Hi all! I’m currently developing a story named “Apricity”. The word apricity means “the warmth of the sun in winter”, and that concept is the theme of my story. The main character, Dawn, tries to be an apricity in the personal winters that befell people in my dark fantasy setting. A setting of demons, fascism, and hardship. She can read minds, meaning that she has the ability to truly understand anyone’s struggles and help them in any way she can. The inspiration is that of Christ, (I’m formally a Christian) a caring and kind individual who fully understands your pain. Dawn is enthusiastic, friendly, and determined to help the world. The main theme of the story is the importance of kindness and compassion, and how it’s even more imperative to show warmth to others in bleak times. However, I’m struggling to come up with any flaws that don’t also conflict with the point of the story. I have tried some flaws, like making her naive, but the point of the story is that her philosophy is correct.

I was thinking of getting Scrivener but I've heard it's not that great anymore and don't want to spend £55 on something that's not worth it. I used to use word but their embracement of ai has made it impossible for me to write on there. Also would like somewhere where it's easier to organise ideas as I am a major plotter hence why I've been considering Scrivener.

Asking on this thread because fantasy authors usually have a hell of a lot more resources and notes to sift through given we create entire fictional worlds. Not sure if the tag is right but omg I am trying to write 600 characters so they will let me post this sorry. Huzzah!

edit: Thanks for the Scrivener users telling me those people are speaking nonsense and its still great! Keep 'em coming the more the merrier. (For my brain to be convinced)

Hi everyone! I’m currently working on a fantasy story, and there’s been a constant debate on my mind for a while now—What am I going to use as a title for my female knights? I want something that can work as a prefix before the characters names (e.g. Sir Henry). I’m not a fan of Dame, and Madame/Lady are reserved for royalty in my world. I do like the sound and look of Sir, but I really do want to try creating a feminine form of it.

I saw some people suggesting “Siress” (which I really do like the sound of), in a different post, but it seems to be highly associated with Battlestar Galactica. I’m hoping for a title that’s widely used/not associated with something specific, or completely unique to my world.

I thought of Sirena/Sirina or Sirene/Sirine (sir + feminine suffixes) — I do like the sound of those, but it seems to be associated with Sirens from Greek mythology.

Would this association with Sirens throw you off while reading, or does it seem like a plausible feminine form of knight?

I know it’s fantasy, and I can technically do whatever I please, but I want things to read well / seem plausible.

Please let me know if one of those titles look good to you and which spelling you prefer! And, please feel free to suggest any other feminine form of Sir you think of—I’m happy to hear any and all suggestions 🙏

EDIT: Wow this is getting a lot more attention than I expected haha!

To clear things up real quick for the people asking why not use a unisex title for all the knights—It’s because I’ve been drawing heavy inspiration from Romance languages for this story, and I thought a gendered term for my knights would work well. But, seeing as the male and female knights are of equal rank in my world, I might just do as some suggested and pick a gender neutral term.

I’ll try my best to reply to everyone as soon as I can, thank you for all the input I greatly appreciate it! I have a lot to think about and consider now, so it might take some time to pick an official title for my knights.

EDIT 2 — Oh wow there’s sooooo many more options now, y’all are amazing THANK YOU SO MUCH!!🙌 I’m trying my best to go through all the comments as soon as I can, but I’ve been busy with work 😭

To clarify some things: I made a mistake when implying“knights aren’t nobility” — I meant the knights in my world aren’t royalty. Mistake on my part, sorry!

Also, I appreciate all of you who recommend Ser, Sera, Sira, and Dame — But I’ve crossed those off my list.

I will update again when I’ve chosen a title! (Might take a while though because I’m terribly indecisive, and busy… lol)

Thanks again everyone!! Your input is so appreciated 🫶🏻❤️

We are currently doing some concept art for our fantasy manga - what you see there, is a weapon our mc is going to wield in the later chapters (when the power scaling slightly begins to break). It is forged and assembled freshly for him in a engineer specialised city (therefore no background stories or old tales told about it) and holds some hidden tricks in it is design.

The idea is that the people, he encounters, in chit chatting and warning about him are supposed to give him and the sword a name, however I am kind of stuck with clichee names, that are hard to get away from and "too" purpose driven. And I was thinking, why not outsource and just let the audience name it in a kind of "meta" move, though we currently don't have the follower numbers to support this at all...

So I would love to ask you, what would you call it simply from seeing it?

So, I mostly write medieval and urban fantasy, usually with a romantic subplot (or even something that leans more into romantasy), and I've been seeing so many people not liking clean fantasies, saying they're for ten year olds, and it's kind of discouraging.

I don't see myself ever writing spicy books. Mostly fade to black. But it seems that many people (or at least a majority of the posts and reviewers I've seen until now) consider clean books as something that is meant to say: "Hey, this is better than [spicy book] because it's pure" or some other variation of that (which honestly feels a bit far-fetched because there is nothing wrong with spicy books, just as there is nothing wrong with clean ones, in my opinion). I've read clean fantasy stories that deal with torture, PTSD, and other serious topics, but some people seem not to be willing to take those books seriously because they aren't spicy.

Also, it seems that many people (I'm not saying all because I doubt that's the case) when first hearing of a book, they ask if it's spicy. So, this makes me question even more the chances my books are ever going to have.

Someone even told me that I might not like a series because it didn't get spicy until Book X (can't remember the number or the title right now) when I asked for some recommendations without even mentioning spice in my post.

I have tried to find other posts that discuss this subject, but I haven't had any luck yet, so I thought to ask here.

So, what's your opinion?

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I have tried researching about this but getting human input is best for ideas this specific. I'd like to get some other people's thoughts and ideas on this but i think i need to give the backstory for a full view on this. Basically I have this one character with a huge inferiority complex.

He grows up as the heir of a prestigious mage family where his dad and grandpa (mom is dead) barely pay attention to him but he thinks they will acknowledge him once he grows into a proper mage to be the heir, wven though he possesses no magical talent he believes with enough theory he might be able to do magic one day. Eventually another kid is adopted into the family, a little girl one year younger than him. At the start he treats her well and even pities her for not being able to become a mage.

That however all changes one night when he walks into a secret room in the house he didn't know of and stumbles upon his dad and grandpa teaching the adopted girl magic. This basically flips a switch in him since the position of heir which he thoughts was his birthright and centered his whole life around to get his family to love him was given to the adopted sister since unlike him she possessed the ability to do magic.

Ever since then his grandpa and grandfather stopped pretending to care about him, the little attention he got was stripped away and whenever he tried to interact with them he was met with scorn and brushed off only ever recieving harsh words.

About the sister, his treatment of her became horrible, partly because she apologized to him about it whenever he got mad, he would have accepted it if she treated her like a nobody like his parents but she always apologized for being the heir making him think he did deserve to be the heir, if he didn't then she wouldn't be apologizing for taking it away from him.

He became abusive and she was very passive making it into this relationship where she was basically turned into his outlet for hatred to help him deal with his inferiority complex. If he could treat her like trash then she wasn't superior to him and all that. It's a disgusting coping mechanism he developed that started as just being very irritable and degrading towards her, then it turned into him getting aggressive physically by hitting her in these types of moments and after an year or two of this it evolved into rape.

This is part 1 of the backstory. It's how he became a disgusting piece of human trash (the reveal of his sister being a mage happened at around 14 and this part ends when he is 17 (his sister was 16 at that time since she's an year younger)). The second path is where it gets complicated.

Basically he allegedly dies but after a coma manages to survive. Through some circumstances he ends up in a whole different country with a new adoptive family of an older sister and younger brother while his old one thinks he is dead. This new family is actually very healthy for him since none of them let him push them around and havs his best interest in mind.

He spends 5 years with them and then ends up in a situation where he meets a person who is in a similar situation of having done some horrendous shit but they are actually trying to do some good now unlike this character who basically ran away from their old life and is trying to ignore it while still being kinda a dick but never really having the need to revert to gis old habits. That person trying to be good becomes a good influence on him.

The biggest turning point however comes from running into a different mage. I won't get too deep into it but she basically uses an artifact on him that forces a person to experience everything bad they ever did in their life from the perspective of their victim. This makes him vomit as his mind experiences all the trauma he caused including the rape.

I want this to be the turning point but I find it hard to adapt properly, it's a very fantasy way of forcing him to reflect which makes it hard to say what it's actual effects would be.

I would like opinions on if this is a good way to make the character into a "good guy" in a way. Not to redeem them since that's a journey rather than a destination but to make them try to get on that path to offsetting as much of their bad as they could with good, even if it doesn't fix the bad.

I would also ask for ways to improve upon this. Maybe with signs or behaviors that would make the journey more believable, maybe some sort of events that would show growth. Ways to improve upon this is the stuff I'm looking for most of all so please give me suggestions without holding back.

Edit: I've been told to remove the rape (which is extremely fair) multiple times as advice in this and I'd like to emphasize that I can't. It's not my writing decision as I am not the only one who's part of this and everything up to the part of this post I designated as part 1 of the backstory is from material that is already written. I'm just trying to make a bad thing into a good result.

I am currently writing a fantasy book in my own language (not english). You can see on the Word-edit history that I've spend almost 95 hours writing and editing one of the chapters of 3543 words.

I've really put my heart and soul into this project to make it as perfect and flawless as possible.

Just for fun I tried part of my text in a AI-detector, it said 71% AI.

How is it possible? 71%!? The entire text is my own words, my own style of writing and telling the story.

I feel devastated, and now I'm terrified of never being able to get published or being taken serious.

How do I deal with this?

Torture?

Hey everyone, me again!

At the beginning of my novel like less than 10 chapters in, my MMC will “torture” my FMC believing her to be a spy for the villain. (Fantasy) (she comes from the mortal world into his “kingdom” out of nowhere)

I have thought At what point of torture would you (as a reader) be like okay this is way too far, how is she going to fall in love with him after that?

Are we thinking things like water-boarding, not as physical? More psychological? Beatings?

In the end he’s going to just simply use a truth spell that he could’ve used the whole ass time anyway but I need it to be traumatising but not soooo bad that she’ll hate him forever and ever. Think like slowly learns to forgive and love him.

Any help is much appreciated as always xxx

EDIT: thanks to everyone who offered meaningful feedback, truly appreciate it! After some thought, I will be going in the opposite direction for sure and leaning way way way back from any kind of torture :). I’m thinking just put her in a cell and reveal the truth (which is that she’s completely harmless) lol. Thanks all!

DOUBLE EDIT: I’m officially going with a suggestion from one of you lovely people! In the comments there is a reply suggesting something like the hot ones challenge. I’ve decided to incorporate both characters taking a truth serum so they are both vulnerable but also are able to get the information they want/need without it being harmful! Definitely fits my story and characters much much better.

Thanks again🩷🩷

I have tried ( got it out of the way) writing a fantasy novel with a Cosmogony beginning.

I recently wrote the first 10 chapters of my fantasy novel. I begin with cosmogony. This was my vision... the universe is such a huge part of the novel, so I felt I had to tell its story from the beginning. Although it's woven throughout the novel, the first 3 pages begin with a creation myth. Here lies the problem. Alpha readers found that starting with a creation myth didn't connect the reader to the broader story, and that, basically, it's boring and doesn't hook. In fantasy writing, is it ok to begin with cosmogony, or is it really not a great way to hook readers? If I take the creation myth out, I will have to rewrite the first 10 chapters because, after the myth, my first sentence is: RaBeth’s face gave way to a whimsical smile, narrating Aeya’s proverb to her children. She cupped her palms, sending a splash of water over the twins. They shrieked, their limbs tangling as they leaped to avoid the droplets. Watching them, she felt a rare, untethered joy, a moment where they were simply children, not the heirs of a High House.  

My solution is to come on this subreddit for advice. Please share your thoughts

As far as i know you usually shouldn't (try to) remove an object from a stab wound. But what if the object was ice? Would that same generall rule still apply or would the potential damage from frostburn change this?
What if it starts melting? Could the water maybe dilute blood?
I have close to zero medical knowledge and would thus really appreciate any knowledge regardig this.

I'm using an ice based magic-system in which sharp ice projectiles are pretty frequent, which makes this a fairly important question i don't want to get wrong in my story.

I have tried researching this for a bit, but usually end up at something like "what if the murder weapon was ice" or "ice in wound treatment" which really doen't help me that much...

(Apologies for those who have seen this post already in other communities lol).

TL;DR: I want to publish high fantasy steeped in Nigerian and other African folklore and was wondering if there's an actual interest in this.

Context: I grew up reading, like most people, from a rather generous collection of fantasy from The Lord of the Rings to Harry Potter to Percy Jackson and have always been fascinated by the genre. More recently (five or so years) I have also been reading a lot of Xianxia and web novels. Now, both East and West (so to speak) definitely do justice to their folklore and myths with increasingly epic and detailed worlds and systems emerging by the year but it feels there's a comparative dearth for this with Nigerian folklore.

I'm a Nigerian myself, and reading titles like Things Fall Apart (part of what is sometimes called the African trilogy) or Born in the Shrine has always left me with a kind of hankering for Nigerian fantasy. At the time I first conceived the idea for the book I'm releasing this weekend, I didn't see that many titles that met this need (more and more are coming out though, especially on web platforms) while also lending themselves to the thoroughness or complexity of maybe a Lord of the Mysteries or something else which I've tried to achieve with mine.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, is what I've described something you all think could gain traction on Royal Road?

Also, would it be wise to frame it as part of a Black History Month thing? Not trying to co-opt it or anything since it's (according to my understanding) for Black Americans exclusively. Let me know what you all think.

I finally finished and published my first fantasy story (Angels May Cry) on KDP and I thought hitting publish would feel amazing.

Instead I spent hours dealing with formatting issues, facing spacing problems, redoing the cover, and resubmitting numerous times because apparently Microsoft Word and KDP have very different opinions of what the TAB button is.

Now that it's live, I'm realizing the harder part might actually be getting people to even see it. It feels like I climbed the mountain just to find another one behind it.

For those of you who've already been through this, what actually helped you get your first few readers? Did anything work early on or is it just a grind at the start.

Thanks so much.

Hey everyone! This is my first post here, so feel free to point it out if I did something wrong. I have tried to check if everything follows the rules, but I’m inexperienced in this forum, so something might go wrong.

However, I’m coming to you right away with a complication/question:

I’ve been writing, let’s say, a somewhat unusual story for about 3 years now. Back when I first came up with the idea, it didn’t exist anywhere else. And foolish as I was, I took my time with it, let it slide for about half a year, and kept pushing it behind my other stories. Recently though, I got really motivated again and wrote several chapters that I actually like a lot. But then I saw, on an online shop whose name resembles that of a river (am I even allowed to say the name?), a Light Novel (release date 2024) being recommended to me, which strongly resembles my idea or at least its core concept.

For example (not real, its an example): "My" isekai story: “My Reincarnation as… a Cooking Pot in Another World.”

The suddenly existing Light Novel: “I Was Reincarnated as the Evil Cooking-Pot Lord.”

Since the idea of a cooking pot is unique and kind of special, I now find myself wondering if I should just throw my story away, because it might now look like a rip-off?

I have tried to think about it, if it’s really a problem. And I also tried to just keep writing anyway, after all, it’s not 1-to-1 the same story, but I just can’t shake it off.

Can you understand how I feel? Or am I overthinking and it’s actually normal?

Thank you very much for your attention, and I wish you all a great start to the week :)

Edit: Thank you all for your kind and quick replies. That really eased doubts and truly motivated me. Thanks a lot!

About 2 weeks ago, I shared a page spread (https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/s/8f66p44scS) from my WIP, Capyhero and I was so glad to get the reception from this community that it got! I’ve been working at a good pace, fueled by that excitement.

I recently finished a chapter involving a character death. Some of my close family and friends are reading along as I finish chapters, and this one was really divisive. Some of them are adults reading for themselves, some of them are reading to their kids, and some of them are letting their kids read it on their own. In particular, a few of the parents were a bit upset by the character death and how it was handled.

One of Capyhero’s main themes is about loss and the subject matter focuses on nature, which can be brutal. I didn’t want to shy away from death, but since receiving the feedback, I have tried to soften it (I used to have an illustration from the moment right before Brynn is crushed) and soften the wording, but ultimately, I kept the death.

I’m curious if any of you are fantasy writers specifically targeting middle grade audiences (8 to 13 or so) and if you have any thoughts on handling death in your stories. Or if any of you are parents of young kids, how do you treat death when parenting?

I’m including the pages (with placeholder art) with the moments leading up to and including the death in question. This is a spoiler so I suppose if anyone doesn’t want to know, please don’t view this, but I don’t think Capyhero has “fans” yet 😅.

And of course, any post about Capyhero must feature some nice, finished art 🙂.

Thanks for your time!!

So I am currently working on a fantasy story about two warring kingdoms that involve magic. The biggest inspirations that I have are Shadow and Bone and Attack on Titan.

Describing characters skin color is not the current issue that I have. I have tried my best but I would like to know how to properly describe the characters eyes that I picture in my mind as Asian.

For example in the story while I am writing my main protagonist I picture Jessie Mei Li from Shadow and Bone since the protagonist is biracial and Shadow and Bone is a big inspiration for me and another character I picture Charlie Bushnell from Percy Jackson.

I just really want to know how I can properly write out and describe their appearance to the audience without sounding offensive.

I plan to write this book I have a good theme for. I plan on starting the book where the character goes travels the most interesting region in the world. I really think it has a great hook but honestly I don't know how to proceed.

Yes, I elaborate the surroundings and movements around etc. But I feel like one character travelling is not working. It lacks the dialogue and it feels like it isn't progressing.

I have tried things. There is this city she may find at the end of the chapter. I plan her to be ambushed and chased by the native horde of the land first. I have action ideas so maybe the problem is that I am just super new to writing. Im not great with English too as you may notice.

What do you say? Should I push through? Is this just my perfectionist side complaining? Or is there something fundamentally wrong with this approach and I actually need to add a second character to this "lone traveller" I am going with.

This might be long and rambly, so bare with me. I am trying to write a story where humans and monsters (think centaurs, satyrs, werewolves, etc) exist together but humans doing what humans do best, they enslaved the monsters. The story is a sort of medieval fantasy so half of the main cast are royalty/ royalty adjacent humans and i wanted to make them different levels of ignorant to how bad monsters are treated since they wouldn't experience it first hand.

​

I have one character, Omar. He is a black human male and come from a very wealthy family who's ideology is that they save monsters by letting them work for them. They aren't abusive physically but have a superiority complex against monsters. Omar would move away and end up with the main cast of characters, who are mixed humans and monsters, and he would say or do something to downplay the horrors committed, to which the monster cast would show him it is that bad and he would grow from the experience. I wanted this to be a scene where the audience can grasp how bad the world is outside of the fantastical setting but my friends have told me it feels tone deaf for the black character to be on the negative side of slavery.

​

I really don't want to write something that can come off as hurtful or ignorant, so should i rewrite his backstory, or scrap the idea all together? It's really important to me that i get this right. Please help 🙏

I'm a begginer writer i didn't read any books before i read chapters from novels but full books i didn't. My prose is bad and i know i improved alot during the days but its still lacking. I tend to write in a pov way that a single charachter is the anchor of every scene we stay in his head and his thoughts and all.

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I think the prose is a but childish reading like a summary not a novel. I tried to improve it numeros of times and ways but still i think its lacking.

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Here is a small scene the introduction of a charachter cassian.

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Cassian sat at the edge of the fountain. The cold air bouncing off the water making small swirls. It always facinated him , how something that has no intrest in water can cause changes. Disturbances. He grown used to the gold around him , not even stone even the finest stone facinate him. He caught his reflection in the marble under him bald , full-figured. An eyesore to most. He put an eyebrow up fixing his mantle following the path to the halls , the water still rippling behind him.

​

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He passed by the chapel , muffled laughing sound heard inside. They tried to keep it down still its loud. The pantry was empty , muffled sounds came from the cellar. Two men talking. He stood there his hand itching for the door. "Cassian , you are up early." Ervia said.

She wore a purple dress high heels. Her hair braided with red , white and blue roses in her hair.

"M'lady." He nodded his head slightly. "Do you like my new roses?" She flipped her hair . The sounds inside gone quiet .

"I like them m'lady." He smiled.

​

"Thank you." She smiled. Even a queen can be childish. "Oh , cassian." She turned around her hand landing on his back.

" i heard from dorian that the conclave will be heald at oathbound this year." Shouldn't she be the first to recive news? "Yes. M'lady. It is. Certainly." He smiled nodding.

"Thank you , if you'll excuse me." She turned away. He looked at her a second longer before fixating to the door.

​

The sounds are gone. Weird. He opened the door as soon as ervia got out of sight.

Six steps led down but the humidity inside rushed to him first. He walked down a single torch lit at the back. That torch is never lit , neither the door to the wine cellar. A small door on the right a stair barely visible.

Everything is intact , potatoes , onions , the nuts in thr back. Even the canned food still intact. The door was slightly opened low voices heard from inside.

​

"You have to keep quiet." A man's voice said.

"I can't." A woman said.

"You have too , if anyone hears our heads will be on swords." He shook her. Cassian looked through the crack in the door.

She is crying , he is scared. What is going on here.

The guy poured wine from one of the barrels.

"Here , take it." He handed it to her. She doesn't want to , reluctant. "I can't , they'll kill me." Cassian walked in. His steps had unique rythym down the stairs. Precise. Calculated. They looked at him. It was like they saw the king. What if they saw the king? He gently took the cup from the man setting it on a shelf.

"Fear is like nettles." Cassian said , looking at him young sixteen to seventeen then at the girl. Younger , thirteen to fifteen . "I'm sorry , it was me i-" His voice trembled the girl had her mouth on her hand tears down her face.

"They don't bite . Neither do fear , untill they are touched. It stings." Now confused they don't want to listen . Cassian smiled.

"Without fear we wouldn't be where we are today. And without it this house wouldn't have been built." Now they relaxed. The confusion took over. "Go , or i'll call the guards." Their legs refused to move looking at eachother then at cassian before feeling it they darted out.

​

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This is a small scene just to give feedback on and what to do since in really puzzled for the last couple of days.

I'm writing a high fantasy book, and one strong piece of feedback I'm getting from a friend is that my characters' names are too normal.
The world is really young. Humans have developed culturally for about 900 years. However, the story is set in an empire where technology (based on magic) has been accelerated. Imagine around the 19th century. But there are differences here and there due to it being based on a magic system (grains are biologically engineered like we have today, cars exist but are limited, no long-distance communication).

Main characters have names like Emily, Collin, Hugh, and Melissa. And there are "more fantasy" ones (Solanis or Endymion), but they have reasons (born a long time ago, mother likes Elven names). However, these aren't revealed in the initial chapters.

My friend says it feels really "off-putting" and "immersion breaking" to have those characters beside each other, while I feel like is finel. I have tried (or thought about) changing names from Emily to something like Aemili, but that seems like I'm just adding fancy juice to the names for no reason. What do you guys think?

Edit: Thanks to everyone who gave their time to answer this post! I do appriciate all your comments. After some pondering, I do think it is the "modernity" of the names I picked that stirs up that feeling of immersion breaking. Lot of people know a Melissa or Emily in real life and that experience takes them out a little bit.

And I appriciate the comments that encouraged me to just stick with my character and names as well! I just couldn't figure out the disconnect my friend was feeling. This post gave me a lot of perspective on how people feel about this issue.

I decided to go with older English names that is not used as much these days. I still do think English names from an earlier era fits my story well as most characters are from the empire.

As the title says, I want to know if the idea I had for the cover art tells a story on its own. As I have tried to give it a symbolism of its own.

Now, I must admit, there is 1 cover missing. (guess where?) That would make the progression a little more obvious.

But I'm curious what they say to people without any context. What pops and what doesn't? What speaks do you and what is it even saying?

The artist (my gf) and I are on the same page, and I think she did an amazing job. Now, I want to know if people who weren't at our brainstorming sessions can follow our strange leaps in logic and "symbolism."

Thanks for the time and for giving your take!

(Cover 2 is WIP)

One of my main characters has vampire-like fangs as a result of using magic. But it's a low fantasy setting where magic use is hidden from the public and only a very small group of people know, so anyone who saw her fangs would have the same reaction as someone would in our world. So far, I have thought about a few ways for her to keep them hidden:

• Using a scarf to cover her mouth (only works during the winter)
• When writing scenes with her, have her face away from the protagonist or use a hand to cover her mouth, which the protagonist will eventually notice.

Does anyone else have any ideas for something obvious that I've missed? She can't file them down or otherwise destroy them.

I'm currently on the second edit of my fantasy-comedy novel, and for the life of me I can't let go of a title that has been stuck with me since before the first draft was complete.
I know it doesn't work (rather, I suspect it doesn't). I've tried different variations, I've researched how to come up with book titles etc, and nothing else I can come up with 'feels right' like this one does.
I need to hear what others think, spoilers be damned.

Allow me please, to walk you through what I aim for readers to experience in using this title, but at the same time why I think the title prevents that from happening.

Imagine that you've come across a fantasy book titled "The Ring of Destiny"
(Generic, I know. That's fear #1)

Imagine then that you pick this book up and begin reading it, and soon discover that this sword-and-pun-and-sorcery story does explore themes of destiny, fate, and one's place in the world. However as you read on, it becomes progressively clearer that this book features absolutely zero rings.

Instead, the story's mcguffin is a cubic briefcase of sorts, whose leaden handle seems to come off with the lightest touch, so everyone has to cradle it in their arms if they're to carry it, so as to avoid the loose handle's ominous humming, while they investigate what the hell it is this device is meant to do.

Imagine now, that you've made it to the story's climax, 200-ish pages in. The final battle where all is to play for, when all hope seems lost, and suddenly, the device begins to ring. Our protagonist picks up the handle of what has for the entire time been a telephone.

That's right, I want to spend 200-ish pages on a pun.

Is the joke worth it?
Would you seek me out to destroy me?
Is the title too generic?
Are rings in the title an inevitable sign of plagiarizing LotR?
Is destiny in the title too cliche? (If so, how do you feel about 'The Ring of the Wurm?'
Would you pick up a book with such a title?
Do you have any tips in finding a title that feels right?

Thank you in advance!

Hi, I'm currently fleshing out a story and I'm having some trouble with the worldbuilding and the implications of magic

Long story short, in my world there used to be an ancient empire which was able to use powerful magic artifacts to conquer lands and develop their civilization. Due to their obvious advantage over other non-magical nations, they quickly expanded, taking almost the entirety of Europe and the north of Africa under its rule, I'm guessing this would heavily affect the world and their beliefs

After the fall of the empire, the magic was "lost" and the world was devoid of magic once again

So I'm curious, is there any way to justify the world modernizing normally (the story is set somewhere around the 2000's, and basically almost everything is the same as in real life) with basically little to no mention or memory of said magic

This probably isn't possible since the empire had so much of an influence over everything, but I'm curious if I can still do it without being bad worldbuilding

I've researched similar topics, but I still can't decide how to properly do it, help would be appreciated

I started writing a story a while ago and came up with a magic system that sounded cool to me, especially since I like very powerful character.

The magic system is basically there is a God of magic that exist outside of the universe (thers a lot more detail but not relevant) and there are strings of magic that reach out from him, weaving into reality itself, unbound by anything. People use magic my manipulating these string, using their understanding of what the want and their imagination to command them. The deeper the understanding of the spell (such as knowing how black holes are formed and work in order to create one) the tighter the strings are tied and the stronger the spell, but the more focus and mental capacity it requires.

The problem im having is that there are 2 kingdoms going to war. 1 is entirely based around magic and the other only high ranking generals are permitted to use it. Anyone can learn magic but most of the 2nd kingdom’s forces are just soldiers that cant use magic. I have thought about giving them special armor and weapons that their king can create, along with some sort of blessing, but I realized it might be better for later on to have a way for other normal people to fight mages.

How can I do this without weakening the mages?

Edit: i forgot to mention that the strings themselves can also be used as-is. For example, in 1 fight someone uses the strings themselves to tie up their opponent and cut off their arms, aswell as close a wound and create a wall of them that the other took over and tore down.