The Fantasy Novelist's Exam
By David J. Parker

Additional Material By Samuel Stoddard

(from Rinkworks)

Ever since J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created the worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia, it seems like every windbag off the street thinks he can write great, original fantasy, too. The problem is that most of this "great, original fantasy" is actually poor, derivative fantasy. Frankly, we're sick of it, so we've compiled a list of rip-off tip-offs in the form of an exam. We think anybody considering writing a fantasy novel should be required to take this exam first. Answering "yes" to any one question results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once.

   1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages? Death, famine, gods making bets and misbehaving, and a "meet cute" involving a prince, a peasant, a bucket of water and a bunch of swords.

   2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage? A fisherman's widow who knows perfectly well who her parents are.

   3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it? He's the heir to the throne and knows it perfectly well. Unfortunately, so do his megalomaniacal brothers.

   4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy? They're already of age, become basically powerless, and there is no supreme badguy.

   5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world? No.

   6. How about one that will destroy it? No again. No magical artifacts. Unless a name counts as a magical artifact.

   7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good? Nope, revolves around a bet between gods concerning two randomly selected mortals.

   8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information? No, though the main characters could probably use one of those.

   9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise? No, it contains actual non-disguised gods.

  10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character? No supreme badguys, just a rather tyranical and selfish (but well-meaning) king who ultimately isn't all that imporatant.

  11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician? Nope. See above.

  12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel? No wizards, just the occasional shaman.

  13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"? Powerful, kind-hearted, not the least bit slow.

  14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"? Good heavens, I hope not. Actually, no wizards, sages, or other information dispensers. My lead characters are basically on their own.

  15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around? She couldn't care less, since she regards him as a tyrant and usurper and scum of the earth.

  16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued? She does her own rescuing, thank you very much (with a little help from her bird-goddess patron).

  17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals? Good heavens, no. Feminist ideals only work when you don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.

  18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters? Ha ha, no. She's not clumsy, and she can whack you equally well with a sword or a frying pan if you call her a wench.

  19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters? Ha ha, no again. She's really only fearless because she's got nothing left to lose.

  20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"? No dwarves.

  21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"? No elves either.

  22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different? Sorry, nuttin' but humans and human-like deities here.

  23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief? You mean the dying children? No.

  24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy? I have a subplot involving a threatened attack to capture a harbor for commerce purposes.

  25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented? No hay except what the horses are eating.

  26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"? Good golly, no.

  27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then? No. I think it's perfectly clear.

  28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy? Nope.

  29. How about a quintet or a decalogue? NOOOO!!!!

  30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book? Probably no. Depends what font size you use when you print it out.

  31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"? Not a sequel! No sequels! Previous book had nothing to do with this one!!

  32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books? No prequels either!

  33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far? Not Robert Jordan. I'm a girl. Not Roberta Jordan either. (Seriously, I gave up on his series when I got halfway through book 5 or 6 and realized that not only did I have NO IDEA what was going on, I also DIDN'T CARE.)

  34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group? Don't belong to a role-playing group.

  35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm? Absolutely not, though this can be pretty good when done properly (e.g. Tad Williams, The War of the Flowers). It's very rare to find a good one, though, and I'm not brave enough to try it myself.

  36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names? No.

  37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables? Yes, long names based on ancient Sumerian. But they go by their nicknames.

  38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"? That is so wrong on so many levels.

  39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings? Nope, just humans.

  40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"? See #39

  41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"? Again, see #39.

  42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines? No ancient dwarven mines. Only humans.

  43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG? No.

  44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG? No.

  45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast? Nope.

  46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls? They serve as places for secret meetings between spies, rebel groups, and disgraced princes. And for drinking.

  47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't? No feudalism here.

  48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place? I try to get those parts over with as quickly as possible.

  49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot? No one knows any more than anyone else does.

  50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"? No spells.

  51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel? Good heavens, no.

  52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel? No plate mail. No plate armor either.

  53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel? Oh for pete's sake, no. (Does ANYONE do this??)

  54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs? Gold very heavy. People cannot carry much. Even if they had any to carry.

  55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest? Poor horsies... Of course not.

  56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then delicately make love to a willing barmaid all in the same day? *snork* No, though some of the lesser gods probably would like to try it.

  57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it? Nope.

  58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar? Nope. Scimitar for cutting.

  59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor? See #52

  61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains? Well, yes, but she's unattainable because she thinks his people are tyrants and usurpers, etc. and basically hates him, plus she's a peasant while he's the crown prince. In other words, she's downwardly unobtainable, rather than upwardly unobtainable as I think the question is suggesting. But things change.

  62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns? No puns! No! Actually, not much humor.

  63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger? Ha ha, no. Actually, his downfall is a small woman with a water bucket.

  64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man? One arrow in the right place can be pretty fatal (doesn't have to be in the chest either).

  65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal? Bread and moldy cheese (no Blu-Ice) and spit-roasted gophers are a much better choice.

  66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead? Nomadic barbarians want water. That's part of the problem.

  67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"? Beer is brewed from grain. Mead contains honey. Nyah.

  68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion? they're pretty tribally organized, but not completely homogenous.

  69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild? Nope, those would be the merchants, the civil service, and the rebel groups.

  70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death? No main villain. Just if the main god gets annoyed enough with you, a lesser god, he'll banish you to the Nether. But he can't kill you because you're immortal.

  71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute? Um, no. No crack team of warriors, no bard, no lute.

  72. Is "common" the official language of your world? Nah. Different languages, and the resulting communication difficulties.

  73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before? No, just lots of sand and rocks.

  74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings? I should hope not.

  75. Read that question again and answer truthfully. Really, I mean it. Nothing wrong with The Lord of the Rings, but it's been done.

 edit: When I wrote this, I didn't realize that Robert Jordan had died three days earlier. It's a shame to see someone die at such a young age (58?), not to mention leaving an unfinished series. Maybe he left notes... (not to speak ill of the dead, but I STILL have no idea what was going on in his books.)