Cliches

Tough Travels: Elves

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 58 Comments

Tough Travelling is normally a beginning-of-the-month post, but since it took me a little longer to get the ball rolling on this one it’s a middle-of-the-month post this time round… the plus side being I’ve had more time to ruminate on some worthy elves to list!

The Tough Travelling feature was originally created by Nathan at Fantasy Review Barn, revived on Fantasy Faction, and is now hosted by the team at The Fantasy Hive. Inspired by Diana Wynne Jones’s humorous classic The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, every month it puts the spotlight on a particular fantasy trope, theme or cliché, and invites bloggers to list stand-out books related to that week’s theme.

This month’s theme is elves:  Continue reading →

Tough Travels: Snarky Sidekicks

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 40 Comments

I’ve been a bit absent on the blogging front this month for all the usual end-of-year reasons (including trying to finish a draft of a novel-in-progress), but I plan to get stuck back into the regular posting at the start of the New Year. Since it’s the final Tough Travels of 2017, however, I thought I’d make an effort to fit one in before then!

This feature was originally created and run by Nathan at Fantasy Review Barn and is now hosted by Laura Hughes at Fantasy Faction, but it will move to The Fantasy Hive next month. Inspired by Diana Wynne Jones’s humorous classic The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, every month it puts the spotlight on a particular fantasy trope, theme or cliché, and invites bloggers to list stand-out books related to that week’s theme.

This month’s theme is snarky sidekicks:

Why is everyone so serious all the time?  Perhaps they need a friend that is there with a quick bit of wit to liven up the day… even if the day is looking to quickly turn to blood.

Continue reading →

Tough Travels: Mentors

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 32 Comments

I’m a little slow off the mark with this month’s tough travels, but better late than never!

This feature was originally created and run by Nathan at Fantasy Review Barn and is now hosted by Laura Hughes at Fantasy Faction. Inspired by Diana Wynne Jones’s humorous classic The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, every month it puts the spotlight on a particular fantasy trope, theme or cliché, and invites bloggers to list stand-out books related to that week’s theme.

This month’s theme is mentors:

A Mentor will be at your service until around halfway through the tour of Fantasyland, when you will unaccountably lose him. Before that he will guide you, tell you what to do in the face of strange customs, and even sometimes instruct you in how to perform minor MAGICS. The Tough Guide suggests that the mentor will be several hundred years old, probably with a long white beard, which will give him the right to be bossy, smug, tiresomely philosophical and infuriatingly secretive about all-important facts.

Continue reading →

Tough Travels: Minions

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 19 Comments

It’s tough travelling time again! This feature was originally created and run by Nathan at Fantasy Review Barn and is now hosted by Laura Hughes at Fantasy Faction. Inspired by Diana Wynne Jones’s humorous classic The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, every month it puts the spotlight on a particular fantasy trope, theme or cliché, and invites bloggers to list stand-out books related to that week’s theme.

This month’s theme is minions:

Minions of the DARK LORD can be male or female, though he tends to favour males (who seem to be more susceptible to the Evil One’s wiles). They can take many forms: BAD KINGS, ENCHANTRESSES, HIGH PRIESTS, EUNUCHS, DUKES, REGENTS or WITCHES. Additionally, there are the non-human minions, such as ORCS, TROLLS, GOBLINS and random OTHER PEOPLES . . . not to mention MUTANT NASTIES, carefully selected MONSTERS, UNDEAD, and DEMONS.

Continue reading →

Winter Is Coming: But What About Other Seasons?

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 36 Comments
Photo by Wokandapix (CC0)

A while ago on Fantasy Faction I attempted to answer the question: is winter in fantasy always evil? The conclusion I came to, in short, was no – but its arrival is almost always a double-edged sword: sometimes beautiful and enchanting, sometimes dangerous and sinister. An unnaturally cold or prolonged winter in particular signals dark forces at work, and the season does seem to spawn more fictional evil than any other (prime examples being A Game of Thrones and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). This makes sense, given the challenges winters have long presented for humankind, particularly in medieval Europe, which inspires many fantasy settings.

So I expressed my doubts as to whether the phrase “summer is coming” could ever strike fear or foreboding into the hearts of fantasy readers. But this got me thinking… wouldn’t it be interesting to see a focus on other seasons running rampant, instilling fear, or being manipulated in a fantasy world? Continue reading →

Tough Travels: Dragons

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 33 Comments

I don’t think you can get much more typical than this month’s theme: fantasy’s favourite scaled, flying, fire-breathing fictional beasts!

The Tough Travels feature was originally created and run by Nathan at Fantasy Review Barn and is now hosted by Laura Hughes at Fantasy Faction. Inspired by Diana Wynne Jones’s humorous classic The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, every month it puts the spotlight on a particular fantasy trope, theme or cliché, and invites bloggers to list stand-out books related to that week’s theme.

Here’s what the guide has to say about dragons: Continue reading →

Must Fictional Parents Always Be Absent?

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 57 Comments
Photo by Travis Morgan (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

I recently started a series looking at “uncharted territory” in fantasy fiction, and in the comments I.W. Ferguson very rightly pointed out that something you don’t often see in the genre is parents and their children doing things together:

“I rarely see children and their parents doing things together in fantasy. So often the parents are dead, missing, out of town, unhelpful or antagonistic, or even not mentioned at all. There are many, many books I haven’t read, but if you’ve also found this rare, I would enjoy a post about it. Also, I’d love to learn about examples showing how it can be done well.”

I’ve noticed how common it is to encounter orphan characters in fantasy, but this comment got me thinking about absent or evil parents in general, and I wondered if it would be possible to find examples of more positive, visible parent-child relationships in popular fantasy tales. Continue reading →

Tough Travels: Strongholds

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 15 Comments

It’s the first of the month, so time for a bit of tough travelling again! This feature was originally created and run by Nathan at Fantasy Review Barn and is now hosted by Laura Hughes at Fantasy Faction. Inspired by Diana Wynne Jones’s humorous classic The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, every month it puts the spotlight on a particular fantasy trope, theme or cliché, and invites bloggers to list stand-out books related to that week’s theme.

This month’s theme is strongholds: Continue reading →

Uncharted Territory: Things I Rarely See in Fantasy

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 35 Comments
Uncharted Territory (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Because I write and think about fantasy fiction quite a bit (as the title of this blog might suggest), I occasionally notice interesting spots of “uncharted territory” in the stories I read and watch – i.e. concepts, ideas or character types I rarely come across. I don’t mean obvious things that no one would expect in the genre anyway, but small, specific things that I try to find examples of and am intrigued when I come up with close to nothing. So I thought these might provide good inspiration for a series of posts. Continue reading →

How to Make a Clichéd High Fantasy Cover

/ Nicola | Thoughts on Fantasy / 79 Comments
Book Cover Magic. (Nicola Alter, CC BY SA 4.0)

I’m not averse to a few fantasy clichés on a book cover – they let me know at a glance that I’m looking at a fantasy fiction novel, and can be nice if used in creative or appealing ways. As with all clichés, however, they become eye-roll-worthy when used en masse, i.e. when several standard tropes are all packed into the one artwork. If a book tries to cover too many bases, it can start to look a little silly.

I’ve encountered a few covers that take it a bit far, but I thought it’d be amusing to go even further, and have a bit of fun with the tropes of my favourite genre… so here is my recipe for a no-holds-barred, all-boxes-ticked, epic high fantasy book cover (accompanied by examples from the most clichéd design I can muster). I’m no graphic designer, but I imagine that will add a nice level of unprofessional shine to my examples. Continue reading →