ruminate on this, because I do have a history of liking traditional European-ish settings but if I put works I've enjoyed side-by-side I still feel as if the worlds are different.


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## Gurkhal (Aug 24, 2016)

I agree that worlds based on medieval Europe can be very different from each other depending on how the author views it, what themes and mood that runs throught it. For example GRRM's Westeros is very different from David Edding's medieval world in the Elenium, despite both of them being based on medieval Europe. As such I feel that medieval Europe, or to be more precise medieval England and possibly France, still has lots of stories to offer as a setting for the fantasy genre.


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## Miskatonic (Aug 25, 2016)

FifthView said:


> Sometimes the "different world" feeling doesn't require a great divergence, although I'm curious about what level of divergence, and what type of divergence, people seek.  I'd guess the answer to that curiosity would be "it varies from person to person."
> 
> I'm happy with little divergence if the type of divergence is something that interests me.  I think.  I'll have to ruminate on this, because I do have a history of liking traditional European-ish settings but if I put works I've enjoyed side-by-side I still feel as if the worlds are different.



In the series I'm working on I need the familiarity of our world in order to create a large contrast when the unknown and strange is introduced. Geographically and culturally the "human" world is like ours, though it's not meant to be an alternate version of Earth. Then there is one landmass that's been hidden via magical means that eventually becomes accessible and becomes the focal point of the second half of the story. That's where all the unusual species of animals and different races of humanoids are introduced, along with the weird names of cities, etc.. However, that being said, there are some traces of the "human" world in it because at one time the world was basically one giant landmass.


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## WooHooMan (Aug 25, 2016)

Peat said:


> It is possible that if I lived in Japan, I would hear that a lot. Or in China, wonder why its always wuxia. Or whatever else is popular in other countries.



That would be the case if the only source of inspiration a writer had was their own culture.  But Japanese fantasy (as far as I can tell) has a lot of European-style settings.  I suspect this is mostly thanks to the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons in Japan during the 80's.
It's more common to see a Japanese writer do a Western setting than a Westerner doing an Asian setting.
I think with the popularity of anime in the nerd subculture, Japanese (and to some extent, Chinese) settings are becoming more and more common.

Also, I'm getting sick of these kinds of threads.  Somebody inquires about whether a convention is justified then you get 6 pages of posts mostly saying "cliches are bad except when they're not so ignore them unless you don't want to".
I think I've been on this forum too long.


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## Peat (Aug 25, 2016)

Thank you for the info.

And yes, I'd regard Chinese/Japanese settings as not original.


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## skip.knox (Aug 25, 2016)

@WooHooMan says "Also, I'm getting sick of these kinds of threads."

Common questions get common answers. It's why FAQs were invented. This community gets a steady stream of new writers, so it's going to get a steady stream of the same questions. But the dialog is not wasted motion.

The same reply to the same question is never the same. The question gets worded a little differently, the replies vary somewhat. Most importantly, the person asking the question is coming to it from their own point in their development as an author, so the answers resonant differently for each individual.

Maybe it's because I'm a teacher and I've been getting the same questions, and giving the same answers, for thirty-plus years now, that I don't begrudge the repetition. Yes, I do get burned out a bit. When I teach, I have to reply; at least here I can just ignore the thread!


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