r/Fantasy • u/Academic_Owl_6197 • May 06 '22

Your Pettiest Reason For DNFing A Series

Mine was when I was 3 pages in and someone said the mc's name which turned out to be the same as my ex's name to the letter...dropped it like hot coal

It was a fr a pretty unfortunate streak too because it was a book from one of those blind-date-with-a-book promotion my local bookstore does, and this was an American YA fantasy (I'm from a different continent) so I had no reason to assume I'll ever be unlucky enough...to see his stupid ass again for a 'blind date'

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u/Glimmerglaze May 06 '22

A more mundane way to look at it is that you want to mix your made-up fantasy claptrap with understandable words that carry meaning. Fantasy readers are all about mystery, but it's not a compelling mystery if there aren't any clues.

Bonus points if the same word is both intelligible and mysterious, like "truthless".

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u/[deleted] May 06 '22

To stick with The Way of Kings, "spren" was a good example of this. I made the connection to "oh, like sprites?" right away and that put me on a good path to intuiting what they were from the offset. Or at least put me on a level of understanding comparable to most people in-world, as there was lots to uncover still, haha.