quote:
LegaleseThis page is Copyright © 2005 by David J. Parker and Samuel Stoddard. We, being the authors and maintainers of this page, are not liable if you pass this exam and still write a dumb story.
heh heh heh
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited March 23, 2006).]
Actually makes me aware of what I'm writing. Here's my answers with the questions:
The Exam
1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages? Yes, something actually does happen.
2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage? No, he knows his father and he knows his mother.
3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it? Not to a throne, but a heir to a powerful legacy.
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy? Yes…
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.
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? Kind of.
8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information? Don’t know right now.
9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise? No, just normal people with rare weapon abilities.
10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character? No.
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician? Yes, but not exactly a magician.
12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel? No.
13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"? Maybe, haven’t though about that one yet.
14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"? Possibly.
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? I don’t know, should I write one like that?
16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued? Possible.
17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals? Maybe, I’m not sure just yet.
18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters? Yes.
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters? Yes/
20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"? No.
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"? No.
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different? I haven’t involved elves and dwarves in any story of mine.
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy? No.
25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented? No.
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"? No.
27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then? No.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy? Depends if I get an idea for a sequel.
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue? No.
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book? Not yet, and doubt it will ever be.
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"? No.
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books? Not yet, doubt I ever will.
33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far? No.
34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group? In one of my stories it is.
35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm? See above.
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.
38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"? I see something very wrong with it.
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings? Not yet, doubt it wever will.
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"? No.
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"? No.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines? No.
43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG? No, I imagine the battles in my head then try as best as I can to put the actions down on paper.
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? No.
46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls? No, just a place to have a bloody battle.
47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't? I think so.
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place? Don’t know, possibly will actually.
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? Yes.
50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"? Not yet.
51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel? Well, I can now.
52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel? Not yet.
53. Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel? No, and never will.
54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs? Yes, I know how much it weighs.
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest? You’d have to be pretty stupid not to realise that horses can only gallop for a short amount of time. Horses can however trot for a few hours, but they will tire quickly.
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? Hell no!
57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it? No, just a powerful sword.
58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar? No, as a scimitar is more of a slashing sword.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor? Only with a pike or spear.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info] Swords can weigh from 1lb to 15lbs.
61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains? Yes.
62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns? No.
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? No.
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man? Depends on where the arrow hits the man in the chest.
65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal? Yes, I realise that, as roast of a hunt would actually fair better than a stew.
66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead? Not nomadic, but yes, strong warriors, like sailors, who consume large quantities of mead.
67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"? Yes.
68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion? No.
69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild? Not yet/
70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death? No, just sevre and mind boggling torture.
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? No.
72. Is "common" the official language of your world? Well, at the moment everyone speaks the same tongue, but with different accents and pronounciation, like between Australia and America.
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, because I cannot be bothered to do something like that.
74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings? I wish it not to be.
75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
A bit of a read, I know.
Only one question applied: something happens in the first fifty pages of my story.
The Exam
Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Something happens very quickly.
Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No.
Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No.
Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No.
Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No.
How about one that will destroy it?
No.
Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.
Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No.
Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
No.
Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No.
Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No.
Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No.
How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
No.
How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No.
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?
Female characters?
Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
See above.
Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
See above.
Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
See above.
Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
See above.
Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No.
How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No.
Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
No.
Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.
Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No.
Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Not really.
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"?
Only 1 area has a name like that.
Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No prologue.
Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
Yes.
How about a quintet or a decalogue?
No.
Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
No.
Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No.
Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.
Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
No.
Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No.
Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No.
Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
Only 1.
Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
No.
Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
I see something wrong with that.
Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
I have a race like dwarves.
How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
No.
Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No.
At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
Maybe 
Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No.
Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No.
Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No.
Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No.
Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
No.
Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
No.
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.
Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Not really.
Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No.
Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No.
Heaven help you, do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
No.
Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Yes.
Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
No.
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?
No.
Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No.
Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No.
Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
No.
Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
No.
Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
No.
Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.
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?
No.
Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
No.
Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
I realize that.
Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No mead consuming.
Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No.
Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No.
Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No.
Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
No.
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?
No.
Is "common" the official language of your world?
No.
Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No.
Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No
---
Looks like I'm on the right track
Beer is produced by fermenting cereal sugars, usually barley.
Mead is produced by fermenting honey.
(For specifics see Wikipedia.)
Personally, I prefer mead. By the way, our word "honeymoon" comes from the fact that married couples would often have a month-long celebration after their marriage in which they would drink a lot of mead. Thus "honey" for the mead and "moon" for the month.
Just a little trivia for the day.
Just any "yes" answers and why you think it's still okay.
And if (like me) you're tempted to write a novel with as many yes answers as possible for someone that is not Robert Jordan (or writing on contract), please don't post every "yes" answer, just say you're going to try and score the maximum amount.
Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
A - That depends on how you define "the supreme badguy"...
Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
A - There is a character who does something like this, but they do it to deliberately manipulate the MC.
Does your novel contain a character that is really a god in disguise?
A - In a manner of speaking, yes...
Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
A - Yes, in the sense that the MC is the (utterly unwitting) result of a deliberate long-term breeding program.
All the other answers are emphatically "no".
About six months ago I had to make some changes to avoid a few of these though.
However, since Survivor brought it up, having a story that mostly says yes would make a brilliant satire. The first question is the only one that's hard to pull off: does nothing happen for the first fifty pages? The only way I can see to pull that off (without being Robert Jordan) is simple honesty, and leave the first fifty pages blank.
I've yet to read a fantasy novel that actually does this. Of course, it's been quite some time since I last picked up a fantasy book; but I used to read quite a lot of it.
I guess once you see it laid out in that form it is easier to see how overused some of the ideas are.
But of course, they all apply to so much more than just him. I'm rather sick of typical fantasy as well. Alvin Maker has been a nice break from that classic rip off stuff.
But. . . OK, some of us like medeival fantasy. In my writing class, over half of us are trying to write medeival fantasy novels. The author's got a point. LotR was done. Let's do something else.
Best medieval fantasy I can think of, other than LotR, is the Riddlemaster series. On behalf of Patricia McKillip, I took the test again, for serious effect.
Yeses:
One question I won't reveal, for fear of spoilers; and
4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy? (Morgon)
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy? (Riddlemaster of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, Harpist in the Wind)
37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables? ("Ghisteslwchlohm")
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place? (the whole realm)
I've pointed out before that you can stab right through full plate if you've got the right weapon and the strength for the job. If that's what's being addressed with the point about plate having joints, then so be it, but it was generally wiser to carry a weapon that could go right through the stuff than to muck about looking for a joint (if you had the option of doing whichever you preferred, of course--I suppose that after the fight starts your stuck with what you brought with you).
Okay, so I agree that 1, 31, 47, 55-6, and 60 are all probably real "if you answer this yes, you have a problem" issues. The others are warning signs, but I would accept any of them under the right circumstances. Really, it's clear that the list is written by people that are sick to death of the entire fantasy genre. Which is fine, but they aren't going to read fantasy no matter how it is written. So I don't think they deserve much of a vote in the matter.
It's a very tongue-in-cheek test anyway. David Parker, one of the creators of the test discusses it on Ellen Kushner's blog here (you have to scroll down, it's near the middle of the page and it's one of the largest comments typed.
wbriggs, the hay baler is a nineteenth century invention. That, I suspect, is one of the reasons why many Impressionist painters depicted bales of hay in fields, for the sheer novelty effect.
I took it, and for the record, the only ones to which I've answered "yes" are
#8: "is one of your characters a god in disguise?" sort of. He's very long-lived and has strange powers, but he can definitely be killed, and he doesn't have any worshippers to speak of.
#48: half my cast spends time getting from point A to point B, and then back to point A (on foot).
Edited because once again I keep confusing UBB and html tags.
[This message has been edited by Silver3 (edited March 25, 2006).]
We are writers. We cannot be put into a box. We can write drivel if people prefer, but most of the time, I anyway, write what I like and what interests me. One day, someone else will find it interesting as well.
However, if you can say yes to one of these in a story and still pull it off, by all means do so. I don't know if I could ever do it.
Or, not yet, anyway.
-----------
Wellington
Still, practically every question sings: "AVOID THIS!" in English and Elvish both.
I like Card's Alvin Maker series. The combination of magic and alternate history really worked for me.
I myself write contemporary fantasy when I tackle the genre -- urban fantasy or modern realism depending upon my mood. These sub-genres also have their cliches but they are not written for little boys so at least I'm in their target audience.
Did I mention that I think Tokienesque fantasy is written for boys and young men?
quote:
Did I mention that I think Tokienesque fantasy is written for boys and young men?
It's even quite handy, considering that most fantasy heroes are vagrents (rather than your salt of the earth types). Of course, it only makes sense to have at least some motherly types who would be, how do you say, "more comfortable weilding a frying pan than a sword."
I just have to say that, though I haven't hated any of the Alvin Maker books I've read, I haven't troubled myself to read all of them, or even all the ones that have been lying near at hand when I was bored. I don't know why.
I'm not sure I follow you on bale usage. According to my Oxford Dictionary of English, "bale" means a compressed, compact bundle of hay. It has to be made by a machine because there isn't another way to compress hay than applying enormous mechanical pressure. In the centuries before the invention of the hay-baler, there were no bales. People did gather hay by hand into superstucture for storage, but they were called bundles. They were sort of hemispheric, and yes, vagrants often slept in them. But they were not as compact as the bales of hay you can see around today.
But they've got a point.
Be original, be unique...spare us from another epic trillogy.
I wish I could find the list of Things I Learned from Television. Some parts:
* A woman is warm enough in shorts and a halter top, even on a glacier. (In Alien v. Predator, the heroine did have a light, tight-fitting sweater, in Antarctica.)
* If someone's just died, do CPR. You need someone around to try to stop you and say, in tears, "He's gone!" so you can brush her off and then try again, and when you give up, he'll wake up coughing.
* When men and women share a bed, the sheet is longer on the woman's side than the man's, so his chest can be visible and hers covered.
* Interesting people can walk through a field of flying bullets and not be hit.
* Never wear a red shirt.
* Every family leaves one side of the table completely empty at mealtime.
* A 100-lb woman has no problem slugging and knocking out a 200-lb karate expert, if he deserves it.
* Everyone talking on the phone repeats everything the other party says. Example:
Caller: "I'm coming over."
Callee: "You're coming over?"
Caller: "I have big news."
Callee: "You have big news?"
Caller: "I'll be there in an hour."
Callee: "You'll be here in an hour."
* Every type of scientist, from botanist to astrophysicist, knows how to diagnose diseases and set broken bones.
* No married woman has a sense of humor, and no married man has any sense at all.
* The frequency of sex with strangers has no correlation with STD's.
* Married people never have sex. Single people have it all the time.
Veeery convient, yes? Funny though...
I thought that this "exam" highlighted a lot of the things I find very annoying with the fantasy genre (yes I know if you don't like it, don't read it- but I DO love fantasy, if those things are left out.) The biggest one for me is probably, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE, NO MORE DWARVES, ELVES ect... but especially dwarves. For me, personally, that is when a story gets dropped (or put back on the bookshelf in disgust), when they introduce that character.
But there were also some things on there that I disagreed with, such as the one about the chosen one (i'm paraphrasing here, of course.) I rather like stories about some special, or extraordinariy person who is talked about in prophecies, or in hushed tones or whatever...
But I suppose it is all about personal preference isn't it? (once past the editors desk of course)- some people just might like some of that crap... who knows...
-leaf
I would think that a race of sea-fairing dwarves might be interesting. Or perhaps a race of elves that live in the high mountains and keep aeries of great condor-like birds to fly around on. Although, I believe that these may have been done, it isn't by any means overdone. Most dwarves are miners and most elves are forest-folk. Just don't do the expected and you can make it new.
Anything that you do in any story you create has to have a purpose and fit into the eco-system of that world. If it is plausable and you do it right, it can be believable. Any typical fantasy element can be overdone and cliche. Dragons, wizards, magic, various races, Dieties, quests, and on and on...
It is our job as creative writers to make new things, or make all of these cliche's new again. If you can do that with every story you create, you will have something.
Everyone reads a story for a different reason. Some people like dragons, some like dwarves and elves. But I know a fair share of people that don't like either of these elements in the fantasy stories they read. I think that in fantasy, there is no blanket statement to disregard any of these "cliche's". Inherently they are all a part of fantasy. You just have to do them very well and use them with a flair that very few have done before.
Some of this is stating the obvious, but this is just my view on the tongue-in-cheek test and some of the comments above.
okay.
I agree with this statement
Now, other than that, why don't people create thier own races and monsters? I watch these conversations and it really makes me wonder how many people think true creativity is to find a different story for the same elements that everyone is used to. I can't understand why scifi has less of a boundary issue (primarily believability) while fantasy seems to only allow one type of story. I just don't buy that line. I think I'll continue to believe that it's the fault of the writer to not try to be more creative and find thier own story outside of repetition. For those who think there is not such possible stories, pick up some of the earlier andre norton fantasies...she didn't seem to need the same world ending formula in every story.
You don't have to agree with me, but I no longer buy any new books that are described as 'epic'.
As for families leaving one side of the table open at meal times...who doesn't?
As for baling hay, that's when you roll it into a big ball (if you're doing it by hand). A bundle of hay would be when you make something more like a sheaf (of grain) only it's just hay. I'm sure that if your medival milieu is full of modern style bales complete with baling wire (or plastic equivalent) then you need a history lesson. But as long as you represent hand rolled bales of hay rather than square lumps tied with baling wire, I don't see that you need to know when the hay baler was invented.
Okay. I would like to see that.
wait a min. scratch that. I would like to HEAR about it.
On a personal note - I actually love to read apocalyptic stories... where the world is going to end, or is ending. Those are my fave, so naturally, I will have something similar to that in some (but please god, not every) story that I write. Its all a matter of personal preference, as Im sure someone mentioned earlier.
If you like to read about crazy wizards, medieval-like settings, or trolls and orcs... you are probably, most likely, going to eventually write about them.
right? yeah...
-leaf
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
A-- Uh . . . 
39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
A-- Not anymore . . . *grin*
48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
A-- Well, the whole story is about one long trip, with detours and distractions along the way.
The more I think about it, the more I fear that my WIP (3 years and counting) is nothing more than one long list of cliches and bad characterization.
Hm. What must it feel like not to be paralized by fear and self-doubt? 
[This message has been edited by cvgurau (edited March 29, 2006).]
1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
-No, I'm lucky if I make it more than 10-15 pages without some sort of action starting.
6. How about one that will destroy it?
-Tempting, but no.
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
-Depends on the idea. I like writing stories that can stand on their own, but stays open to more by the same character. Nothing like the WoT though.
42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
-No, because the dwarves would still be there in my book ... because dwarves rule!
55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
-No ... unless it's an magical horsie.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
-Only if he's carrying a magical sword. And still that character has to be big and buff and mean to pull it off.
60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more? [info]
-Depends on the sword. While the common sword didn't weigh over 10-15 pounds (too much metal, too heavy to lift over and over again), there were specialty swords that weighed more. But those were rarely used for regular battle.
64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
-No. The shock alone would disable or kill the average soldier, even if it didn't stick in the heart or enter the lungs (which would fill the lungs with blood and you would essentially drown in your own blood ... ew).
I think I did pretty well. Mainly becuase I decided long ago that would not write standard Tolkien'esque fantasy, unlike some authors *coughERAGONcough*.
PS - wbriggs, you forgot one of the great rules of TV/movies: It doesn't matter what weapon you use to kill a vampire, as long as you look cool doing it!
Jammrock
[This message has been edited by Jammrock (edited April 07, 2006).]
[grins sinisterly ... if that's even a word]
I over analyze questions too much. Plus I like being a smart #$* from time to time, and I felt some of my replies were in good humor with the exam. In all honestly, I only answered yes to 2-3 questions, because I stand firmly by my motto, "I will write no Tolkeinesque fantasy."
Jammrock
PS - I did edit down my post to only handful of responses
[This message has been edited by Jammrock (edited April 07, 2006).]
You actually didn't analyse the questions enough for my tastes, particularly by means of cross-referencing with the implications of other questions, for instance the meta question of whether the test designers really meant to imply that all women should have equal facility with frying pan and sword, or whether they thought hard about the implications of suggesting that armor is invincible to hand weapons but will always be penetrated by any projectile weapon, no matter how primative. An arrow (or bullet) that is fine for killing birds or rabbits will have little appreciable effect on an adrenalized human warrior, after all. There are dozens of interesting contradictions like that in the list of questions, as well as many questions that are based on entirely flawed assumptions (for instance, the assumption that most bows in medival times would have been designed for killing men rather than quail, or that dwarves would never consider the possible advantages of having a shortcut for their own use).
Not that I want anyone to go pointing out all the flaws in the test, I counted an average of about four critical flaws per question, many of which could be discussed at some length. I contented myself with pointing out the flaw in the test overall, namely that the people who wrote it are simply tired of reading this genre entirely, and therefore do not represent its fan base.
I've read purported Tolkien knock-offs, though.
I wonder, is a knock-off of a knock-off a double negative, or just really, really sad?
just sad
So, has anyone read George R.R. Martin? I think even someone sick of fantasy would enjoy him.
I looked over that list during NaNoWriMo, haha. I have all nos so far, but that's mainly because I'm still planning x_x; I need to get on with the writing already.
Kherezae: Martin is the best contemporary fantasy author around, in my opnion. His books are fantastic, though very huge! I'm just glad he hasn't pulled a Robert Jordan with the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. In fact, my desktop wallpapwer in from amoka.net, and has John Snow and Ghost standing on the Wall.
"How about one [artifact] that will destroy it [the world]?"
But I cannot answer a definitive "yes", either. The story doesn't fit that mold exactly, though it comes close enough that I think I would risk violating that rule.
Otherwise, not too bad. Maybe there's hope for me after all. (If, of course, I ever actually FINISH this thing).
None of which appear to be written by anybody named J. R. R. Tolkien...
Do you think anyone will buy it?
I wrote a novel that was supposed to look like many of the answeres were yes but were really no. DAW sat on it for 9 years and sent back a 1 page rejection letter.
http://vanderworld.blogspot.com/2006/04/exhaustive-essential-fantasy-reading.html
You need only to copy/past the link into the Reply area and the forum software does the rest.
:-(
pssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
whatever
-leaf
quote:
None of which appear to be written by anybody named J. R. R. Tolkien...
That, for me, renders the list pointless. I don't care what he failed to put on there as "essential reading", if he puts something on the list which I simply couldn't enjoy, it discredits the list entirely.
Leaf II: I think I'd read six of the One-Through-Sixty list. But I don't consider myself ill-informed.
Elan: I imagine there are still some fantasy-oriented readers who never read Tolkien. I first read "The Hobbit," then "The Lord of the Rings," when I was fifteen or sixteen---but I'd had plenty of opportunity to do so before that and passed on it. All I can offer for an excuse is that, in those days, the Ballantine paperback covers were just plain awful and utterly unappealing to the beginning reader that I was. (I picked up a (hardcover) copy of "The Hobbit" at a school book sale, on the grounds that I felt I had to buy *something* and that was the closest thing to science fiction that was for sale...but once I read "The Hobbit" I just had to read "The Lord of the Rings.")
Is that bad? Have I commited some cardinal sin?
10 hail mary's and... something something..
Well.. RELAX everyone...
I've seen the movies.
-leaf
#3
Story- Legion of Dead. Yes the MC is heir to the throne and doesn't know it, but the throne does not exactly exist yet and even if it did the man lives in a cave for most of his life. A very nice cave with many dead servants.
#4
Story- Change of World. There are 5 MC's, each one is "coming of age", each one is gaining "great power" because everyone who survives does and together they defeat the supreme badguy. That is kind of the idea behind the plot. As I understand it 'tropes are not bad, it is all in how they are handled.
#5
Story- The Ordained. It is a story that looks at the question, "How does anyone know that this one item will destroy the bad guy if this has never happened before?". So yes, there is a magic widget that "saves the world".
#7
Story- The Ordained. See above. In this case the prophecy is not a mysterious knowing of the future, but a way to manipulate the people involved like pawns in a very long game.
#19
Story- Change of World. One of the characters wants to be an FBI agent and has more skill with a gun than a curling iron.
#36
Story- The Ordained. The main character's name takes part of the mother's and part of the father's name. Hyphen was required to make that work.
#48
Story- Emily. She travels through the entire book doing what the Gods tell her until she finally tells them to leave her alone.
Story- Change of World. The characters go from America to Europe to track down the "supreme evil character".
Story- Not King. The main character travels with militia and by the end of the book ends up leaving the kingdom. Really it only kind of applies. It depends on how you define "inordinate".
#49
Story- The Ordained. The beings that are manipulating people could tell them that it is all part of a very long game, but that would be cheating.
Story- Change of World. One of the group is actually on the side of the "supreme evil". Telling would be counter-productive.
#68
Story- The Ordained. (Hitting often, eh?) If by number they mean two or more, then this one counts. There are three races, The game players and two sets of pawns.
So, of the six stories I ran through this exam Seth and Not King did not get a single yes, though Seth had one "Kind of" and Not King had five "Kind of's". Emily scored only one yes and Legion of Dead got one yes and five "Kind of's". Change of World had three marked yes and three marked "Kind of" while The Ordained (which is supposed to have cliches) got five in the yes category and another five in the "Kind of" section.
This was fun!
[This message has been edited by Netstorm2k (edited April 27, 2006).]
"Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?" - Would you rather they brawl in the church?
"Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?" - Of course!! There is no better stabbing weapon out there! A poniard? A dirk? Bah! Give me a curved blade wider than my hand, any day!
"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?" - Well, my main character had his iPod broken when he was ambushed by a band or goblins. Can't smash things without music, you know.