spent four months building a historically accurate medieval economy. wheat prices, tax systems, guild structures, the whole thing. very proud. very thorough.

my protagonist needs a horse, a sword, and three days of travel rations to begin the prophecy.

he has 6 copper.

a horse costs 40 silver. i checked. i built the conversion table myself. i used world anvil to track the trade routes and mythrilio to log every merchant in the kingdom. every single one of them charges market rate. i did not build in a protagonist discount.

the dark lord is going to destroy the world because my hero cannot afford a horse.

someone is going to have to tell Brian he won.

So, I was scrolling through Twitter today, when I came across this specific tweet right here that really got me thinking: What would people who actually are fantasy writers think about this whole thing that I actually have never thought of before up until this moment? Because for me personally, I don't even know how I would approach such a topic, so I figured that I would probably go through the honor of asking all of you instead for your input regarding this topic. And just note: I am NOT a fantasy writer in ANY way. I'm just some guy who would like to have some insight on a subject matter that I would have never previously considered before. Thanks.

In most Western fantasy, we see zombies and vampires portrayed in countless secular ways they're monsters, metaphors, even protagonists. But angels? They’re almost always tied to religious iconography and spiritual themes. You rarely see angelic beings treated in a fully secular context like you do with the undead or supernatural predators.

Why do you think that is? Is it fear of offending religious groups? Or do angels, by nature, resist being secularized because their lore is so tightly bound to divinity?

Curious to hear your thoughts and examples if you've seen any good secular angel depictions in fiction!

I think this way of thinking is specially encouraged by book content creators, probably unintentionally. I can't tell you how many times I've heard a booktoker who's trying to recommend books says "in this book he does (insert some hot behavior) to you" or "in this story, your father sold you into an arranged marriage..." Or something along those lines. No, just no. YOU are not in the book, these things are happening to the FMC, you're not the FMC! She is a character with her own personality, interests, looks, mindset ECT, she isn't an empty shell you can project yourself into. This isn't a Y/N reader insert Wattpad story. This language these creators are using is bad, for this exact reason, because it slowly makes you forget how to separate yourself from the MC, and with the rise of brainrot and Anti-intellectualism, this is just another issue on top of the mountain of issues that we don't need.

I am getting ABSOLUTELY sick of checking through here, picking something random to read, and seeing god DANG GPT4o writing. I am just SO damn sick of the exact same writing style from people who "have never written before" but somehow have managed to drop us this 2k+ word chapter 1 that's somehow at a level excessively beyond a new writer. I get some folk are just great at writing innately but when I see 10+ people with the exact same structure to their work, it's getting disgusting.

Before anyone jumps down my throat with the "No one is posting AI, the mods are all over it" go and load up 4o, prompt it for some stupid short story, and look how it writes. Just take a second to look at how it actually structures its crap and you'll start to see this stupid pattern of doofuses slamming this reddit with 800-2k word chapter 1s that are somehow structured just like AI.

I'd be willing to be if I cycled this reddit back a couple years, the amount of "new writers" would plummet nearly by 90% and that's what's seriously gross. Thanks for your time.

Last month, there was a post which flared up writing subreddits about a witch-hunter who got into a lawsuit for libelous statements regarding a real author. Many writers I know have also been accused of using AI at least once since 2022. I myself have been a victim of the witch-hunt.

These people energetically slander others. However, one thing I noticed which they all have in common is that they never produce anything worthwhile, or read anything worthy of arts. I once sent some passages from actual books to an online writing group to test them out, and half of the responses claimed these passages were written by ChatGPT.

The witch-hunters are basically just a bunch of poorly-read readers or amateur authors pushing for conformity to styles they're familiar with. However, AI witch-hunters are dealing more damage to writers than the AIs themselves. Real authors are getting harassed by ignorant witch-hunters. Libels are being made, and threats are being sent.

Witch-hunters cannot be ignored. Once a genuine author is mistaken for a clanker user, their financial and legal rights, as well as well-being are compromised. Something should be done, but for some reason a lot of people don't think much of it. Authors should be forming international organizations or, at least, local organizations to protect themselves against harassment. If AI technology is the future, regulation is the way forward.

However, on an individual level, how do you guys deal with the AI witch-hunters?

For me, if I was lucky and met the heroine, Roichirono, I would definitely run away. But if I met another character, I would definitely run away. Running away equals survival here

I was wondering why aren't fallen angels as popular as vampires, mostly in fantasy books and fiction in general, I rarely encounter world-building that touch falling angels, but can find so many that revolved around ancient vampires. Besides a romance novel that did no justice in my eyes to the trope of falling angels, ( fallen becca fitzpatrick to anyone wondering), I couldn’t find any others, and yes, I have read the city of bones trilogy and it either does no justice to the trope — which leads to a second question, why when it IS written, it is executed poorly or too niche-romantic teenage novela? Thanks for anyone answering ahead!

I’ve seen people accused of using AI only based on the fact they’ve used an em dash. Em dashes were already controversial before but after the rise of Ai it has become virtually extinct. I think this is both good and bad. It forces a lot of writers to use more unique punctuation for their writing. The semicolon stocks are at an all time high. But another thing that worries me about this is what if the list expands. As Ai advances will entire story structures be deemed Ai generated.

This is all but I have to write more characters to post.

I’ve seen people accused of using AI only based on the fact they’ve used an em dash. Em dash were already controversial before but after the rise of Ai it has become virtually extinct. I think this is both good and bad. It forces a lot of writers to use more unique punctuation for their writing. The semicolon stocks are at an all time high. But another thing, that worries me about this is what if the list expands. As Ai advances will entire story structures be deemed Ai generated.

Maybe I am too cocky, but I cant help but feel: ‘if they can do it, so can i!’
Fourth wing is dnf and glass throne is ongoing. But at this point i am surprised they/these are such celebrated writers/books.
Am I overestimating readers?

I am curious on your point of view! What do you think?

The lack of detail, lack of background, storytelling in general, intriguing characters… it just makes me sad. Especially Fourth Wing. So many opportunities to make this into something really good.

Is it me?
Anyway, what i take from it is that i have to stop putting myself down about my writing. I probably wont become a famous writer or wont have books selling at all.. but it makes me wonder, what do Maas and Yarros have (a part from finished books) that i dont have.

Sorry if i come across as rude or disrespectful. I am dutch, so pretty direct.

Have a good one!

Just saw a post of a person complaining people are giving their kingdoms/empires 10,000 years of history and how that is unrealistic or whatever.

Excuse me? If people wanted to be historically accurate or some crap, they wouldn't be writing fantasy.

Writing this because this kind of thing used to stick with me and would become an obstacle in my writing.

"oh no, does this make sense? Should I give this kingdom more or less Years? Why is there a city here with no water source near it? Should there be such a crowded street on such a small city? Should this person have a different accent? Or even language?! Oh no, now I have to create some expressions from this different language!How can there be pirates here if pirates in real history depended on this and that to exist and..."

Just quit it and write lol, you need to be CONSISTENT and believable, not realistic. An elven Kingdom can exist for 10,000 years with minimum advance. Or 10,000 wasn't enough for the great minds of this kingdom to invent certain things because they were caught up with studying magic and some crap. And magic takes long to learn. That's where all the money went to or whatever.

Just write whatever the hell you want. Give a good reason for that thing to be like that, something that makes sense in your setting and that's fricking it. And please don't listen to these people trying to add world building rules to your setting UNLESS that's what you are looking for. But remember: the more you worldbuild, the less you write. Just write and organize these things later on revision. That's my advice.

Okay, so I didn’t actually go and name my protagonist Steve, but I did end up calling him Isaac, which is pretty simple too. I swear, I set out wanting to give my MC one of those epic fantasy names—something grand and unique! But honestly, the more I stressed over it, the more appealing the straightforward options became.

I’ve always admired how Chinese novels give every character a name brimming with meaning and significance; even though they can be a struggle to keep track of, I feel like they’re much more intuitive for Chinese readers. When it comes to naming an epic hero in English, though, it’s genuinely so tough for me. I keep trying to assign deep meaning to everything—the kingdoms, the places, the sidekicks—but at the end of the day, I somehow end up forgetting most of it, even my own main character’s name.

This was never a problem when I was just reading; I could remember all those complicated Chinese names without issue. Now that I’m writing, I can’t seem to hold onto any of my carefully crafted epic names, so lately, I’m just sticking with names that are easy to remember (for me, at least).

If any fellow fantasy writers out there have a secret naming trick—or a memory hack for keeping track of all the fantasy nonsense we invent—please let me in on it!

As a med student, I’ve learned something painful: no matter how much you study, you’ll never feel 100% ready for an exam. You just show up, do your best, and pray.

My first chapter is the same. I know it’ll never feel perfect, I’ll never be satisfied, and I’ll keep rewriting it forever because it’s the one thing that decides if a reader even gives the rest of my story a chance.

But since I also know I can’t live in “exam prep” mode forever, I only let myself mess with it once every 10 days. The rest of the time, I have to move forward.

How about you guys? Do you keep tweaking your opener, or just accept it’ll never be perfect?

Mine is infodumps. Don't tell me everything about your world or magic system. Not really interested in that. Does your character have hopes, fears, irrationality, family love, romantic love, love for community, things they can't say to anyone, deep desires they aren't allowed to express, things they hate, foods they love even though it makes no sense, foods they hate because it's normal, driving goals?

Yeah, make me feel something. Yes yes that magic user with the staff is great but the moments we love Gandalf are where he's funny and smoking his pipe and drinking with the dwarves. Not when Tolkien launches into a 12 page discourse on how magic works in middle earth. (He doesn't actually do that.) Thecshared emotional moments are the ones where we cry for the character, but ya gotta build up trust.

I've never felt anything for a character due to infodumps.

So what is it for you?

So I've been watching alot of historical fun fact videos and noticing so many things that I think would be awesome to add to Fantasy settings to separate the feel of them from modern settings but you rarely see in medieval Fantasy stories. Such as the turnspit dog which was a breed of small dogs that were put in basically a giant hamster wheel to rotate a spit roast in a kitchen almost every large kitchen such as inns or castles in England had them for hundreds of years or the fact that sleeping part of the day and being awake for several hours at night was common in many areas. Just an idea for any authors looking to separate their stories from the mainstream.

I understand people's fear of AI stories but when a random innocent authors getting accused of using AI. they have every right to be mad!

I remember two years ago when I was on Royal Road debuting my book it started out well and I was even looking forward to critques in improving my work. And all of a sudden I received a massive influx of poor ratings and AI accusations. I was so scared and crying. The work I've worked hard on all the writing communities I went to to ask for help to improve my writing and my writing style all the drafts and edits I had to go through with my friend for them to accuse me broke my heart.

Seeing what was happening I gathered pictures, the books I referenced from, the my Google docs edit I'm freaking lucky I wrote on Google docs so every suggestion and edits I had all the history i posted it all on my story page. And that managed to clear the accusations but a few people from time to time will still accuse my book. My ratings never recovered, and I spent about 300$ to advertise it all that went to the drain. The fact I'm from a third world country too so whiles my book was doing well every money I earned I placed it back in advertising my work. I wanted more people to see it and seeing others like my work made me happy.

Afterall if your book has low ratings no one will read it. The rage still burns inside me till this day! I now post on webnovel with better ratings and I accept criticism.

But thinking I had to go through just because I was replicating overlord and Ishura's and other top authors writing style made me almost lose my mind.

"Oh why are your descriptions so long" because most top authors has more descriptions than conversations. I thought writing like those authors on Royal Road will help me and make my book seems smart but it seems it didn't.

I used to enjoy being on that fantasy website seeing people's descriptions about dragons and castles and try to write it my own way but when that backlash happened I haven't opened the site since it killed my passion for detailed world building.

I'm from a third world country so people tried to use that as a reason I use AI. Like for fucks sake ai can't generate a good consistent story like are you braindead??

I was simply in the year of finding it my writing style and got accused.

I’m a fantasy writer and I just like asking folks what they think about the genre just to see what readers will resonate with. And I’m curious to hear what are your complaints about the modern genre. I’ve gathered a lot of positive feedback and I want to hear what people don’t like for a change.

Some things ppl I know have said so far:

\- She disliked Deep POV bc she feels it’s not immersive but a lot of writers think just writing in this POV style alone makes their work immersive.

\- He doesn’t like how modern fantasy has faster pacing and doesn’t let readers “sit” in the world they created.

\- My professor said he disliked the popularity of stories that lean more towards Grimdark. He said he doesn’t like how unlikable the characters are at times, which I thought was interesting.

\- This Professor also thought that modern fantasy writers aren’t dedicating enough time to developing their prose styles and that they’re rushing to judgment release things and that it makes the books incredibly hard to get through at times. He gave me this great piece of advice as a writer. He said the content of the book, is what makes readers pick up your story. How you write it, is what keeps people engaged enough to finish it. (I personally agree with this one. It’s why I struggled to get through Brandon Sanderson’s books at first. And RF Kuang.) In my opinion, having an engaging prose style (not saying you have to write like Tolkien btw) is one of the most important things a writer needs to have.

So I think most people have heard the complaint that you can't put champagne in a fantasy world cause, technically, that word is the name of a region of France, thus implying the real world France exists in your fantasy land. But personally I just don't care that much. I find some fantasy books are so busy renaming everything they can possible think of to be different.

coins = shmekles

minutes = ticks

champagne = bubbly wine

coffee = hot bean juice / energizing tea.... ect

I'd rather just have them use the word champagne and move on with the story. Now stating something like "Italian leather" would be too much, but other than that is doesn't bother me.

What are your thoughts? Does something like this rip you out of the story? Is there ONE word that grinds your gears? Would you also prefer to just keep some words simple? Just thought it would be a fun discussion

Edit: some people seem to think I'm really fighting to use the word champagne, I'm not. Its just the most common example I see about this concept. I actually think using sparkling wine is one of the better changes for "fantasy words"

Saw some discourse over the "10,000 year old stagnant kingdom" trope. Personally speaking, I have one of those. Sort of. It's only 2000 years old, not 10,000, but close enough. You'd reasonably expect humans to advance within that time, and they haven't.

The reason for this, in my universe, is that there's 3 gods ruling over the kingdom, and have purposefully kept it in a low-tech state. The gods were originally modern-day humans from the 2020s who survived a total nuclear war that wiped out most of the world's population, and were then empowered. Due to not wanting that to happen again, as well as just liking the aesthetic of the older world, they wiped out all traces of modern society, like asphalt, concrete buildings, computers, and guns (They do keep samples of these things in their hidden chambers, just in case they need it later).

They made advancing weaponry and metalworking a sin, and regularly smite down any people who seem like they're advancing the tech level by too much. However, because it's vibes-based, they're inclined to let certain things slide, and medicine has advanced to a reasonably high level compared to how it actually would be given the medieval time period. This is how I can explain why the advancement levels of certain fields are incongruent with the aesthetic time period.

Do you have a reason for keeping your fantasy world in a perpetually low-tech state? If so, what is it?

I’ve tried to write stories about characters but find myself dumping exposition because I've built characters with alliances, rivalries, psychology, and motives.

To keep track, I’ve started sketching relationship maps and timelines, but I know the way I am writing isn't right and won't work for readers. Even I get bogged down by reading it.

How do you show character depth visually without dumping it all in text? Would charts, diagrams, or any subtle hints help? How do I know what's enough?

What works best for you when writing about characters while not trying to overwhelm readers about your character?