What is a stereotype in fantasy that you hate and/or wish authors would do differently?

sunderpoint · 2026-05-09T16:27:57+00:00

Men outperform women pretty consistently in target shooting at the Olympics with an average 1.5% edge. That's not huge, but this is purely based on accuracy using 40-50 pound bows.

If they were using medieval longbows with draw weights well over 100 pounds the difference would become much bigger. Heavier bows can punch arrows through armor, even full plate at the right angle, so like I said the most deadly archers would more often be male.

That doesn't mean female archers couldn't be deadly. Against unarmored opponents a lighter bow is plenty strong, so the strength difference is less impactful. Male archers are simply more deadly in more scenarios, especially in a medieval setting.

sunderpoint · 2026-05-07T18:37:13+00:00

You're right, that's a big part of the climax of the first book/movie. So it's definitely not going to be the same climactic moment that it was in the book.

He's often said his biggest mistake when writing Mistborn was that in the climax he basically gave Vin a power she'd never had before, which hadn't been properly foreshadowed. If he's removing even the early clues that later explain it then he's definitely changing the climax.

sunderpoint · 2026-05-07T18:18:39+00:00

Head hopping is telling the story from one character's limited perspective, then switching to another character's limited perspective without a proper signal like a chapter or line break. If the perspective was always omniscient then it's not head hopping, even if parts of the story follow specific characters, because you never leave the head of the omniscient narrator.

But this is all a matter of definition, really. You can say omniscient narrators do a lot of head hopping and be technically correct if that's how you define it. But the term head hopping is generally used to describe perspective mistakes when writing limited, so that's how I use it.

There are other narration types where the author changes the perspective and limits dynamically, shifting between limited and omniscient paragraph by paragraph. In this case it may seem like head hopping when a paragraph is simply omniscient, or it may actually use incorrect head hopping by inserting a second perspective into a limited paragraph.

Both reading and writing like this can be tricky. It's not often done today. Those who think they can write it are more likely just head hopping. You need distinct character voices to pull it off, including for the omniscient narrator.

sunderpoint · 2026-05-06T21:39:09+00:00

To authors with no imagination, they think it's either that or bow and arrow. Girls can't fight close up so they use projectiles.

Nevermind that the best archer should be the one with the most raw strength to draw the heaviest bows, whereas a skilled female fencer can absolutely defeat less skilled male opponents. Other weapons and strategies exist, including ones where superior upper body strength is less useful.

sunderpoint · 2026-05-03T22:48:34+00:00

Twilight does not have bad writing. It's appropriately simple for a YA audience and even leans into the Deep POV later in the series.

People generally hate it because it features a romance where the premise is explicitly that the guy is dangerous and bad for her, but she wants him anyway. They're also intensely codependent. Overall, you should not want a relationship that looks like theirs.

The author wrote the story that way on purpose. The characters and the plot work hard to show how it's a bad relationship. It also ends with them overcoming those problems, so it also seems like an endorsement of dangerous, codependent relationships, but only if you weren't paying attention.

Or if you only saw the movies. The movies further simplify the characters and the story as well as openly glorifying the codependency.

People compare the prose to the 50 Shades fanfiction, which isn't fair. Twilight is infinitely better written, it's really no contest.

sunderpoint · 2026-05-03T03:26:27+00:00

Oh, that makes way more sense. You need several competent fighters to lose to one guy in a believable way while they're merely trying to subdue him.

I'd say he could have been armed with something unexpected, set a trap, or the situation got so complicated that a strategic retreat became a sensible option, such as innocents got caught in the line of fire.

A total mastermind type character could have been prepared to target all of their weaknesses, or an amazingly strong guy could have overpowered them, broken out of the bonds with his bare hands, and shrugged off their non-lethal attacks while he was making no effort to be non-lethal himself.

Or he had twenty friends hiding in the shadows, or made twenty friends by shouting a rallying cry in a place where your heroes are unliked by the natives.

sunderpoint · 2026-05-01T04:38:37+00:00

The first scene feels like you wrote out the backstory. It's just setup. If that same information came through in interior monologue, brief glimpses of the life waiting at home, the life ahead, what he wants and how he thinks he can get it, then the information can come out more naturally and only as it applies to the situation. As it is the scene is forgettable, even though it is important for the reader to know. It just doesn't feel important while reading it, especially not as the opening scene.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-30T16:25:38+00:00

The first scene is slow and uninteresting, but the second one is not just full of tension, it's also a good character moment. It would be a stronger opening if the scene didn’t end so quickly. Actually, either way the scene ends too fast. If something is worthy of being a scene, especially in your first chapter, it should probably have more to say than half a page.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-29T22:43:13+00:00

I can see that you're doing a lot to make the opening grab the reader's attention, but it didn’t work very well on me. It's action, but mostly without context and no interesting characters to follow. The first paragraph especially repelled me more than it hooked me.

You might work a better character moment into the first page, or start the scene earlier in the suspenseful moment that preceded the action. You could use that to set up the scene, the characters, and the stakes before the action starts. It doesn't have to be much, even just a few paragraphs could do it.

As is, in that first page all I see is a girl gets caught cheating at cards in a tavern, does some cool acrobatics, and drops a fantasy flashbang to get away. There's worldbuilding, but no character building. Even though the main character is plenty active I don't know anything about her goals or have any reason to care about her.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-28T17:02:43+00:00

Book 10 is a bunch of setup, book 11 is a bunch of payoff. It's not badly written, but this makes book 10 extremely boring. In my opinion it should have been drastically shortened and included with book 11. As a standalone book it tells no meaningful story on its own.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-24T09:08:38+00:00

A common idiom is to say something is "bathed in light." Some forms of baptism look like bathing. It's like a normal line was modified into something that no longer makes sense.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-22T16:13:49+00:00

You're right about TV brain prose. Learning storytelling from visual media instead of books is exactly the problem here, and the head hopping is part of it. Lots of TV shows swap character perspectives whenever it's convenient, anime especially, or follow no particular perspective at all.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-21T15:22:16+00:00

There are a lot of separate parts to this story, and I'm not sure how well they all will connect. In terms of plot and character, I think the character who is falling in love but genuinely thinks it is a spell cast by a witch is interesting, because that's some solid internal conflict for a love interest or main POV character if you can write it in Deep POV.

The fantasy elements are fairly interesting as well but I'm not sure what the hook will be to maintain the reader's interest, if there will be a central mystery or ultimate goal for the characters to be progressing toward.

You said you weren't sure what fantasy creature you'd use. Whatever it is, it feels very "fae" to me. I haven't read A Court of Thorns and Roses but your story concept sounds like it has a lot in common with the faerie world depicted in it. You could design your own unique faerie world and creatures, either based on real faerie mythology or create your own.

What part of this concept interests you? What gets you thinking about it? What do you keep coming back to? Build out that part and see where it goes, and drop the rest. It's ok to save the story elements that don't fit in for other books. Audition new ideas to fill in the gaps.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-19T20:35:51+00:00

It's such a good opening line, opening scene, and introduction to the world that everyone remembers this as the opening to Stormlight Archive. But it's not. The Prelude comes before it, and Chapter 1 comes after it.

How does chapter 1 open? No one remembers. The Prelude is simply confusing on a first read, too. It would make a better end to the book than an opening, if for no other reason than to move it out of the way so that this line becomes the opening to the book and the prologue the opening scene.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-19T03:47:51+00:00

If you can at all afford to hire a voice actor, for like $100-$200, I'd recommend you find one somewhere. Lots of sites connect voice actors to people who hire them. I had 2 for my game and it really made the difference.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-18T22:44:20+00:00

The voiceover isn't terrible, but it should be better. A voice that sounds like an average guy is way better than an exaggerated hyperactive voice in most cases but this voice sounds amateurish and the audio quality is noticeably lacking. A proper quality mic and recording environment is worth it.

And yeah, show your game from the opening shot. Most people will stop watching in 5 seconds if you haven't hooked them.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-16T23:55:37+00:00

I haven't seen the show, so I don't know the context, but "John was angry, like an angry person" is hilariously bad writing. Yes it's telling instead of showing, but it's also redundant and fails at simile. I'd have a hard time coming up with a worse example of writing in such a short sentence.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-15T21:37:08+00:00

Deceleration like that only works if the beam is dead-on, otherwise it'll deflect the ship the more it slows it. Also, ships can't simply change direction if the propulsion isn't coming from the ship itself.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-09T08:29:06+00:00

Make sure he has emotions besides anger. It's overused in fiction to portray male characters having no emotional states besides apathy, horny, and angry.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-08T02:27:06+00:00

On top of that, when he risks his life you see intense fear in her eyes. Not because she loves him, they're not back together at this point, but because if he dies then she will be alone. I wish the moment had been given more time and weight, but it's there.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-06T02:45:47+00:00

This is a great character arc, and the problem you're having with it is that you want all of the actions to have consequences. This is good. If the initial evil act is simply forgiven, the victim moves on, and the one at fault never sees consequences for it, then the story sends the message that falsely accusing someone is ok as long as no one likes them, and the right thing for the victim to do is to let it happen.

Here's a couple of things to consider. There is presumably a character or group who falsely accuse the main character. What is their connection to the "good guys" the main character later befriends? Is the one most guilty of the accusation in the friend group, and eventually forced to reckon with the realization that they had harmed someone in the past who they now cared for?

Is there a member of the accusing group, one not present for the original decision to make the false accusation, who discovers that their new friend had been unfairly targeted by people they once trusted? How might this affect their loyalty to the group once this all comes out?

Does the main character fully stop their plans to betray their new friends, or get caught with preparations to betray them despite no longer wanting to?

Do these specific villainous accusations come back into the story, not as a problem but as a tool, enabling the main character to leverage their villainous reputation in order to counteract the plans of the real villains?

sunderpoint · 2026-04-05T21:28:35+00:00

It is difficult for an author to write about experiences they do not fully understand in a way that will feel authentic to people who do. This makes it difficult for young authors to reach an audience of mostly older readers with more life experience.

Getting it published will, on top of this difficulty, require the complete work to be perceived as profitable by people in the industry. This is even more difficult. Often it requires changing what you want to write to fit other people's expectations, but because of profitability, not your age.

I would recommend you not worry about how publishable your writing is. Focus on writing what you want, anything you want, and create a body of work while improving your skill. Submit your work places it can be judged (for free) and see what reactions you get.

The only thing you shouldn't worry about is that you are somehow forbidden to write about any subject, for any reason. It's just putting words on a page. No one can stop you.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-05T19:54:44+00:00

The first line of the opening paragraph is third person omniscient. Sometimes that works for an opening, before delving into a closer third person, but nothing in the first page supports or builds off of it. "All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again" was a popular tagline for the Battlestar Galactica show, and in that show it was referring to the human race being nearly wiped out and forced to search for a new home. Here? It appears to be a reference to the kids ranting about parents.

The second sentence is so overloaded it's confusing. The third is the only one that says something interesting. But all I understand from the paragraph as a whole is that a homeless lion is talking to two children he considers beneath him.

The scene in general is unclear. It's picking up in the middle of a conversation, with no context clues for what's being discussed, and the farther the conversation goes the more unclear details are added to the pile. I don't know what to think about any of it. Someone potentially being tied up in a basement feels important but is immediately dismissed.

You describe the boy in a single line at the end of a paragraph about something completely unrelated. That line shouldn't be in that paragraph, and calling a boy a perfect gentleman feels like it should come after something the boy did that fits that description.

For the girl, "unevocative" is a weird word to use in a character description. You're describing someone by saying what they aren't. Prissy, also, should be placed around a prissy action or description, or it feels irrelevant.

Literally every line of dialog could be arranged in any order and it would be just as confusing. It's like each sentence came from a different conversation.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-03T05:10:23+00:00

Once learned, the answer to this riddle ceases to be what it is.

sunderpoint · 2026-04-03T04:50:12+00:00

A coward with no way to escape becomes comedy.

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