McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Your Pet Urban Fantasy Cliche Peeves
Wordmaker:
I do like seeing different interpretations of myth. But I'd love to see something really new.
mithrandirthewhite:
That's the thing with UF is that with a lot of fantasy the classical "giants" of Fantasy has made it feel like things get recycled too easily. That's more of a problem with Epic/High Fantasy but it can bleed over into UF.
--- Quote ---I wanted the scenes to serve specific roles in portraying character development and revelation, so I kept them very vague.
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Thank You!!!
arianne:
--- Quote from: Wordmaker on May 03, 2013, 09:08:13 PM ---Right with you. I miss the days when vampires were something to be afraid of. One of the things I love about Dresden Files. The vampires are damn scary.
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Ah, but even there the vampires are separated into good (Susan, Thomas) and bad (Bianca), so they're not simply out and out monsters anymore.
The thing that currently frustrates me on a writing level is that whatever trait you give to your supernatural beings, somehow it can be twisted to feel like a vampire trait. Zombies who are undead and wandering around looking for someone to love and cherish instead of just bleating for brains; Fae who are seductively gorgeous, can predict the future, can fly etc etc...all end up sounding like imitations of vampires, even when they're not (if that makes any sense). There are only a fixed number of traits an author can go with, and even if you choose to work with a troll or some relatively-unheard-of mythical creature from an ancient civilization, it ALL ends up sounding slightly vampire-y. Is it just me? Or have vampires really taken over the world?
arianne:
Also, meant to ask this in my first post, but forgot: which plotlines are you starting to find cliche? I find that a lot of the Paranormal romances tend to include a lot of romance cliches, or things like those already mentioned by Wordmaker.
Does anyone else feel that the "parent/sibling as ultimate evil" storyline is cliche as well? ("I AM your father, mwhahaha")
o_O:
--- Quote from: Galvatron on May 03, 2013, 09:10:49 PM ---One thing I like, and would like to see more of, is authors making up new monsters and critters for their own universe instead of borrowing old mythos for everyhting.
I dont mind old myths, but its just a plus when I read a book were things are made up or at least when the author populates a story with things he/she created for them self.
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^this. Mythos mining leaves me stone cold. More mythos mining at this stage simply weakens the source mythoi to the status of cultural baggage. Ripped, with broken handles and torn lining, stinking of the dump they're left on.
I am also sick to death of worlds and cultures that are just like ours except for the tiny little change of "oh and magic works".
The world as it is, politically, socially, technologically, economically, is simply too much a product of a certain series of outcomes, and if magic is at all relevant to it, then the outcomes would have tallied up differently.
Put another way, if the world is just like ours except for magic working then you will have immense trouble convincing me that anything magic-related in your books is possibly going to have an effect on the world as it moves past the events of your books.
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