NaNo is just about here.
Yes, already. I can't believe it's already been a year since I wrote my dear sci-fi novel.
And this year, I'm just as excited.
After mulling over a few ideas, I've finally settled on my fantastically dark fantasy novel idea, Darkest. It has faeries and darkness and evil queens who like ravens.
Yes. I'm very excited.
However, fantasy is VERY different from sci-fi. And what I really have to worry about this year are cliches.
They're everywhere. They're difficult to avoid. And they can easily bring down your entire novel.
So here I'll list what I believe are some common cliches, and how I have avoided them or how I need to figure out how to get around them.
Medieval-esque European setting
Heh. You can count this as one cliche already for me.
Unfortunately, this one can be hard to get around. Fantasy has very much so been grounded in this idea of faux-Medieval setting that it's hard to come up with creative ideas for other types of setting. I would LOVE to find some way around this, but I'm afraid I might not be able to. So far, my story is definitely faux-Medieval, with maybe a few more modern twists in it, but not many. As for European...well, my basis is on faeries who have a certain type of "charge," e.g. a plant or bird or insect that they are somehow connected to. Therefore, the region they live in is determined by where their charge would live in. For example, my main characters are Cherry Blossom and Laurel faeries. That means they'll both live in a mountainous region. However, the main villain(s) (raven fae), live in an open, sage-brush plain area. So European doesn't really go along with the theme, since there would also be places such as a jungle rainforest or African desert.
But again, I'm a little worried about the whole "faux-Medieval ages" thing. My fae will live in little rural, farm-y villages in their regions, doing simple things like working the land and such. Which sounds pretty Medieval-peasant to me. The Raven Queen is the main villain and, of course, lives in a big castle in the Plain region. However, her minion/soldiers wear something more like a modern (and by modern, I mean like WWII) military uniform. And besides that, I want to add some more elements to everything with the Raven Queen to get it even farther away from the Medieval ages.
If you have any ideas for me on my little dilemma, feel free to leave them below in the comments!
Older male mentor
Now I'm 1 for 1. Although I do have an older mentor in this story, she is a more of a matronly, protective figure who also kicks some serious @$$ while searching for her kidnapped son. She's kind of my favorite character and may end up being more central than my MC. And she's a red-head. So Niana for the win.
The orphan
Dangit. Another big cliche for me.
I'm really not sure how to get around this. For some reason it feels so natural to have my main character be an orphan. And I really don't know why. I'd love to get around this somehow, but I have no idea how I could. Especially she's 19 and would still be living at home. Any suggestions are welcome.
The young hero
I already mentioned this in the last section, and though 19 is young, I do have some other plans for her. So this could go either way.
Alaures, my MC, is young, yes, but I also want her to be a bit more of an adult than a kid. Think of her as more of a twenty-something than barely an adult. But at the same time, I need her to be relatively naive. What do you think?
The absent/evil mother
Though Alaures is probably an orphan, I want to focus on Niana here. It's really important to me to have a strong, female mother character in my story, so enter Niana. In fact, her husband is the one who is absent (he abandoned the family) so she's gone through life taking care of her four children alone and doing a pretty epic job at it. And she's definitely not evil. In fact, she's really less evil than her co-MC. (OOH SPOILER ALERT) (jk not really)
The white hero
Okay, I am very much white, so this is funny to write about. But for some reason, the idea popped into my head to make Alaures of a different ethnicity (though ethnicity isn't truly present in my story.) She has darker, nut-brown skin and curly dark-brown hair. Her skin color doesn't really matter in my story's context, but I like the idea of her not being white.
The competent young hero
For the record, Alaures is not competent. At all. In fact, she's kind of the reason Niana's son went missing in the first place. (You'll see later) Plus, I want her to have a lot of inner struggles with her own "darkness" inside and the internal fight of good vs. evil. Hopefully this will prove to be pretty anti-cliche.
The quest
Okay, yes, this story is based around a "quest" (of sorts). But honestly, that isn't so much a cliche as it is a basis of the fantasy genre. Ask any English major (hi, Mom!) and they'll probably agree. Probably. I haven't really asked any myself, yet.
The magic/evil weapon
Let the record show that: YESSS I DON'T HAVE A MAGIC WEAPON
Guys, I'm so proud of myself. I thought I wouldn't be able to resist. But it was way easier than I thought. Just normal deadly weapons for this girl.
Well, there you go. My list of fantasy cliches and how I have (or haven't) avoided them. Please leave any thoughts about my list in the comments, and if you have any questions on the cliches I listed or wondered about one of your own, feel free to ask me!
Sayonara. I'm going to go watch Phineas and Fern now.
