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        "What are words for? When no one listens, there's no use talking at all." -- Missing Persons |
Chicks in Chain Mail Bikinis There are a lot of clichés in fantasy.
If you get most of your ideas for fantasy stories from watching
Conan movies, Xena and Hercules, and other B-grade fantasy movies or TV
shows, then you may have fallen into the world of fantasy clichés.
There are a lot of things that creep into fantasy stories that
just don't belong. Chain mail bikinis are only the start. Defining
and Debunking Clichés Here are some clichés to keep in mind while you're writing your fantasy story or novel. Take a good look at them and try to keep them in mind because later, I'm going to try and debunk some of them.
Now let's take a closer look at the problems with
everything listed above. We'll
take this one by one. Warrior chicks wearing chain mail bikinis (heck,
anyone wearing a chain mail bikini). Chain mail chafes and no woman in her right mind wants little metal links rubbing where something like that is going to rub. On top of that, if she's a warrior, it's not going to offer her much protection against arrows, swords, daggers and dragon teeth. Not to mention, chain mail bikinis and loincloths don't offer much protection against the elements. Warrior guys with more muscles than brains. It's been done. It's been overdone. While Boris Vallejo does a pretty good job portraying musclemen, in general, body builders don't have the right muscles developed to use a sword and they very likely don't have the speed to dodge one. Horses are motorcycles. Horses are not motorcycles. If you want your fantasy characters to get somewhere fast, remember that horses need to eat. Like your other characters, they also need to sleep and pee. They'll be much happier if you stop them for the night, give them a good brushing, clean out their hooves, and feed them. Horses also have attitudes, just like people. Sometimes they will not go where their riders want them to, no matter what threat is made. Remember, if your characters really need to get somewhere, they'll need their horses to be in good shape, or they'll need to find a way to travel that doesn't require the beasties. Big swords are better. Size doesn't always matter. If your main character is a tiny little guy, maybe a dagger is better suited for him, or throwing knives. If he has to pick up the massive barbarian's sword, he's not going to be able to swing it like that massive barbarian. He's probably going to drag the tip across the ground and piss off the massive barbarian (if he's still alive). Sword fighters aim for each other's swords. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong! A sword fighter aims for her opponent's weak spots. If the other guy is any good, he blocks it with his sword, shield. If he isn't, he blocks it with his arm, leg, chest or back and gets hurt. Or maybe he blocks it with his head or neck and gets killed. You can't believe everything you see on television and in the movies. The bad guy is a BadGuy(tm) just because he's evil. Everyone is the hero of his or her own story. That may sound like a cliché, but it's true. People do things for reasons. Most of them even think they're right when they're doing those things. Sure, you may not be able to see how burning a village and then slaughtering every man, woman, and child who lived there is right and good, but think about it from the bad guy's perspective. Those people should have been loyal to him. He's given them everything they needed. But instead of loyalty, they betrayed him, harbored his enemies and conspired to overthrow him. Does he think that perhaps his taxes are overwhelming? That his armies who march the streets day and night could make those people nervous? Probably not. He's doing it for their own good, for the good of his country. Make your villains just as human as you make your heroes; and give him believable motives. He doesn't have to be right, just real. No one fights dirty.
Not even the bad guys. Everyone fights dirty now and then. If you're in the middle of a fight and the only way to save yourself is to throw dirt in your opponent's eyes, you're probably going to do it. Just because your hero is one of the good guys doesn't mean he can't fight dirty. The bad guys are probably going to fight dirty, going to do what it takes to win, to survive. Your heroes should probably consider the same thing. Sure, they probably won't destroy a whole village to keep themselves alive, but they would probably resort to hair pulling and sand-in-the-face if they were running out of options. Fighting dirty for the bad guys also means everyone rushing the big stupid guy with the sword at the same time, not coming at him one at a time like a string of sword-wielding paper dolls. All evil plans have an obvious, fatal flaw. Give me a break. If a five-year-old could see the flaw in the villain's plan, then maybe you should think about restructuring the story. Challenge the characters, make them think, make them work hard to overcome the villain's plot. If you just give them the answer, the reader feels cheated. Think about possible ways to overcome the villain. Take the first two solutions that come to you and get rid of them. Come up with a third solution, something that isn't obvious. Strong warrior chicks are all dykes. Hey, I don't make the clichés; I'm just relating them to you. Until recently, there seemed to be primarily two types of women in fantasy stories: the strong warrior woman who wasn't interested in men and the token chick in a party of manly men. Just because a woman knows how to use a sword, she doesn't have to ignore men, or act like one of the guys on when they've had too much to drink in a tavern and they're all trying to pick up bar wenches. Strong women can have weaknesses for men, too. They may be better at hiding their attraction, or they may be worse. Additionally, if you have a party that's primarily men—men described with bulging muscles and strength and agility—and one woman, make sure that you're focusing on the reason she's a part of the group. If you spend pages and pages talking about her raven locks, her long legs, her full lips but never once mention that she's one of the most dangerous assassins in the known world, then the only reason your reader can come up with for her presence in the merry band of killers is that she's there for the guys to look at. If the token chick is only there for the guys to look at, then say so. But if she is just there for looks, make her act believably, too. If they want her to do something, or if she ends up cornered, with no option but to fight, she's probably not going to fight with the kind of skill that a trained warrior has.
These aren't the only clichés, but they do represent a good number of them. Be wary of anything that looks like it might work well in a Xena or a Hercules episode. Be doubly wary of anything that might work as the plot for a new Conan movie. Try to avoid succumbing to clichés, no matter how tempting they may be to throw in to make the story easier. The story may be harder to write, but it will be better in the long run. I told you to take a long hard look at the clichés I was presenting. I didn't tell you there would be a test on them later … Well, there will be a test on this later. The test comes when you try to get your story published. Make the story something an editor wants to buy, something an editor can't put down. Don't make it something the editor has seen a hundred thousand times before. One way to keep an editor from groaning is to leave the clichés behind, or find a fresh new twist on an old cliché. Using
Clichés to Your Advantage Now that I've told you to avoid clichés, I'm going to give you some suggestions for using clichés to your advantage. There are several steps in using clichés to your advantage. First, and foremost, you have to recognize and acknowledge the cliché you are going to use as a cliché. Most fantasies that use clichés take hold of them and twist them around for comedic value. Xena and Hercules both do that. They settle the viewer in a world somewhat familiar to them (ancient Greece), and proceed to play on stereotypes and clichés to get laughs from the viewers. Most of the time, it works. There are a handful of anthologies edited by Esther M. Friesner (Chicks in Chain Mail, Chicks 'n Chained Males, and Did You Say Chicks?) where you have authors playing on story clichés, turning them on their heads, or exaggerating them to a similar comedic effect. The other way to use a cliché to your advantage is to find a new twist on it. Find a way to make it new and fresh and different. If you can't make the cliché funny, if you can't make the cliché different, then find a different way to write the story. Additional
Information about Clichés Just remember, clichés don't occur only in fantasy stories. For more clichés, take a look at some of the following websites: The Grand List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés Hop on over to http://users.erols.com/vansickl/cliche.htm and read a pretty exhaustive list of clichés that appear in science fiction. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that they are only found in science fiction, however. You can probably find a lot of the same clichés in other genres, as well. Also linked from http://users.erols.com/vansickl/scifi.htm, you can find a list of clichés that surround heroes, sidekicks, the true love, evil henchmen, and some clever advice for the normal people in the world. Peter's Evil Overlord List If you look at http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html, you'll find everything that the list maintainer (and a few of his friends) have found wrong with evil overlords of the past and what they'll do to ensure their own success when they become an evil overlord. The list is humorous, but it also points out clichés that appear in many genres including fantasy and science fiction. (Originally appeared in the Anthrocon 2000
conbook.) |
