# I Don't Like Anything. Why? How?



## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 12, 2018)

Not *literally* anything, but close...

I'm talking about the literary world here, fantasy mostly, since that's a good bit of what I read. Guys, I am in despair. 

What can you do when just no book satisfies you anymore? On Goodreads, I find myself rating books higher than they deserve, simply because I have nothing to compare them to. I've been working my way through all the dragon books I can muster a remote interest in. So i've tried Temeraire, i've tried Pern, ive tried Eragon...et cetera et cetera. I was stunned at how much the latter two sucked, given how wildly popular they are, and Temeraire is pretty good but it's nothing great. I rated the ones i've read so far pretty high and yet they still seem to fall really short. I have no idea what i'm comparing them to, I don't have anything, but i don't understand why everything is so utterly unsatisfying. I just want some good solid reading about some goddamn dragons.  

I still enjoy reading, but i have a creeping feeling that the reason I find it so hard to motivate myself to read is that a book hasn't really captured me in forever. I've found plenty fun to dive into, but nothing that insists to be read. I miss so much the feeling of not being able to put down a book and yet almost everything makes me wither a little inside as I read because it just doesn't seem like enough. Satisfying enough, captivating enough.  

It's hard for me to find a book that interests me in the first place. I look at all the most popular fantasy novels and...idk guys. Wizards, kings vying for thrones, more wizards, thinly veiled D&D campaigns. Fantasy is a genre where you can do LITERALLY ANYTHING. LITERALLY. ANYTHING. You can write about space beings living in colonies in the rings of a toxic planet, communicating telepathically with the stars. You can set your fantasy world entirely on the abyssal plain of an ocean, with cities built in the interiors of sunken warships and the bones of fallen giants. But every other book is more wizards, more D&D creatures, more elves, more kings vying for thrones, set in a vaguely European pseudo-medieval land, with generally similar types of themes. The Dragons list on Goodreads is mostly either this or shifter romance. (???) People that deviate are harder to find. Maybe i should *make* myself read the books that seem really boring to me. But shouldn't there be books that I...I don't know...naturally want to read?? 

And i know. I know. Genre conventions, based on what people like to read, what people can be relied upon to read...except that apparently some readers are getting glossed over. Why does everything seem so bland?  Do I just have fundamentally different tastes than everyone in the world?  

I've been reading weird fiction lately and I guess I like most of it? Also steampunk. It's more creative and closer to what I care for than everything else i've been trying, but...I don't know, guys. I don't know. It seems like people aren't writing things like I'd want to read. 

That is, not a lot of books out there are very good, and not a lot of them are very interesting to me. 

I remember when i first read Harry Potter when i was little and how captivating that was. And I *miss* that.


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## pmmg (Jun 12, 2018)

I think it is a point of diminishing returns. When things are new, they are new, and all that undiscovered stuff seems fresh and fun and interesting, but as we encounter more of it, it takes more than just what we have already consumed to satisfy. Sooner or later you reach that point where the first 80% was consumed with a lot of enjoyment, but the same enjoyment cannot be had without spending a lot more effort and energy. You discriminate more, and that makes the pile of stuff that will take you further on smaller and smaller, and soon, very few can measure up.

What can you do? Cling to things that brought you here and keep holding out for those diamonds in the sand. Or hope to create what you are missing yourself, which is not as easy as it sounds.

I don't know what to suggest. For myself, I have found I have enjoyed the classic books much more than I thought I would, and have not enjoyed the stuff that people make movies of and everyone talks about much at all. I wonder...maybe it is just me. I recognize I don't share the same sensibilities as the media would have me believe most people have, and I am really hard to please. Sometimes I wish I could, I wish I could like Harry Potter, and things like the Marvel Movies, but really, I don't. I follow them to stay in the conversation, but what am I to do?

Just keep looking for those rare finds and enjoy the crap out of them when they appear.

I think the classic work because they have stood somewhat the test of time. But man, give me a good story, that comes if six or seven parts, and a good buddy to enjoy it with, and I am set.

(And I hate to say it, but I think its time Star Wars and I had that talk...)


Ah, one thing I do, is talk to others, and try to find their diamonds. If someone else really liked something, I open to seeing if I will as well. Sometimes it pays off, sometime....well, there is that whole not really sharing sensibilities thing.


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## Svrtnsse (Jun 12, 2018)

That sounds pretty rough.

I don't read nearly as much these days as I used to, but I'm trying to get back into it. I sort of feel you on how everything seems the same though. I go into Waterstones and I look in the fantasy section and there's so much that should catch my interest, but doesn't.

At the moment I'm trying to pick up recommendation from people I like, and I try to read stories written by people I know. Some of it I enjoy, and some of it I don't. I also try real hard not to get too hung up on having to finish a story just because I started it. That's getting easier, but it's still a big shift in mindset for me. It's been a sense of pride to finish any book I start, and I'm trying to let that go. There are too many better things to do than waste my time reading books I don't enjoy.

I also find I'm drawn to shorter books instead of massive tomes, but I don't have a problem with series.

One recommendation I have - although it doesn't feature dragons - is this one: The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson


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## Heliotrope (Jun 12, 2018)

It’s possible you are growing out of a genre you once loved. You are looking for the same feeling you had as a kid, so keep hunting down similar books.... but it is not the books, it is you. You are not the same person anymore. Your tastes have changed. They have become more sophisticated. You are seeking something new, something to satisfy the new level of curiosity....

The books I loved at 15 changed by 25 and changed again by 35. The stuff I wrote ten years ago is different than what I wrote 5 years ago, and then changed again.


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## CupofJoe (Jun 13, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> It’s possible you are growing out of a genre you once loved. You are looking for the same feeling you had as a kid, so keep hunting down similar books.... but it is not the books, it is you. You are not the same person anymore. Your tastes have changed. They have become more sophisticated. You are seeking something new, something to satisfy the new level of curiosity....
> 
> The books I loved at 15 changed by 25 and changed again by 35. The stuff I wrote ten years ago is different than what I wrote 5 years ago, and then changed again.


This! 
And it doesn't stop. Books I loved in my 20s and 30s are now looking a little thin in my 50s.
If I were you I'd pick a completely different genre, maybe not even anything in a "genre" are read there for a while. 
The change may give you a chance to see things anew.
Recently I've been reading George Orwell's 1984. It is very different from my usual fair [mostly Crime Noire and Pratchett]. Reading a different style of book has stretched my reading muscles and now I'm looking further and wider and enjoying reading a bit more.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2018)

pmmg said:


> I think it is a point of diminishing returns. When things are new, they are new, and all that undiscovered stuff seems fresh and fun and interesting, but as we encounter more of it, it takes more than just what we have already consumed to satisfy. Sooner or later you reach that point where the first 80% was consumed with a lot of enjoyment, but the same enjoyment cannot be had without spending a lot more effort and energy. You discriminate more, and that makes the pile of stuff that will take you further on smaller and smaller, and soon, very few can measure up.
> 
> What can you do? Cling to things that brought you here and keep holding out for those diamonds in the sand. Or hope to create what you are missing yourself, which is not as easy as it sounds.
> 
> ...



Writing it myself might truly be the only way. I've thought very often that this is the source of my dissatisfaction...it is really something inside spurring me to write and fill this void. 

I also have the problem of not enjoying the same sorts of things that most people do. ASOIAF doesn't really appeal to me because i'm bored by courts, kings, politics, grimdark and "traditional" fantasy generally. 

That, and the fact that i fear George R. R. Martin will keel over before he finishes the series. If i read it at all, it'll be after he finishes if that ever happens. I'll probably be like 50.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> That sounds pretty rough.
> 
> I don't read nearly as much these days as I used to, but I'm trying to get back into it. I sort of feel you on how everything seems the same though. I go into Waterstones and I look in the fantasy section and there's so much that should catch my interest, but doesn't.
> 
> ...



Ever since I got a goodreads account, I've rarely been able to leave anything unfinished. Gotta mark it as "read!" Doing the reading challenge, ya know. I've had some reading experiences about comparable to taking a cheese grater to my face due to that damn reading challenge...ugh! 

That's funny, because i've been craving massive books. The thing is, a lot of them are just bloated rather than truly substantial.


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## pmmg (Jun 15, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> That, and the fact that i fear George R. R. Martin will keel over before he finishes the series. If i read it at all, it'll be after he finishes if that ever happens. I'll probably be like 50.


















  Wahhhh...I am 50 already!

You make it sound dreadful.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2018)

Heliotrope said:


> It’s possible you are growing out of a genre you once loved. You are looking for the same feeling you had as a kid, so keep hunting down similar books.... but it is not the books, it is you. You are not the same person anymore. Your tastes have changed. They have become more sophisticated. You are seeking something new, something to satisfy the new level of curiosity....
> 
> The books I loved at 15 changed by 25 and changed again by 35. The stuff I wrote ten years ago is different than what I wrote 5 years ago, and then changed again.



That is possible too. Although, I can't see my basic craving for fantasy (or spec fic, I suppose) disappearing. Maybe I am looking in the wrong places for it. My tastes within the spec-fic framework are definitely very different...I'm a lover of horror elements, and the urban or suburban gothic rather than the traditional fantasy environment. That's probably why Welcome to Night Vale appeals to me so much. 

I seem to have this very palpable idea of the kinds of things I want to read. I really want a long series with thick, meaty installments rich in depth. You mostly find that in the very traditional fantasy though.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2018)

pmmg said:


> Wahhhh...I am 50 already!
> 
> You make it sound dreadful.



Not dreadful, but a reasonable estimate for how long it will take GRRM to finish that monster series.


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## Svrtnsse (Jun 15, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I've rarely been able to leave anything unfinished. Gotta mark it as "read!" Doing the reading challenge, ya know.


I think this idea that you have to finish a book even if you don't enjoy it is really rather dangerous. It sucks the joy out of the reading and turns it into a chore you feel you have to complete for no other reason that it needs to be completed. You don't enjoy it and no one's really going to care or even know if you don't finish it - it's what I'm trying to tell myself. It's not that easy, but I'm warming to it.

My list of "currently reading" books is growing a lot faster than it's shrinking.

From a different angle, your post also made me quite happy, for purely selfish reasons. What you're describing about how you feel is pretty much exactly how I envision my target audience: someone who...
 - enjoys fantasy, 
 - has read a lot of it
 - is getting tired of the same ol' epic adventures with the entire world hanging in the balance
 - wants something a little different
 - still enjoys the escapism of fantasy.

I'm aware this is a bit of a sales pitch, but it also really is what I'm trying to do. I'm going to make _Emma's Story_ available for free again toward the end of the month and I'll let you know when it is and you can have a look.


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## Chessie2 (Jun 15, 2018)

1. Harry Potter is a wizard.

2. GOt isn't for everyone. I despise that series for many reasons. So much so that when my father in-law bought one of the books I tried talking him out of it. He didn't listen.

3. Lindsey Buroker writes awesome Steampunk, although her series is older now that she has moved on to Sci Fi. I highly recommend her Flash Gold series because it's amazing.

4. I know many folks still look down on Indie publishing but the truth is that, because Indies don't have gatekeepers, your chances of finding unusual reads are higher within the Indie author community. If you're looking for non-bland then consider stepping outside of your comfort zone of authors. I don't read much fantasy anymore either but I don't think genre is your problem. Do you like Aztec time era? Emily Wibberley's The Last Oracle is a YA fantasy series that is pretty good from what I have heard. I've been meaning to read it because it sounds awesome. Maybe you could give it a shot?

5. Write the stories that you want to read. You never know what will come out of that as you continue maturing.


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## Chessie2 (Jun 15, 2018)

Oh! I wanted to add that I, too, have found nothing but boredom lately when it comes to books. I have been finding old books, typically written in the 70s and 80s, and enjoying those a lot. Just something to consider. They also seem to help my craft immensely.


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## Heliotrope (Jun 15, 2018)

^^^ I'm back to reading the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen and Ann Radcliff again... We all go through phases, I think.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> 1. Harry Potter is a wizard.
> 
> 2. GOt isn't for everyone. I despise that series for many reasons. So much so that when my father in-law bought one of the books I tried talking him out of it. He didn't listen.
> 
> ...



thx for the recs! Aztec time period sounds lovely. 

Honestly I would love to dive more into indie books because I feel there might be a good many unusual gems in there.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2018)

I just read my book over and over obsessively... tinkering... until it's finally released, LOL. Otherwise I pretty much read indie stuff. Then my next book over and over and over. I find it hard to make it past the previews in Amazon anymore. Last night I saw a book with lots of great reviews, nice cover, finalist for an indie award, I started reading and after a short time I thought to myself... if they open a sentence with one more adverbial phrase... (bam!) One more and... Bam!  Are kidding me? Bam!  I closed the book. Now mind you, there were plenty of other factors in their writing, but there was no way I'd make into the story with the writing slapping my face over and over and over. Middle of the book I tolerate things better, but I'm a tight-lipped fish in the hook phase of reading.

So, I went back to studying marketing and tinkering with book one... Found a typesetting issue in the paperback version too! LOL. It's an illness.

And you typo'd... pretty sure you meant Harry Potter is a twit.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> I think this idea that you have to finish a book even if you don't enjoy it is really rather dangerous. It sucks the joy out of the reading and turns it into a chore you feel you have to complete for no other reason that it needs to be completed. You don't enjoy it and no one's really going to care or even know if you don't finish it - it's what I'm trying to tell myself. It's not that easy, but I'm warming to it.
> 
> My list of "currently reading" books is growing a lot faster than it's shrinking.
> 
> ...



I'm still "currently reading" a bunch of books that have sat idle for a good year or so. O_O too unbearable to finish, yet i don't want to take them down... 

that's awesome about your book! And maybe there are others like me? Anyway, thats true, it does seem like fantasy stories are all about saving the world, and there aren't any stories about...well...life.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jun 15, 2018)

I've got tons of book suggestions from my own extensive personal library, if you'd like.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jun 15, 2018)

A lot of them even involve life instead of saving the world.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 15, 2018)

TheCrystallineEntity said:


> I've got tons of book suggestions from my own extensive personal library, if you'd like.



Bring them on!


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 15, 2018)

Hmm, stories are often about saving the world even when they are about life. How often is a character looking to preserve or improve their current situation? That is all about saving "their World".

Eve of Snows is, for instance, about "saving their world" and it appears somewhat literal... it's what the characters think they're doing... but everyone is being played. But still, they are fighting to preserve their status quo, which is "their world". So, I have a different take on that issue, more story structure than literal.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jun 15, 2018)

I'll list them by author for convenience. Some of them you may have read already, and not all of them are fantasy.

My favourites by Diana Wynne Jones:
Howl's Moving Castle
The Dark Lord of Derkholm and its sequel, Year of the Griffon
Deep Secret and its sequel, The Merlin Conspiracy
Fire and Hemlock [my personal favourite of hers]
Hexwood
Dogsbody
Enchanted Glass
Unexpected Magic

some others also by Diana Wynne Jones:
all of the Chrestomanci books
A Tale of Time City
The Dalemark Quartet
Archer's Goon
The Orge Downstairs

Garth Nix:
Sabriel, Lirael, Abbhorsen, Across the Wall, To Hold the Bridge, Clariel, Goldenhand

all of the Discworld books

Brandon Sanderson:
The Mistborn trilogy
Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians series
Elantris

Neil Gaiman:
Stardust
American Gods
Neverwhere
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Good Omens

Jasper Fforde:
The Thursday Next series [the first two books are a bit tough to read, but things get much better from the third book onwards]

Ursula Le Guin:
The Earthsea Cycle--A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea, The Other Wind
Gifts
The Telling

Kenneth Oppel:
Silverwing
Sunwing
Firewing
Darkwing

Michael Ende
The Never-ending Story
Momo

Want more? I have an extensive collection of manga as well.


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## CupofJoe (Jun 16, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> That is possible too. Although, I can't see my basic craving for fantasy (or spec fic, I suppose) disappearing. Maybe I am looking in the wrong places for it. My tastes within the spec-fic framework are definitely very different...I'm a lover of horror elements, and the urban or suburban gothic rather than the traditional fantasy environment. That's probably why Welcome to Night Vale appeals to me so much.
> 
> I seem to have this very palpable idea of the kinds of things I want to read. I really want a long series with thick, meaty installments rich in depth. You mostly find that in the very traditional fantasy though.


Have you looked at HP Lovecraft? 
They are Horror, sub/urban [in parts - they go all over the place] and rather gothic. And while not one series, the stories do share the same world so can be read as an enormous mega-story. There may be a few issues, though. They are old enough to have a very different feel to them to a modern tale and there is the occasional issue with language that was common at the time but not appropriate now. as they sometimes say "it reflects the language and attitudes current at the time". All that said. I love them.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 16, 2018)

CupofJoe said:


> Have you looked at HP Lovecraft?
> They are Horror, sub/urban [in parts - they go all over the place] and rather gothic. And while not one series, the stories do share the same world so can be read as an enormous mega-story. There may be a few issues, though. They are old enough to have a very different feel to them to a modern tale and there is the occasional issue with language that was common at the time but not appropriate now. as they sometimes say "it reflects the language and attitudes current at the time". All that said. I love them.



I haven't done much looking into Lovecraft but I would probably like them.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jun 16, 2018)

Having lots of recs on this thread is nice. Thanks guys! 

But really, i've done quite a bit of thinking and I think the reason I feel this way is very simple. I've written about it before. That unfulfilled craving I feel has to be for the book I am meant to write. 

You're welcome to pass over my thoughts on this if you're not the spiritual type, but i am the spiritual type and creating things is very spiritual for me. Because of that I feel guided toward the stories I am meant to write by this craving, for a purpose certainly, but one I don't understand quite yet. Writing is literally my reason to live in some ways. I've known uncannily early that it's what i was meant to do and i've been story-telling long before i could think about concepts like what I was meant to do. I just popped out that way. 

Exploring my spiritual and religious beliefs has made this interesting. Maybe I am the reincarnation of some writer who died with a vastly important idea still inside them and that's why i seemed to have been born with a fierce need to get things on paper. It's interesting to be fanciful like that. But to be more serious, I truly believe whatever I m meant to write is very, very important. 

I don't like this process of being guided toward my purpose, though. It is very frustrating. Sometimes It hurts. 

That's how I feel about it, deep down. The book I want doesn't exist because I haven't written it. That feels more damning than anything sometimes. Writing is hard. And I'm terrified of not pulling it off. 

Still, I wonder if this feeling of boredom with the whole literary world is totally a result of that, or if writing my book can resolve it or will resolve it at all. They say write the book you want to read. But writing is haaaaaard. 

And i really just want to read it, okay?? 

Or maybe this will just...pass with time. I wonder if my drive to write would stay totally the same if that happened, though?


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## Ban (Jun 16, 2018)

Don't worry about it, sometimes your tastes simply change. I'm a fiction writer who hasn't read a full work of fiction in close to two years (though I'm trying to get back in). Doesn't mean you have to stop reading, but you just need to start reading what you like at the moment. For me right now, that's informative non-fiction books, for you it may simply be a genre other than fantasy.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jun 16, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Having lots of recs on this thread is nice. Thanks guys!
> 
> But really, i've done quite a bit of thinking and I think the reason I feel this way is very simple. I've written about it before. That unfulfilled craving I feel has to be for the book I am meant to write.
> 
> ...



I feel the same way, a lot. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels that way.


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## Malik (Jun 30, 2018)

It's been said that if there's a book that you want to read that hasn't been written, it's your duty to write it.

I literally crafted the approach to my series with this exact thought: "Why hasn't anyone done this?" I was pissed off at Dragonlance and other YA fantasy at the time that got so much basic, day-to-day stuff just howlingly wrong, and about the same time, _The Hunt for Red October_ came out, and I thought, "Huh . . . why don't any authors do this for fantasy? Like, learn how castles worked, and figure out how to actually fight in armor, and learn to ride a horse, and then write about that? Why is everyone doing all this magic crap and getting everything else wrong?" 

And then in college I really got into heavily researched thrillers and technothrillers and hard SF, and it's still mostly what I read. Now I write fantasy technothrillers. I rarely read fantasy, and I still have a tendency to "Nope" right out of a fantasy the first time someone treats a horse like a motorcycle or a sword slices through armor.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 30, 2018)

Yes, my characters tend to be sore, achy, exhausted, and walking crooked after a day in the saddle when they aren't used to it, LOL.

It's funny how different folks have different reality breakers. I can still watch westerns, but some of the gaffs... I think my favorite was Costner's character in Dances with Wolves was running about firing an empty Henry Rifle.

But me... I tend to tolerate slips in reality with a chuckle or roll of the eyes, IF the story and writing hold up. Most books with major reality gaffs will lose me before that.



Malik said:


> It's been said that if there's a book that you want to read that hasn't been written, it's your duty to write it.
> 
> I literally crafted the approach to my series with this exact thought: "Why hasn't anyone done this?" I was pissed off at Dragonlance and other YA fantasy at the time that got so much basic, day-to-day stuff just howlingly wrong, and about the same time, _The Hunt for Red October_ came out, and I thought, "Huh . . . why don't any authors do this for fantasy? Like, learn how castles worked, and figure out how to actually fight in armor, and learn to ride a horse, and then write about that? Why is everyone doing all this magic crap and getting everything else wrong?"
> 
> And then in college I really got into heavily researched thrillers and technothrillers and hard SF, and it's still mostly what I read. Now I write fantasy technothrillers. I rarely read fantasy, and I still have a tendency to "Nope" right out of a fantasy the first time someone treats a horse like a motorcycle or a sword slices through armor.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 30, 2018)

And of course, when people talk about GRRM being "realistic" what they really seem to mean is gritty, dark, dirty, cynical, backstabbing, no black vs white, everybody is gray... etc etc. And the weird part is they tend to see Middle Earth as fluffy... which I think must be blamed on hobbits and elves who seem to live in mini-utopias... and the one rural utopia is pillaged before the end... but seeing as there isn't graphic rape, incest, murder, whores, etc., it isn't "realistic". Funny that. It's all a mindset.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jun 30, 2018)

The elves, to me, don't seem to have utopias. All they have is sadness, that one day, the world will end, and they along with it.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jun 30, 2018)

If that's all they got to worry about they should visit King's Landing some time.



TheCrystallineEntity said:


> The elves, to me, don't seem to have utopias. All they have is sadness, that one day, the world will end, and they along with it.


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## skip.knox (Jun 30, 2018)

Malik said:


> And then in college I really got into heavily researched thrillers and technothrillers and hard SF, and it's still mostly what I read. Now I write fantasy technothrillers. I rarely read fantasy, and I still have a tendency to "Nope" right out of a fantasy the first time someone treats a horse like a motorcycle or a sword slices through armor.



Malik, have you read any of Daniel Suarez? I really enjoyed his duology, _Daemon_ and _Freedom [TM]_.


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## Chessie2 (Jul 2, 2018)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Hmm, stories are often about saving the world even when they are about life. How often is a character looking to preserve or improve their current situation? That is all about saving "their World".
> 
> Eve of Snows is, for instance, about "saving their world" and it appears somewhat literal... it's what the characters think they're doing... but everyone is being played. But still, they are fighting to preserve their status quo, which is "their world". So, I have a different take on that issue, more story structure than literal.


I've been reading Eve of Snows and it's somewhat dark (still in the beginning...reading two books at once, lol). It's reminding me of the Dawnguard main questline in Skyrim when the PC goes down to the High Elf temple ruins with Serana for the very last quest. Basically, I like it. 

Dragon, I wanted to come back on here because I've been thinking about this thread and your dilemma.

Before a certain age, I read a lot of fantasy. Sword and Sorcery was my favorite. I never really liked epic fantasy but made an exception for certain stories and authors. At some point though, I stopped caring. Not sure why. I seriously just fell out of love with fantasy, which had been my favorite genre except for historical romance my entire life. I played Dungeons and Dragons with my dad growing up, am STILL to this day into fantasy video games and am considering joining a Pathfinder game in our new town (lol) but I simply cannot read a whole lot of fantasy for some reason. Des' is holding my attention though. 

Which leads me to believe that my tastes have shifted dramatically. As a youngster I read the entire series of the Little House books several times over. And I always have had a fondness for Wild West history (a bloody one at that but I still enjoy it). There are some tastes that you never lose, and there are others you just grow out of. I think that, however, for you and me something very interesting is happening: fantasy books need to have certain elements to keep us interested. They need to speak to the part of our tastes that still exist. For me, it's definitely history and romance. If a fantasy story has an element of romance, I'm there. If a fantasy story has a medieval feel with windswept snows and a lot of suffering, I'm there. If it has dragons, I'm there--although this has been tremendously hard for me to find. That Russian movie with the dragon prince though...it makes my heart skip a beat!

What I'm suggesting is that maybe you've grown out of fantasy for the most part, but are still willing to consider it if it has certain elements that draw you in. What are those? What do you really like, what are you crazy about? I think the reason why I ended up writing HR is because, as a wife and mother, relationships and nurturing and love is what speaks to me. I'm just built that way and I love a good romance that will bring me down to my knees and cry (North & South, here's looking at you). But what speaks to YOU, Dragon, in this period of your life? You're about to enter college and start exploring the woman who lies within. So maybe it's not that you don't like anything. I wager all of this has everything to do with your maturing person who cannot hold disbelief with a lot of fantasy these days for xyz reasons but your love for the genre is still there. It just needs to contain something else. Hm?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

That's the thing, though. I'm still in love with the fantasy genre or the *concept* of fantasy (though very much out of love with some common tropes of it). That, and anything alt history, weird fiction, or speculative and eccentric in the broadest terms. What it seems, though, is that something in my brain is like "Not quite." whenever I read a book. I mean that at least partially, my dissatisfaction seems to be with degree rather than kind. This book is what I want, but it's not *enough* of what i want. Not imaginative enough or in depth enough or *something.* I enjoy books, but even the best ones don't seem that good. I'm somehow able to still be critical; needs more worldbuilding, more details on this, writing could be polished up, this is really underdeveloped, why is this character here?...always something to make me say, this could be better.  I love fantasy because I like visiting strange realities with other cultures and creatures and kingdoms and powers. Things that are different from here...I keep ending up in bad parodies of Earth. 

Or maybe it's that i'm reading everything popular and expecting my tastes to align and they just don't. I tried Pern not too long ago, for instance. Didnt like those books at all. I had to force myself to finish the first one. Read ten pages, stop, try another ten pages...Just grueling.  I guess it would have been better if F'lar wasn't an abusive asswipe.


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## skip.knox (Jul 2, 2018)

I agree with Chessie: be sure to branch out in your reading (maybe you already have; in which case, this is for some other reader!). I was fortunate to do this early. I was all SF all the time as a teen. Somewhere around nineteen, though, I read _The Brothers Karamazov_ and that led me off into Russian writers for a stretch. In my late thirties I discovered Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett; later, I added Walter Moseley to that list. Somewhere in my forties I made my Book List, constructed by plundering various Best 100 [whatever] Books. I was utterly arbitrary and eclectic. I still curate that list from time to time. Nevil Shute has been my most recent discovery.

I can't really point to any specific benefit for my writing, other than to make me humble in the face of greatness. But I have no doubt at all that reading widely has improved my quality of life. Genuinely good books are as rare as genuinely good music or painting. They are treasures. Reading in one genre only means you have sunk only one mine, sampled only one sort of gem. 

One other thought I'll offer. When I was young <insert audience groan>, I was a creature of obsessions. I would find an author and read everything they wrote. I would hear a band and buy all their albums. And I'd re-read. Listen to that album over and over. Binging, they'd call it now, and it was heavenly.

There was, if my memory does not deceive me, always a period afterward. If I was lucky, I'd find a new obsession hard on the heels of the old one, but however brief there was this span of dullness. The familiar honey no longer was sweet. That boredom or disillusionment could spread, causing me to regard all my days as dull and uninspired. Maybe it's only that. If it lasts weeks into months, then something else is going on.


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## Chessie2 (Jul 2, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> That's the thing, though. I'm still in love with the fantasy genre or the *concept* of fantasy (though very much out of love with some common tropes of it). That, and anything alt history, weird fiction, or speculative and eccentric in the broadest terms. What it seems, though, is that something in my brain is like "Not quite." whenever I read a book. I mean that at least partially, my dissatisfaction seems to be with degree rather than kind. This book is what I want, but it's not *enough* of what i want. Not imaginative enough or in depth enough or *something.* I enjoy books, but even the best ones don't seem that good. I'm somehow able to still be critical; needs more worldbuilding, more details on this, writing could be polished up, this is really underdeveloped, why is this character here?...always something to make me say, this could be better.  I love fantasy because I like visiting strange realities with other cultures and creatures and kingdoms and powers. Things that are different from here...I keep ending up in bad parodies of Earth.
> 
> Or maybe it's that i'm reading everything popular and expecting my tastes to align and they just don't. I tried Pern not too long ago, for instance. Didnt like those books at all. I had to force myself to finish the first one. Read ten pages, stop, try another ten pages...Just grueling.  I guess it would have been better if F'lar wasn't an abusive asswipe.


Two things come to mind:

1. You're reading critically as a writer instead of reading for enjoyment.
2. Your tastes don't align with what's popular.

Let me touch on #2 because that makes the most sense. For example, GOT is hugely popular amongst my circle of friends. I effing hate it. So much so that I spent several precious minutes of my life trying to convince my father-in-law to NOT start reading the series. He, of course, didn't listen, but whatever. *shakes fist* Most of what's popular on Amazon or Goodreads is meh/lame/yawn to me. I can't do it. We have to remember that most of the popular books out there are written for the masses, so they will have a generic feel/basic plot that doesn't, quite frankly, interest someone like you who creates worlds and writes novels. 

You're right in that those books don't have enough. Maybe stop reading off those Goodreads lists and popular Amazon categories. Tbh, a  lot of manipulation goes on with those and they don't (truthfully) reflect what readers really want in many cases. I am specifically talking about Amazon best seller lists here. But anyway, have you considered going back like 20+ years and reading old school fantasy? I mean, if you're searching for strange outside of Medieval sword & sorcery it's out there but you gotta dig. It doesn't seem like you can rely on the average list to find books anymore. Those aren't catered to your tastes.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

Malik said:


> It's been said that if there's a book that you want to read that hasn't been written, it's your duty to write it.
> 
> I literally crafted the approach to my series with this exact thought: "Why hasn't anyone done this?" I was pissed off at Dragonlance and other YA fantasy at the time that got so much basic, day-to-day stuff just howlingly wrong, and about the same time, _The Hunt for Red October_ came out, and I thought, "Huh . . . why don't any authors do this for fantasy? Like, learn how castles worked, and figure out how to actually fight in armor, and learn to ride a horse, and then write about that? Why is everyone doing all this magic crap and getting everything else wrong?"
> 
> And then in college I really got into heavily researched thrillers and technothrillers and hard SF, and it's still mostly what I read. Now I write fantasy technothrillers. I rarely read fantasy, and I still have a tendency to "Nope" right out of a fantasy the first time someone treats a horse like a motorcycle or a sword slices through armor.



This is a pretty good description of how I'm feeling in part, just with different things. "Why aren't people doing THIS with fantasy?"'

Except for me it's: Why aren't people writing epic, lore-steeped fantasy sagas about non-European cultures? Why are children's books more imaginative with creatures, dragons and world building than adult novels? (Seriously. How to Train Your Dragon: Children's book full of fart jokes, comes up with over 100 unique species. Most adult novels: literally just color-codes them.) This steampunk tech is cool, why isn't there more fantasy like this? This historical fiction is cool, why can't fantasy take inspiration from this time period? *on wikipedia looking at prehistoric animals* THIS STUFF IS SO DAMN COOL WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO HAVE PLAIN HORSES AND WOLVES AND ETC IN FANTASY. This post apocalyptic stuff is a really interesting concept, what if dragons? This weird fiction author is so imaginative, if only his books were thicker and more in number and had DRAGONS and a large cast of characters and lots of different cultures and kingdoms...This genre has so much potential, why are we using these tropes again?


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## Chessie2 (Jul 2, 2018)

Also, YES, I agree with Skip: READ IN OTHER GENRES!!!


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> Two things come to mind:
> 
> 1. You're reading critically as a writer instead of reading for enjoyment.
> 2. Your tastes don't align with what's popular.
> ...



I end up liking all the stuff that slips between the cracks and gets pounded by Goodreads. Go figure. 

I've done some hunting for specific things. For example, books with animal POV's that aren't children's books. Not easy to find. That's how I came across the Ratha books. 

Probably, hunting out indie or obscure stuff would do me more good. 

I concur about ASOIAF. I have zero desire to read them and probably never will. 

As for #1...I think i really want to find something where I DON'T have to turn off my writer side (almost all of me).


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

Most of my reading is a random assortment of spec fic+ quite a bit of nonfiction, some contemporary, some classics, some historical fiction stuff. Not sure if counts as branching out.


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## Chessie2 (Jul 2, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> This is a pretty good description of how I'm feeling in part, just with different things. "Why aren't people doing THIS with fantasy?"'
> 
> Except for me it's: Why aren't people writing epic, lore-steeped fantasy sagas about non-European cultures? Why are children's books more imaginative with creatures, dragons and world building than adult novels? (Seriously. How to Train Your Dragon: Children's book full of fart jokes, comes up with over 100 unique species. Most adult novels: literally just color-codes them.) This steampunk tech is cool, why isn't there more fantasy like this? This historical fiction is cool, why can't fantasy take inspiration from this time period? *on wikipedia looking at prehistoric animals* THIS STUFF IS SO DAMN COOL WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO HAVE PLAIN HORSES AND WOLVES AND ETC IN FANTASY. This post apocalyptic stuff is a really interesting concept, what if dragons? This weird fiction author is so imaginative, if only his books were thicker and more in number and had DRAGONS and a large cast of characters and lots of different cultures and kingdoms...This genre has so much potential, why are we using these tropes again?


Money and visibility. It's really quite that simple.

If you ever publish, you'll understand the whys a lot more. When you, as a writer/author struggling to break into publishing, are constantly rejected by trad OR can't sell books on Amazon because they don't fit within a certain scope of the genre, rejection will push you to write more to market. This doesn't mean basic; it just means writing the things that readers are crazy about. Most readers want the same but different. You, Dragon, are a rarity. For an author trying to make a living at selling their work, they are going to have to market/follow the readers en masse, not the ones who have unique tastes like you. Not dissing here, just trying to help you understand that money talks and that's why you're having such a hard time finding books to read that you enjoy. Plus, I think there's this permeating belief in publishing that readers are basic and all like the same things, but that's another topic for another day.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jul 2, 2018)

You will never read anything that you don't think could be better... that's the pain in the ass of being a writer. 

It took about a year for me to get into and finish Dragon's Trail, I just can't read Name of the Wind. SoIaF... I mean, I love it overall, but I SKIM! There, I admitted it. He piles in detail and throws in... well, throwaway chapters... way too much for my taste. GoT was the best book because it was the tightest, you can see the difference between even the first several chapters of GoT and the rest of his writing.

Mr. Knox found it odd I leave out some words in my voice (not an accident at all) Helio thinks I need more detail. And so on, and so on. 

I have mellowed and find myself able to read more now, but it's tough sometimes.



DragonOfTheAerie said:


> That's the thing, though. I'm still in love with the fantasy genre or the *concept* of fantasy (though very much out of love with some common tropes of it). That, and anything alt history, weird fiction, or speculative and eccentric in the broadest terms. What it seems, though, is that something in my brain is like "Not quite." whenever I read a book. I mean that at least partially, my dissatisfaction seems to be with degree rather than kind. This book is what I want, but it's not *enough* of what i want. Not imaginative enough or in depth enough or *something.* I enjoy books, but even the best ones don't seem that good. I'm somehow able to still be critical; needs more worldbuilding, more details on this, writing could be polished up, this is really underdeveloped, why is this character here?...always something to make me say, this could be better.  I love fantasy because I like visiting strange realities with other cultures and creatures and kingdoms and powers. Things that are different from here...I keep ending up in bad parodies of Earth.
> 
> Or maybe it's that i'm reading everything popular and expecting my tastes to align and they just don't. I tried Pern not too long ago, for instance. Didnt like those books at all. I had to force myself to finish the first one. Read ten pages, stop, try another ten pages...Just grueling.  I guess it would have been better if F'lar wasn't an abusive asswipe.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jul 2, 2018)

Yeah, I'm starting the books in a Vikingesque clan-politics setting, you'll move into more medieval, then feudal and jungles... If I get readers sucked into the world, then I will expand into the wild cultures that litter my world. But, even then, the main culture's religion and philosophy are pretty different. Detailed and nutsy religions will make my cultures do some funky things, LOL.



Chessie2 said:


> Money and visibility. It's really quite that simple.
> 
> If you ever publish, you'll understand the whys a lot more. When you, as a writer/author struggling to break into publishing, are constantly rejected by trad OR can't sell books on Amazon because they don't fit within a certain scope of the genre, rejection will push you to write more to market. This doesn't mean basic; it just means writing the things that readers are crazy about. Most readers want the same but different. You, Dragon, are a rarity. For an author trying to make a living at selling their work, they are going to have to market/follow the readers en masse, not the ones who have unique tastes like you. Not dissing here, just trying to help you understand that money talks and that's why you're having such a hard time finding books to read that you enjoy. Plus, I think there's this permeating belief in publishing that readers are basic and all like the same things, but that's another topic for another day.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jul 2, 2018)

Thanks Chessie! Good to hear it has your attention. And just so you know, the trilogy could be called "The Three Romances of Ivin Choerkin" LOL. But of course, only one can end happy... (insert dramatic music here).

Not sure how far along you are, but it is certainly dark... although how dark is a matter of reader.

Oh, have you written anything that might appeal to a cowboy romance reader? AKA the Mrs, LOL.



Chessie2 said:


> I've been reading Eve of Snows and it's somewhat dark (still in the beginning...reading two books at once, lol). It's reminding me of the Dawnguard main questline in Skyrim when the PC goes down to the High Elf temple ruins with Serana for the very last quest. Basically, I like it.
> 
> Dragon, I wanted to come back on here because I've been thinking about this thread and your dilemma.
> 
> ...


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> Money and visibility. It's really quite that simple.
> 
> If you ever publish, you'll understand the whys a lot more. When you, as a writer/author struggling to break into publishing, are constantly rejected by trad OR can't sell books on Amazon because they don't fit within a certain scope of the genre, rejection will push you to write more to market. This doesn't mean basic; it just means writing the things that readers are crazy about. Most readers want the same but different. You, Dragon, are a rarity. For an author trying to make a living at selling their work, they are going to have to market/follow the readers en masse, not the ones who have unique tastes like you. Not dissing here, just trying to help you understand that money talks and that's why you're having such a hard time finding books to read that you enjoy. Plus, I think there's this permeating belief in publishing that readers are basic and all like the same things, but that's another topic for another day.



It seems like a system that would feed itself. Often people like things because that's what they're fed and marketed. Or at least that's my observation. And it's to the publishers' benefit to keep reader interests pretty stable, I guess.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jul 2, 2018)

Marketing relies on human nature, it doesn't form it.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

But here's the thing...I'm not even convinced that at least *some* of the things I love are that rare to like? When you start to look at Tumblr, Deviantart (I have, A LOT.) its full of people with awesome ideas, tons of creativity, and thousands and thousands of people liking these concepts and ideas and artworks and prompts that just...don't show up in books. I could pick a Tumblr artist who draws dragons at random with any semi-decent following and they'd have better ideas than the people writing bestselling books who throw a generic, textbook dragon into their novel without bothering much to reinvent. Deviantart people who paint digital landscapes and settings literally just for fun do better worldbuilding than almost every book I've ever read. There are tumblr threads made by random people about every mythical creature, rethinking the concept in really cool ways that authors just don't do. There are research blogs followed by thousands of writers full of the most obscure weapons and invaluable information on how to make their fight scenes accurate. A lot of random nobodies seem meticulous with their research so why aren't the best sellers? 

Where are the books? Where can I find them?


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## Svrtnsse (Jul 2, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> But here's the thing...I'm not even convinced that at least *some* of the things I love are that rare to like?


They probably aren't. More likely, they're just not as popular as the things that are most popular.

I'll elaborate, and while this example is pretty outdated (early nineties) I think the principle still applies.

When it comes to music, most of what you hear on the radio and on TV is some kind of pop music. That's not because most people like that, but because it has the largest audience. Surveys showed that about 15% of all people enjoy that kind of music. That's not very many, but for all other genres represented in the survey, the amount of people who enjoyed it was smaller. 
Jazz was 10%, heavy metal was 8%, psychedelic folk rock was 2% (I made these numbers up on the spot just to illustrate).

What I'm getting at is that the amount of people who enjoy the mainstream culture isn't that big, but as a group they're bigger than any individual other group. For music, I've found my ways of finding the things I enjoy, but as far as books go I've yet to find a way to weed out what I want from what I'm not interested in. Hopefully I'll crack it soon enough, and I'll get some joy back into reading as well. 



Demesnedenoir said:


> Marketing relies on human nature, it doesn't form it.


I'm not sure this is entirely true - but I guess it depends on how you define _human nature_.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Marketing relies on human nature, it doesn't form it.



My whole life i've had people insist that girls wil naturally like things marketed to girls, and boys will naturally like things marketed to boys. And anyone who disagrees is peddling sjw bullshit, or something. 

Have had people insist that girls naturally like dolls, that they naturally want to dress up in pretty clothes, that they naturally like makeup, that they "naturally" care about this and enjoy that. I apparently am not a girl. People tend to assume that i'll eventually get into things like sticking icky substances on my face to make it look slightly different. I'm 18 now; its a little late. 

I'm honestly pretty suspicious of the idea that marketing always just follows what people "naturally" like. I've never been able to like what other people like, ever. I don't think my interests are unique. I've met girls with the same feelings and interests that I have, but they have always slowly eroded into a facsimile of What a Teenage Girl Is, or else they are able to suppress/turn off those interests to talk about makeup and nail art. I know, though, that i'm utterly blind to peer pressure and mob mentality (probably Aspergers). I'm not unique, i'm just not affected by the aggressive socialization of teenage girls to behave in a really specific way. 

So yeah, unless i am just an irredeemable oddity, i have to be suspicious of the assumption that what people like is always just their nature, unadulterated and pure. I've seen people's natural interests squished out of them over time again and again. It's actually been really upsetting. Good God have to tried to like makeup but it feels so gross and it's creepy when my face doesn't look exactly like my face.


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## Svrtnsse (Jul 2, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> My whole life i've had people insist that girls wil naturally like things marketed to girls, and boys will naturally like things marketed to boys. And anyone who disagrees is peddling sjw bullshit, or something.


I think it's safe to say that we're all shaped by the expectations placed upon us. The world at large, through marketing and other means, places different expectations on men and women, as well as on people of different age groups or ethnicities. It shapes who we are. It will have more impact on some people, and less impact on others.


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## Tom (Jul 2, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> My whole life i've had people insist that girls wil naturally like things marketed to girls, and boys will naturally like things marketed to boys. And anyone who disagrees is peddling sjw bullshit, or something.
> 
> Have had people insist that girls naturally like dolls, that they naturally want to dress up in pretty clothes, that they naturally like makeup, that they "naturally" care about this and enjoy that. I apparently am not a girl. People tend to assume that i'll eventually get into things like sticking icky substances on my face to make it look slightly different. I'm 18 now; its a little late.
> 
> ...



This speaks to me so much. As a trans guy, I was definitely pressured as a child and teen into liking certain things that girls were supposed to like. Because I wasn't a girl, I pushed back against it and tried to embrace things that boys were supposed to like. It's only now that I've been secure in my identity for a while that I've started to break down my perceptions of what I was "supposed" to like and what I actually like. There were some "girly" interests that appealed to me, but because they were marketed mainly toward girls it felt wrong for me to like them. I knew I was a boy even when no one else treated me like I was one, and I felt that to be recognized as a boy I would have to like what the world told me boys liked. It's only now that I'm looking back at how this affected me. I'm much happier now, liking things simply because *I* like them. I try not to assign gender to my interests for this reason.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jul 2, 2018)

Somehow this moved to gender and squishing people... I hear mammograms are good for that... when the market sees an audience it will play to it. The best in marketing play to human nature, and I guarantee, human nature exists whether you like it or not, and one part of human nature is to like a certain thing and stick with it... say, medieval European fantasy with dragons with wings. Or, snot-snoed little shits waving a wand and calling themselves a wizard... or pathetic sparkly vampires... what is trendy catches on, and imprints in the psyche, and because people want to relive that experience, more books of that type or created. But, comparing visual medium to the written word is weak. A writer can't do what an artist does, and right back at the artist.

You this is China too... Monkey-movies are remade over and over and there are lots of knock-offs.

How many alien bar scenes showed up after Star Wars?

It is in human nature to try to find what you enjoy, just like you are doing, and to get aggravated when not finding it. That is hardly a reason to disparage other folks who have found what they like, and who are driving the market.

So much of the novel's experience is brought to the house by the reader. Brandon Sanderson once mentioned that one book or series was populated by people of asian appearance, but he doubted anyone reading knew that, because he didn't bother to mention it.


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## Svrtnsse (Jul 2, 2018)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Somehow this moved to gender and squishing people...


It's probably one of the more obvious examples of how marketing shapes human behaviour and attitudes.


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## Chessie2 (Jul 2, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> But here's the thing...I'm not even convinced that at least *some* of the things I love are that rare to like? When you start to look at Tumblr, Deviantart (I have, A LOT.) its full of people with awesome ideas, tons of creativity, and thousands and thousands of people liking these concepts and ideas and artworks and prompts that just...don't show up in books. I could pick a Tumblr artist who draws dragons at random with any semi-decent following and they'd have better ideas than the people writing bestselling books who throw a generic, textbook dragon into their novel without bothering much to reinvent. Deviantart people who paint digital landscapes and settings literally just for fun do better worldbuilding than almost every book I've ever read. There are tumblr threads made by random people about every mythical creature, rethinking the concept in really cool ways that authors just don't do. There are research blogs followed by thousands of writers full of the most obscure weapons and invaluable information on how to make their fight scenes accurate. A lot of random nobodies seem meticulous with their research so why aren't the best sellers?
> 
> Where are the books? Where can I find them?


No, I totally feel you. The books you want to read are out there, just not on the popular Amazon or Goodreads lists is all. Like some of us have mentioned on here, give Indie books a shot. When you browse on Amazon, if you scroll down to the *sold by*, an Indie book will say "Amazon Digital Services LLC". That's how you know. Now, I don't know the kind of library you have in your area or thrift stores, but I've been finding some good reads lately by going back to the old school. Maybe give that a try? Or just branch out and explore more Steampunk, scific, etc. Whatever you do don't stop reading. Like, I sympathize because I have the same problem and it sucks when you want to read fantasy and can't find anything worth a darn. Sigh.

@Des: I don't write about cowboys, just cowboy country.  I have a mail-order bride bounty hunting series coming in August so if your wife likes historical romance then yeah, for sure recommend me, lol.


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## Demesnedenoir (Jul 2, 2018)

Cowboy country might just work... horses, ya know... mail-order bride bounty hunter series... umm, huh, not sure I can wrap my head around that one, LOL. But maybe she can.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

Demesnedenoir said:


> Somehow this moved to gender and squishing people... I hear mammograms are good for that... when the market sees an audience it will play to it. The best in marketing play to human nature, and I guarantee, human nature exists whether you like it or not, and one part of human nature is to like a certain thing and stick with it... say, medieval European fantasy with dragons with wings. Or, snot-snoed little shits waving a wand and calling themselves a wizard... or pathetic sparkly vampires... what is trendy catches on, and imprints in the psyche, and because people want to relive that experience, more books of that type or created. But, comparing visual medium to the written word is weak. A writer can't do what an artist does, and right back at the artist.
> 
> You this is China too... Monkey-movies are remade over and over and there are lots of knock-offs.
> 
> ...



I didn't deny the existence of human nature. I just said that often, people like what they've been conditioned to like as well as what they naturally like supposedly. Making a joke about boobs doesn't refute my point.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 2, 2018)

Tom said:


> This speaks to me so much. As a trans guy, I was definitely pressured as a child and teen into liking certain things that girls were supposed to like. Because I wasn't a girl, I pushed back against it and tried to embrace things that boys were supposed to like. It's only now that I've been secure in my identity for a while that I've started to break down my perceptions of what I was "supposed" to like and what I actually like. There were some "girly" interests that appealed to me, but because they were marketed mainly toward girls it felt wrong for me to like them. I knew I was a boy even when no one else treated me like I was one, and I felt that to be recognized as a boy I would have to like what the world told me boys liked. It's only now that I'm looking back at how this affected me. I'm much happier now, liking things simply because *I* like them. I try not to assign gender to my interests for this reason.



I honestly don't see why interests have to be gendered at all. What I see in everyday life is people of all genders having interests as diverse as the people themselves, and yet having to emphasize certain interests and hide others to fit in with a status quo that originates from who knows where. I'm a straight, cisgender female and people have still assumed I am nonbinary, or a lesbian/bisexual, because I cut my hair short and don't "act" the right way. ????? Strange, this society we live in, eh? 

I am really bad at figuring out what I am "supposed" to like and do and act like. As a result I don't fit in very well anywhere. There aren't any spaces for people like me because I am not a type of person, I'm just...me. Idk man.


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## Tom (Jul 3, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I honestly don't see why interests have to be gendered at all. What I see in everyday life is people of all genders having interests as diverse as the people themselves, and yet having to emphasize certain interests and hide others to fit in with a status quo that originates from who knows where. I'm a straight, cisgender female and people have still assumed I am nonbinary, or a lesbian/bisexual, because I cut my hair short and don't "act" the right way. ????? Strange, this society we live in, eh?
> 
> I am really bad at figuring out what I am "supposed" to like and do and act like. As a result I don't fit in very well anywhere. There aren't any spaces for people like me because I am not a type of person, I'm just...me. Idk man.


I get you. Ever since I came out and started transitioning socially I've had people ask "Are you SURE you're a man? You're still interested in [stereotypically feminine thing]". I usually just shrug it off, but it's frustrating. Interests are interests. People are people. Marketing tries to put us in boxes, but ultimately a human being is just too messy and multifaceted to be reduced to a category.


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## pmmg (Jul 3, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I didn't deny the existence of human nature. I just said that often, people like what they've been conditioned to like as well as what they naturally like supposedly. Making a joke about boobs doesn't refute my point.



I had to read through this several time to see how we got here. I think there is some disconnect between the points being raised and replies about them. I am not sure anything was meant to refute any of the points above. It seems the question is, with all the varied alternate types of fantasy I see on Deviant Art and tumbler, why am I not seeing it in more main stream publications, and the answer given is it is not as marketable.

Could be. I am sure marketers have their data sets they rely upon, and when they find a golden goose, they don't stop taking its eggs. Bringing in something else is risky... why go with risky when tried and true is the golden goose? But then, sometimes risk has great rewards... but most often, it doesn't.

If what you have is something they must take risks to do, particularly if they already have a tried and true method, you've got an uphill battle breaking through. But you can break through, you just have to decide that is what you want and then put your efforts behind it no matter the obstacles. Easier said than done.

Why are you not finding it, cause non-traditional dragons are still in the experimental portion of the market. Its out there to be sure, but I would suggest using non-traditional markets to find it. Chessie has some suggestions. When you find them, treasure them more. Maybe one day they will be more in the main stream. Maybe you can be the one who puts it there.

A comment about the things we see on deviant art and tumbler, I suspect those are themselves experimental venues, and the art found there is also not exactly main stream either. Further, a picture paints a thousand words, right? Well really it paints an endless number of words. I think it is a little easier to show all the ways this dragon has a much different look and feel than a traditional one in a visual art form than one of the mind and imagination. I am not sure they match up well either.


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## skip.knox (Jul 3, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> Most of my reading is a random assortment of spec fic+ quite a bit of nonfiction, some contemporary, some classics, some historical fiction stuff. Not sure if counts as branching out.



Sure it does. So, are you enjoying some of those other works more than the fantasy stuff? Or is it all dust and ashes?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 3, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> Sure it does. So, are you enjoying some of those other works more than the fantasy stuff? Or is it all dust and ashes?



I like it a lot, but it's not the stuff that gets me fired up. I just don't feel the passion with, say, historical fiction, that I do for the fantasy genre.


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## skip.knox (Jul 4, 2018)

I hear you. Most of the best books I've read in, say, the last ten years have been outside the fantasy genre, but that does not make me want to write literary fiction or detective fiction. All my writing is firmly set in Altearth, because fantasy just feels more interesting to me as a writer. 

As a reader, I'm perpetually disappointed in fantasy. When it's good, it is its own sort of magic. When it's pedestrian, it's merely forgettable. When it's bad, it's downright embarrassing. My reading has been two or three to one, outside versus inside the genre. Sturgeon's Law most definitely applies.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 4, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> I hear you. Most of the best books I've read in, say, the last ten years have been outside the fantasy genre, but that does not make me want to write literary fiction or detective fiction. All my writing is firmly set in Altearth, because fantasy just feels more interesting to me as a writer.
> 
> As a reader, I'm perpetually disappointed in fantasy. When it's good, it is its own sort of magic. When it's pedestrian, it's merely forgettable. When it's bad, it's downright embarrassing. My reading has been two or three to one, outside versus inside the genre. Sturgeon's Law most definitely applies.



It's like i wish the qualities of some of the books I read outside fantasy were in fantasy so I could enjoy the genre the way I feel I should. 

Also I generally wish people wrote things that were more different and more creative.


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## Svrtnsse (Jul 4, 2018)

I've been musing on this whole thread in general for a bit, and how I relate to it.

There's this feeling I have that a lot of fantasy is trying a little too hard to impress me. It wants to be too awesome, and too epic, and too cool - and it kind of puts me off a from picking up something new.


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## Chessie2 (Jul 4, 2018)

skip.knox said:


> I hear you. Most of the best books I've read in, say, the last ten years have been outside the fantasy genre, but that does not make me want to write literary fiction or detective fiction. All my writing is firmly set in Altearth, because fantasy just feels more interesting to me as a writer.
> 
> As a reader, I'm perpetually disappointed in fantasy. When it's good, it is its own sort of magic. When it's pedestrian, it's merely forgettable. When it's bad, it's downright embarrassing. My reading has been two or three to one, outside versus inside the genre. Sturgeon's Law most definitely applies.


Well said. What saddens me is that many of us seem to share this same issue--but we're hanging out on a fantasy writing forum. 

When it's well done, fantasy is brilliant. I suppose anything is but fantasy is literally magic. I share your sentiments not only in fantasy but also historical romance, which is why I've been reading old school lately (& currently enjoying an M.C. Beaton mystery). Newer books don't interest me anymore. Is it serious writer voice or a prevailing lack of creativity? I wonder how this affects us as authors.


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## TheCrystallineEntity (Jul 4, 2018)

Serious writer voice is definitely a problem.


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## skip.knox (Jul 4, 2018)

>too awesome, and too epic, and too cool

Only the last one, imo. The fantasy stories that have worked for me have not shied away from awesome and epic. Where they too often fail is where they try to be too cool. I'm too old for cool; it does not impress me. Go for broke, sez I. 

I'm thinking of the stories I've read in, oh say the last five years. They've been wildly different in style and intent, but I think I see one thing they all shared: the author cared about the characters. 

Maybe I'm kidding myself, or seeing only what I wish to see, but I believe I can tell the difference. In too many fantasy stories, the author cared more about the world or the plot concept, less about the character. That was true in much science fiction, too, especially in the golden age stuff. In mysteries, it's the countless novels centered on the mystery itself rather than on the detective. 

IMO, a great number of people get involved writing fantasy precisely because they care about the concept or the world first. That's only natural; I'm not criticizing. Good books can be written from that starting point. But dull books come from there, too, and self-publishing has put many of these on the table before us, whereas in the past they would (likely) never have seen the light of day.  As readers, we are left with the sensation of being overwhelmed with mediocrity. This is no cause for despair--mediocrity is in fact the mean. And the median and the mode. 

Or, to quote the poet: don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 4, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> Well said. What saddens me is that many of us seem to share this same issue--but we're hanging out on a fantasy writing forum.
> 
> When it's well done, fantasy is brilliant. I suppose anything is but fantasy is literally magic. I share your sentiments not only in fantasy but also historical romance, which is why I've been reading old school lately (& currently enjoying an M.C. Beaton mystery). Newer books don't interest me anymore. Is it serious writer voice or a prevailing lack of creativity? I wonder how this affects us as authors.



We pound it into writers since they are wee baby writers to N O T W R I T E F L O W E R Y P U R P L E P R O S E I T I S S A T A N and now everyone is so afraid of using an adjective that everyone sounds droll and identical. 

There's this one writer I love who had the loveliest writing style. If was flowery as hell, but i swear her metaphors lit up your whole brain like christmas lights being plugged in. Her most recent book was just...bled of that uniqueness. I didn't  enjoy it much.


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## Ankari (Jul 5, 2018)

I'm coming to this discussion late, but I'm in the same boat for a different reason. I have read what I consider to be the pinnacle of fantasy writing and can't seem to find anything else that take my attention by the throat and squeezes until I'm exhausted. Many authors have fallen into the trap of clean, simple writing with the same popular concepts used over and over again. I like dense prose. I like uncomfortable human interactions and complex motivations. Only a few have dared to write this way, and only they have pulled on my heartstrings like a skilled harpist.

Fantasy isn't dead. Fantasy is stagnant, but there is some out there to still leave you in wonder. Expand out of our comfort zone and try them out. My list would include:


Steven Erickson _The Malazan Book of the Fallen_
Jacqueline Carey _Kushiel Legacy and Namaah Triology_
R Scott Bakker _The Second Apocalypse series_
Glen Cook _The Black Company_
If you've read them, then I have nothing for you. I'm currently reading NK Jemisin's series and find them adequate until another Erikson book comes out.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 5, 2018)

Ankari said:


> I'm coming to this discussion late, but I'm in the same boat for a different reason. I have read what I consider to be the pinnacle of fantasy writing and can't seem to find anything else that take my attention by the throat and squeezes until I'm exhausted. Many authors have fallen into the trap of clean, simple writing with the same popular concepts used over and over again. I like dense prose. I like uncomfortable human interactions and complex motivations. Only a few have dared to write this way, and only they have pulled on my heartstrings like a skilled harpist.
> 
> Fantasy isn't dead. Fantasy is stagnant, but there is some out there to still leave you in wonder. Expand out of our comfort zone and try them out. My list would include:
> 
> ...



I'm looking them up on goodreads. Holy crap is the fandom for the r. scott bakker book toxic. i mean the comments on any negative review are all like "I guess you're not intellectual enough to enjoy it, sorry if everything isn't spoon fed to your widdle bwain like in a YA novel" 

Irrelevant, I know, but it's a massive turn off.


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## Ankari (Jul 5, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> I'm looking them up on goodreads. Holy crap is the fandom for the r. scott bakker book toxic. i mean the comments on any negative review are all like "I guess you're not intellectual enough to enjoy it, sorry if everything isn't spoon fed to your widdle bwain like in a YA novel"
> 
> Irrelevant, I know, but it's a massive turn off.



Ha! I try to avoid any fandom comments. People are uncompromising in their beliefs. Any dissenting opinion is viewed as a personal attack. Better to read the overview of the books and the first few pages to see if you like the writing style.


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## Chessie2 (Jul 5, 2018)

I can attest to Malazan being awesome. Highly recommend.


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## Svrtnsse (Jul 5, 2018)

Chessie2 said:


> I can attest to Malazan being awesome. Highly recommend.


I kind of lost track of what was really going on towards book ten or twelve or so, but even then I still enjoyed the reading experience.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 5, 2018)

Svrtnsse said:


> I kind of lost track of what was really going on towards book ten or twelve or so, but even then I still enjoyed the reading experience.



That's a lot of books.


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## Svrtnsse (Jul 5, 2018)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> That's a lot of books.


You really only need to read the first one to decide if it's for you or not though. If you don't like it, there's not point going for the rest of them.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 5, 2018)

today i scrolled through a list of about every dragon book on goodreads 

There are more dragon shifter romances than i thought possible. There exists a book called Ty the Sexy Dragon. 

Is it me, or is Ty about the least sexy name conceivable 

There were a lot of books on the list that don't contain dragons at all. ??? I know because i've read them. Exactly no dragons.


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## pmmg (Jul 5, 2018)

Hey, Ty is the name of my dragon?!?


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Jul 5, 2018)

pmmg said:


> Hey, Ty is the name of my dragon?!?



In this case I have grave news about his sexiness.


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## pmmg (Jul 5, 2018)

Bummer.


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