Okay, I kinda got here on a less traditional way. My friend pulled me into Reading Excuses and it’s been so much fun (you guys rock!) that I have recently been exploring other parts of the site and finally found the Writing Excuses Podcasts. For the most part, I have loved the advice they had on there and found it very helpful, but I had enough opinions on his most recent stream I thought it might make a semi interesting discussion.
If you didn’t listen to it or need a refresher, along with some really good advice on building non human characters, he talked about removing the Tolkien and non original races, most specifically elves, and I have to say if he ever succeeds in doing so, I might never forgive him.
I love reading about nonhuman races; traditional, cliché or whatever else. There are so many fun creatures floating around in Tolkien (who got his races from other sources and twisted them around too), DnD and mythology that all need their own stories by any author that can give them life and do them justice. Certainly you don’t want some 2 dimensional cliché thrown in just because, but you can say that about any character, elf or no. In fact, I am personally am getting tired of writers (not Sanderson, but some others) throwing in 2 dimensional cliché people but he didn’t say ‘get rid of all the humans and stop copying God’ and he never will because readers need some familiarity for the whole emotional connection that is so important in fiction.
I am a big believer in the concept of ‘it’s not what you do but it is how you do it,’ so go ahead and take something that you love and find a way to make it your own- whether it be elves, dwarves, goblins, dragons or hobbits- and as long as you leave the dice out of it, I will enjoy reading it for many years to come.
On another related note, though I love fantasy I tend to get annoyed when writers start throwing in a ton of new creatures/terms. Some for variety and to set the stage of your new world, yes, but not a WHOLE lot. It gets confusing and it looks a bit like they are showing off just because they can. If it is a twist on an elf or a fancy new sword, call it an elf/sword and you can qualify it later, but at least I have that initial picture in my mind instead of one big headache. I would hope that most readers are open minded enough to allow for this because there is such thing as being too original after all.
At least those are my thoughts, what about you?
Oh, and just to clarify once again, I love the advice on the podcasts and what I have read of Brandon Sanderson (Haven’t gotten past the first Mistborn yet, but I will!) so please don’t think I’m a hater, just looking for some interesting discussion.