How To Write A Crap Fantasy

Welcome hacks, incompetents, and/or people who only create art for money!

There are three genres that are hugely popular yet are even more difficult to get right than most works: horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. They’re difficult to get right because there’s a formula that writers always feel obliged to follow, and this in turn creates work that’s at best bland and at worst is intolerable.

So, want to break that formula and write something no-one’s ever seen before? Then sod off. This is how to write a really, really awful work of fantasy that’ll cause nothing but misery and despair. 

Set It In Medieval England

Living in England all my life, I know that the country has a rich history and plenty of dull grey fields. It also rains 90% of the time and everyone is a whiney racist – which is something a couple of writers have covered, but those writers have actually had an independent thought and thus have no place in this guide.

Fantasy writers love England, and Europe as a whole, because it’s where kings and knights used to rule. People didn’t solve their disputes with treaties and summits – they hit people on the head and rode dragons. Of course, the thought of perhaps having a fantasy world ruled by a democracy or a senate or a parliament or gods or no ruler must never occur.

If not directly nicking from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, you must always steal from either Christian or Norse mythology. Why? Because all fantasy must be white. Ignore the lucrative folklores of other cultures. Aboriginal, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Shogun. Forget all these and the fascinating places they came from. They’re only good for their spices and cheap labour.

Of course, setting your story in the most boring environment you can imagine will inevitably lead to a lack of locations. There are only so many times you can have your band of heroes scale a mountain, traverse a forest, storm a castle or raid a tomb. When this happens, randomly throw in a desert even if it makes no sense within the geography of your world.

The Hero Must Be Dull

If your protagonist isn’t interesting or engaging then why is there an entire plot centred around him/her? If you want to completely fail as a fantasy writer, you must NEVER ask this question.

You CAN answer the question: “why does your protagonist deserve to be the hero?” And the answer is: “because I say so.”

Your hero needs to a white, cisgender male born in a humble village. He might become some sort of apprentice, but he must not already have power or influence on the world. He must be attractive yet largely ignored by society, and must possess at least two thousand hidden talents just waiting to come forth when the plot demands it.

He must somehow be separated from his parents. The parents could already be dead, they could die in the opening act, they could be really far away, or the plot could be to rescue the parents. If you want to really surprise your audience, have him actually be the son/brother/nephew/some kind of blood relation to at least one antagonist. No-one’s ever seen this twist before.

An authority figure must instead be in the form of perhaps an uncle or just a mentor. The authority figure should dislike the hero for some irrational reason, but ultimately stick by him for an even stupider reason. This uncle/mentor must dramatically die at the end of the second act.

Your hero can’t just be the hero because he’s placed in situations where he can choose not to be a hero but is compelled to act heroically because he discovers a sense of good that ultimately leads him to venture forth on his quest. No. He must be the chosen one.

He must never actively take responsibility. He must never work for his success. Fame and glory should be handed to him on a plate. It must be fortold he’ll save the day so the possibility that he might fail in his quest is completely removed from the audience’s minds. He must only be the hero because everyone else says he is, and he must be worshipped as a god just because some wizard claims he’s a god. Only through this can true dullness be created.

No Women 

 

No matter how many bizarre, made-up animals and monsters you introduce into your world – always make sure that women are the most alien creatures.

You may have a society run by giant bees, but the female bees must always be in minority. I suppose you could always throw in a few female character to prove you’re not completely medieval, but the ratio of male to female must always be in favor of male.

Women also are physically incapable of being a hero. They might be able to wield a sword and fight alongside your hero, but they must always drop all this once they inevitably fall in love with the main character.

And if you have a non-human species like orcs or trolls, there must still be a clear distinction between male and female. The males might be hulking monstrosities of men, but the women must basically be humans but with a skin-condition. Never mind how gender works in real life, the female of each species must somehow sport breasts and be immediately identifiable as female. Because everyone can tell the difference between a male and female lizard in real life.

Now is a good time to also mention that homosexuality, bisexuality, and asexuality doesn't exist in fantasy. Neither do transgender people. Ogres and giants are OK, but people being attracted to the same sex, or people being born in the wrong body, or people who aren't a specific gender are just ridiculous. 

You shouldn't even bother writing women or people on the LGBT spectrum. It’s not like they enjoy fantasy just as much as straight cisgender men...

Evil People Are Evil Because They’re Ugly And Evil

The best antagonists should ideally be equally if not more fascinating than the protagonist. They should have a clear goal in mind, and a believable motivation that drives them. 

Not in fantasy. Well, not crap fantasy. We shun George R.R. Martin and his moral ambiguity that makes his otherwise unspectacular series absolutely essential. Whilst the setting and lore follow this guide well, his characters are filled with life and thus have no place here.

Your villain must be evil because he/she is evil. His/her only motivation should be 'evil' – because, as we all know, evil is a noun not an adjective. People are motivated by green all the time.

Also, if you’re ugly then you’re evil too. Orcs, goblins and trolls in particular must be irredeemably, unquestionably evil because they’re ugly. Elves, meanwhile, are perfectly trustworthy because they're beautiful. Unless they’re elves gone bad, and you can tell they've gone bad because they’re called something like ‘Dark Elves’ or ‘Blood Elves.’

There must be no ambiguity. Beautiful people are good, ugly people are evil. Once you’re evil then that’s it.

Tell, Never Show

Writers who tell stories set on this planet are spoilt. They don’t have a whole new world they have to describe. A world that works differently to the one we currently live on, with a different origin, a different system, and people with a different outlook on life as they know it. So you’re perfectly entitled to have entire chapters dedicated to heroes sitting down at a campfire telling their life stories because there’s not enough room to give them characters. It’s your right to have the plot stop so people can explain things. Audiences can forgive your main character sounding like a toddler as s/he asks: “what’s that?” “who is that?” “what does that do?” “why?” “what’s that?” “tell me more about that” “why?” “who is that?” “what’s that?” “why?”

If you’re really pushed for time, you can just have a narrator jump in to press the pause button and give a lecture on dwarves. Just don’t let your characters explore the world to find out information for themselves, or show these alien creatures in action so we can see for ourselves what their like, how they live, and where they came from. Never let us see a character do something that reveals their traits through actions rather than exposition. Never let information come forth organically. Always drive it out. Stab your story with a mithril greatsword until information gushes from every opening,

Focus On The Specifics – Never The Whole

Whatever you do, never look critically upon your tale. That’s how things are improved, and we don’t want improvement. 

Instead: draw a map of your world that looks like someone’s spat tea onto it. Don’t question how each faction or race came to their designated section of the map – just make sure there’s plenty of obstacles in-between the heroes humble homeland and the unnecessarily large evil fortress. In fact: draw your map before you've even started the story, so you can come up with contrived reasons for why the hero must venture through the swamp of solitude instead of just riding the bloody eagles.

Why spend time developing characters when you can write a new language that sounds like everyone has furballs. Rather than work out how everyone co-exists and how society may flourish or disintegrate, write pages and pages detailing how the buildings were constructed. What ancient materials is it made out of? What magic holds them together? Just talk about anything but what a character thinks and feels.

Remember the golden rule of crap fantasy writing: Always make sure you write your appendix before your first draft.

Your Audience Mustn't Be Able To Understand Anything 

Your audience is inferior to you. They must only be able to understand your greatness after trawling though a glossary of terms and a database filled with encyclopedia entries. If you’re writing a book, your reader must have one finger on the page they’re on and one finger bookmarking the appendix so they can flick back and forth like they're cheating in a mock test. If you’re writing a film or TV series, then your viewer must have a remote in hand so they can pause and flick through a ‘complete illustrated guide’ like their a film censor checking how many cuss words you can have before it’s an ‘R.’ And if you’re writing a game then the player will need to Alt-Tab to the wiki page so they can work out what on earth they've just leveled up in.

Use names that no-one can pronounce or remember. Fill your world with objects that could be anything from an edible substance to an imp’s sex toy. Make everyone speak in a language that’s a cross between Welsh and Klingon. Pepper your sentences with words that make your spellchecker want to hang itself. Do whatever you can to make your story utterly impenetrable.

Art is not universal. Art is for you and you only. People who can’t keep up are obviously just stupid.

All And No Loose Threads Must Be Left Hanging 

So your terrible story has finished at last. But of course you have to think of the sequels. The spin-offs. The prequels. Don’t spend your time focusing on how crap the first installment will be when you could be thinking of at least twelve more ways to suck. One single story is for dunderheads. The true fantasy writer works in trilogies – with the first being the only installment with an actual character-arc, the second being desperate padding, and the third being one giant battle culminating in a one-on-one duel that ends up destroying at least one evil fortress (because when the bad-guy dies, their residence inexplicably crumbles with them).

So, you've split your story into three for no reason. But why stop there? So what if you've clearly and decisively ended the story with everyone all getting married and going home. The world must know whether your tertiary characters were born naturally or via c-section. Every possible story must be told! This parade of crap must never end!

Overall: never innovate. Never break tradition. Never subvert the norm, and above all never actually have real people populate your story. Do all this, and you'll be well on your way to being a crap fantasy writer.