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I'll edit to add links afterwards. It's James's fault, I guess.
So it starts out as a bunch of things you won't do when writing fantasy, except some folks (links later) are doing what they won't do when writing science fiction. I do both, so here's a generic list of won'ts.
1. Won't have protagonist be the very best at everything all the time. Not even if they have to go through a bunch of stuff to be the very best of everything every time.
2. Won't have species or races or nations or classes of evil.
3. Especially won't have species or races or nations or classes of evil which it is desirable or even okay to kill or destroy just because they are the species or races or nations or classes of evil.
4. Especially won't have characters who are good because they are good, or characters who are bad because they are bad.
(I'm using control-V (paste) a lot: maybe I should just use control-V as a stand-in phrase)
5. And most especially won't have second-tier, minor, or walk-on characters graphically tortured and murdered, or tortured and murdered offstage just to promote the development of the major characters or to prove the control-v are the control-v.
6. Won't have oppressed or conquered entities or working class or poor entities acting as Learning Experiences for a privileged protagonist. This means:
--no wise aliens or Indians dispensing advice to the proteagonist (well, I do have a curandera advising the guy in The Conduit, but she's his best friend's fiancee's auntie and the guy isn't a privileged character in need of a Learning Experience either)
-- no helpless victims chewed up by the Mahcine so the privileged protagnist can learn the evil of the system and go on to become rich, powerful, good --
-- no unsuitable lovers of the oppressed or conquered classes or races or nations or species to open the privileged protagonist's eyes to the facts of life and then die or nobly send the protagonist back to its own kind or both or betray the protagonist in some convenient way.
7. No class steretypes, thank you: no dumbass lumpen proletariat, no loyal servants, no unthinking accepted anything ever.
8. No planets with only one climate.
9. No planets with only one culture.
10. Nobody falling in love with a guy because he has a masculine voice, a masculine body -- particularly not masculine thighs, shoulders, jaws, pectoral or abdominal muscles, or butt(!!! masculine butt!!! what are they thinking?), or a clean, masculine scent. Duh. If the character is oriented towards men, the man he or she falls in love with will be a man (unless the point is that he or she falls in love with some other thing than what she or he is ordinarily oriented towards) and will have men's characteristics. Yeah, even your most effeminate man has a man's etc. So what's actually interesting about the man in question? If his voice is interesting, what is it about his voice? It can't just be that it's a masculine voice, or the poor dear would be falling in love every time he or she or it got on a bus or went into a grocery store.
11. Everybody else seems to be doing eleven, so I'm striving to find another one. Oh, yeah, but everybody's already covered this one, I think. Now I can't remember what I was going to write here.
So it starts out as a bunch of things you won't do when writing fantasy, except some folks (links later) are doing what they won't do when writing science fiction. I do both, so here's a generic list of won'ts.
1. Won't have protagonist be the very best at everything all the time. Not even if they have to go through a bunch of stuff to be the very best of everything every time.
2. Won't have species or races or nations or classes of evil.
3. Especially won't have species or races or nations or classes of evil which it is desirable or even okay to kill or destroy just because they are the species or races or nations or classes of evil.
4. Especially won't have characters who are good because they are good, or characters who are bad because they are bad.
(I'm using control-V (paste) a lot: maybe I should just use control-V as a stand-in phrase)
5. And most especially won't have second-tier, minor, or walk-on characters graphically tortured and murdered, or tortured and murdered offstage just to promote the development of the major characters or to prove the control-v are the control-v.
6. Won't have oppressed or conquered entities or working class or poor entities acting as Learning Experiences for a privileged protagonist. This means:
--no wise aliens or Indians dispensing advice to the proteagonist (well, I do have a curandera advising the guy in The Conduit, but she's his best friend's fiancee's auntie and the guy isn't a privileged character in need of a Learning Experience either)
-- no helpless victims chewed up by the Mahcine so the privileged protagnist can learn the evil of the system and go on to become rich, powerful, good --
-- no unsuitable lovers of the oppressed or conquered classes or races or nations or species to open the privileged protagonist's eyes to the facts of life and then die or nobly send the protagonist back to its own kind or both or betray the protagonist in some convenient way.
7. No class steretypes, thank you: no dumbass lumpen proletariat, no loyal servants, no unthinking accepted anything ever.
8. No planets with only one climate.
9. No planets with only one culture.
10. Nobody falling in love with a guy because he has a masculine voice, a masculine body -- particularly not masculine thighs, shoulders, jaws, pectoral or abdominal muscles, or butt(!!! masculine butt!!! what are they thinking?), or a clean, masculine scent. Duh. If the character is oriented towards men, the man he or she falls in love with will be a man (unless the point is that he or she falls in love with some other thing than what she or he is ordinarily oriented towards) and will have men's characteristics. Yeah, even your most effeminate man has a man's etc. So what's actually interesting about the man in question? If his voice is interesting, what is it about his voice? It can't just be that it's a masculine voice, or the poor dear would be falling in love every time he or she or it got on a bus or went into a grocery store.
11. Everybody else seems to be doing eleven, so I'm striving to find another one. Oh, yeah, but everybody's already covered this one, I think. Now I can't remember what I was going to write here.
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