Okay, response number two. (Look above this one for my first response.)
Now let me address your questions in the second post. These were also very good for discussion, and I compliment you on them.
My reaction is as follows:
Granted, Fantasy is Fantasy—Speculative Fiction. It's supposed to be "different", right? But does that mean reinventing the wheel? Tolkien didn't. Jordan certainly didn't. It sounds like Eragon didn't. We all know Harry Potter didn't.
I beg to differ. Where did orcs come from? I know of no mythological foundation for them. Also, Tolkien's elves. They're very different from fae folk I've read of in lore. He did create quite a bit, and the rest he changed.
The difference between him and you is that he did it first. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. Because Tolkien did it, and because he had such an effect on the market, anyone who uses 'elf' in a fantasy book has to react against what Tolkien wrote.
Jordan didn't, but he's fifteen years old. That was during the era where Tolkien clones were still in vogue (though, I'd argue that his books mark the transition. He used a good mixture of the old and the new. The big difference is that he made it 'feel' new. If I read 'elf, dwarf, ect' in a book, you CAN NOT make it feel new to me. You've essentially shot yourself in the foot, and all your creativity has been thrown out the window.)
Now, Harry Potter is a different story altogether. For good or for worse, much YA fantasy doesn't take itself as seriously as mainstream adult fantasy does. In the adult market, we're all a bit pompous and self-important. In the YA market, things are different, and the younger readers are willing to accept different things.
(And as for Eragon--it sold off of reputation and novelty. And it didn't sell to the traditional mainstream fantasy market.)
However, even still, Rolling reached back to the original sources (like Tolkien did) and created something new from them. If you're using Tolkien as a primary source instead, I think that you're kind of making a copy of a copy, which weakens the piece intrinsically.
But why does it have to be different for the mere sake of being different?
Because that's one of the reasons people READ fantasy. To get something different! If it's the same as Tolkien, then why read your book? I'll go read Tolkien! Or one of the people who ripped him off with style, like Tad Williams or Stephen Donaldson.
I like to think I'm taking a rich tradition, choosing elements I find personally pleasing or meaningful in some way or other, changing them as I perceive they ought to be, and adding my own material.
Great! Have a blast. We don't want to read it. If you enjoy writing it, then that's a good reason to do so. However, don't expect to sell it.
Yes, there will be new races and monsters and creatures. But why must the old also be precluded?
Do we read Fantasy merely because we never want to see the same race or monster twice, or is there a greater sehnsucht (as Lewis called it) that just makes us want to see magic in the world?
It's not about seeing the same monster or race twice, Jade. It's about seeing it a HUNDRED times. There's a reason why Tolkienesque fantasy sold so well through the 80's. It was still fresh then. However, it's been done so much that it's worn thin.
I concede, of course, that if the market is dead-set against any further Tolkienesque Fantasy, I'm going to be in trouble trying to get published in my own setting (as it stands). But, if it's that way, then why? And if it isn't that way, why are we acting like it should be?
Trouble? Try A LOT of trouble. I'm not sure if I understand those last two questions. Why is it hard to sell Tolkienesque fantasy? For the same reason that it would be hard to sell SF books with Klingons, or make a comic book character called Spider-guy. Copyright issues aside, we already have those stories. We want new ones.
I ask you, why are you so set on using Tolkien's races? If your take on them is original, then why are they Tolkien's races any more, and why do you have to give them the same names?
Again, I'm hitting it harder than, perhaps, I need to. However, I do believe what I'm saying. Also, I do have a little bit of experience with selling first novels....