The Fantasy genre is intimidating!

[Ruru]

Jess, thank you for starting this thread. I am in exactly the same position: I have read so many books that effect me strongly, and just wish that I could take the world in my head and turn it into something that would inspire someone else. I am trying, but its a long, arduous process, and the fear of getting it wrong causes a writers block over and over again. But each time I end up writing again because, at the end of the day, I like writing my story, for me if not for everyone else.

This forum has helped a lot. It's made me think about new ways forward, and made me aware that most of us are all in the same boat together. It has also encouraged me to practice, to just write anything, to exercise those creative muscles and my internal voice.

I hope that what everyone has said here has helped you. It's certainly inspired me! Thanks guys!

 

[Annoyingkid]

Right now, just eight lines of script = an entire page. It feels like I'm wading through tar. So much work. :furious:

 

[Jess]

The first thing i want you to know is: it is COMPLETELY NORMAL to feel this way.

Yes, it's worse for some writers than for others. But every writer feels these things. The fear that all your hard work will be for nothing. That you won't be good enough to write your story to its full potential. That you'll end up making all the mistakes you revile in books you read, that you'll let down the people you love, that you won't live up to the potential of your characters, that you'll never finish, that you're not brave enough or smart enough or stubborn enough to make it to the end--we have all been through it. For some, it's just little whispers. For others, it's paralyzing terror that makes you feel like everything you write is worthless, that YOU are worthless, and makes you want to curl up and die somewhere.

I know how horrible it can be, because these are just a few of the things that torment me, and i've fought them and i still fight them and it doesn't always get better, but i can keep going and that's enough.

You say that you've considered giving up...that's not good. It speaks to how hard the stuff you're going through is. But you haven't given up yet. The fact that you're fighting the voices of fear and anxiety makes you the exact opposite of a failure.

You say you're worried about repeating all the cliches, and that you feel all the good ideas are taken. This is true, to a degree. Practically everything has been done before. But that's okay. Cliches are cliches partly because people consistently like them; they wouldn't be cliches if no one read and loved the books they were in. In fact, stories with cliches in them aren't consistently failures like you would expect, but often are well read and well loved. Almost every reader will forgive any cliche if they tell a good story.

Those that would hate you for writing something cliche are definitely a minority (if a vocal one) and definitely not worth listening to.

Ideas are nothing. They're everywhere. They're a dime a dozen. They grow on trees and rain from the sky. The difference between someone with a published book and an average person isn't that the writer had good ideas and the average person didn't. The average person might have had 20 times more ideas than the writer. The difference is that the person with the book plunked their butt in a chair, wrote, and didn't stop.

Those authors with their names on the spines of books that seem so different, so much higher...they're no different than you. They're not more talented than you. The reason they're published and most people aren't is that they plunked their butts in a chair and wrote and didn't stop, and most people didn't.

You haven't given up yet. You're still trying. And you're reaching out for help. That's something. It may not feel like it, but i promise it is.

Don't be intimidated by the fantasy genre--don't let yourself be intimidated by the story you have in you. Having a huge project is, yes, very scary. But that fear doesn't have authority over you. You have a story and no one has the right to say you aren't good enough to write it, that it's too hard for you, that you're not qualified. You don't need qualification to write your story. Fantasy is a scary genre to go into. But in reality, genres are just thin varnishes. Stories are made of humanity. You have everything you need to create a story inside you already--you have a heart, you have a mind, you have feelings, you have dreams, you have thoughts--and those are the things that are common to all humans and to all stories.

You seem to be under the impression that the world doesn't need your story. Or even that the world would be better without your story. That's a lie. You're worried about being hated--you will have haters, yes, EVERY author does. There is no way to please everyone. But that's okay. Because your stories will also be loved. You're going to write someone's favorite book. There is someone out there that needs your story, who needs the story only you can tell. Stories are very, VERY powerful. You have thoughts and ideas and experiences that NO ONE ELSE is brave enough to write down. There are people out there whose lives could be changed by those and if you write your story you're telling them, "You're not alone." If the voices in your head tell you that your story isn't important, that writing it is pointless--they. are. LYING. Think of all the books you love and imagine what the world would be like if they had never been written. What if, when J.K. Rowling got the idea that would become Harry Potter, she had thought, "That's silly. No one would read that. Wizards are cliche. People would hate me."

The world would be a very, very, VERY different place.

You might think, "Well, that was a good idea! My ideas aren't good!" First: Anxiety lies. I know this because i have it. It makes you believe things that aren't true, and it is so, so convincing. It clouds your head so you can't see the good in any of your ideas. Second: Really, ideas are all the same. It's all in what you do with them. Harry Potter wasn't original at all. Come on, it has a Dark Lord, a wise old wizard mentor with a long beard that dies at the end, a Chosen One-type hero with Special Snowflake Syndrome...It's not original.

And it really isn't that J.K. Rowling is a particularly good writer! Her prose isn't stellar! I've read much better.

You might never be as popular as J.K. Rowling...you might sell only 1,000 copies, or 100 copies. But if you could bring light into the life of only one reader, would you still do it? If you could inspire only one person to write their own stories, to follow their dreams, or to keep living, would you? I definitely would.


P. S. As for having time to read, there's time. 10, 15 minutes a day. 20 minutes a day is plenty. You don't need much. And you don't really need to read all the fantasy there is to write fantasy. In fact, your ideas will probably be more original if you read only other genres.

I have this advice printed out. I gave up on my dream for a minute but I'm back at it and nothing is going to stop me now.

 

[pmmg]

Welcome back Jess, where have you been?

 

[Jess]

Life and doubt got in the way of following my dreams. I lost myself for a few years and finally woke back up one day. The fire inside has been reignited and is burning brighter than ever before.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Life and doubt got in the way of following my dreams. I lost myself for a few years and finally woke back up one day. The fire inside has been reignited and is burning brighter than ever before.

Good for you! Writing is hard, and fantasy can be harder, and if it were easy, everyone would do it. But, and I say this a lot, chicks dig scars and glory is forever. Now, get back to work.

 

[Alexandrea]

As with many things involving our minds, writing exists on a spectrum. While the general concept of your novel may have been done before, it has not been written from your perspective. That is what will make it different. You can, of course, think of different ways to make your story unexpected, (examples would be types of worlds not built before or unexpected plot twists) but ultimately it is important that your well of creativity is influenced equally by the perception of your audience, and your heart. With these in balance, you'll have a great story regardless if someone has written the same one before.

You can do this.

 

[Jess]

Good for you! Writing is hard, and fantasy can be harder, and if it were easy, everyone would do it. But, and I say this a lot, chicks dig scars and glory is forever. Now, get back to work.

Love this! Thank you!

 

[Jess]

As with many things involving our minds, writing exists on a spectrum. While the general concept of your novel may have been done before, it has not been written from your perspective. That is what will make it different. You can, of course, think of different ways to make your story unexpected, (examples would be types of worlds not built before or unexpected plot twists) but ultimately it is important that your well of creativity is influenced equally by the perception of your audience, and your heart. With these in balance, you'll have a great story regardless if someone has written the same one before.

You can do this.

Thank you so much. The support I'm receiving is keeping the fire lit. I will do this! <3

 

[Marshmallow1990]

As intimidating as it at first you just need a little practice to get into the swing of things. However I do recommend looking into as many resources as you can early on. Also reading a few books in genre would help immensely.

 

[LunarRat]

At first when I started reading this, I noticed it was from 2016 and it hit me like a truck. But seeing now that you're back despite struggling for a bit is absolutely amazing . Whatever you write, at the end of the day, is for YOU. We are at the point in history where every idea has been hashed and rehashed. What makes works original is because they're originally made. We write because we love to and it makes us feel good, anything else is just a plus.

 

[Magenta-Face of Fairyland]

I can't be the only one who has that horribly negative voice inside that keeps shouting, "What are you doing?? Why are you trying to write a fantasy novel?? Don't you know all the good ideas have already been taken? You are just going to rehash the same tired ideas and be hated for it. You should probably quit while you are ahead."

Seriously, I have contemplated deleting my novel multiple times now. I've got 30,000 words towards something I have been working on since I was 17. It would be a shame to never see it amount to anything. It would also be a shame to realize that I'm just rewriting every fantasy cliche there is. I have obviously not read enough in this genre to know how original my writing is. The problem now is a barely have enough time for writing. So to add in time to read through multiple fantasy novels seems impossible.

All in all I'm just working myself into a complete ball of anxiety ridden writer's block. If I can't write I suppose I would have time to read. I'm losing it. I'm letting my characters down.

It's true that modern speculative-fiction is perhaps the single most saturated genre in all of publishing; but IMO, modern SF, specially modern fantasy, is sorely lacking; not as a consequence of all the "good ideas being taken" as you have suggest; but rather because the same ideas, both the superficial elements of Tolkien's races and the Conan-esque setting, alongside the deeper elements of tired tropes, simplistic prose, shallow themes and all around cliche feel, are being rehashed over and over. So as a suggestion, you can try reading (or if you lack the time, listening to the audio book), and learning from older works of GF and weird fiction, I'd suggest Verne, Wells, Lovecraft, Dunsany, Eddison and Bulwer-Lytton; all of whom have distinctively better prose, style and imagination than most modern fantasy writers. doing so, IMO, well elevate your writing over the competition.