Predictability

I find men frequently like to argue with me (why? It’s not pleasant) and say that fantasy writing isn’t predictable like romance writing is. In fact, most suggest I try reading a fantasy novel to ratchet up my intelligence level…and to prove that it’s not predictable.

It’s predictable. It’s as predictable as a Friends’ episode. In fact, my friend Jackie and I took my list of “predictable fantasy writing quirks” to a fantasy movie once and checked them off as they happened. They all happened. In fact, we got to laughing so hard when the sidekick died that we couldn’t even mourn the poor fellow’s passing.

The List:

1) Rename everything some unpronounceable. Horses aren’t horses in this world, even if they look exactly like them. They’re called fogrips or something equally incomprehensible.

2) The hero is nobody. In fact, it’d be really cool if you find him in a gutter or something. The lower he lives, the greater it’s going to be when he’s crowned king at the end.

3) The hero doesn’t believe he’s the one who’s been tapped for this adventure; he denies it and tries to avoid going. It annoys everyone.

4) The hero has some goofy sidekick, usually not as a good-looking or skilled, but definitely has the better come-backs. The sidekick is the master of understatement.

5) The hero will encounter a mentor (sometimes the sidekick will be a partial mentor, but usually the mentor is either going to be some long-bearded white haired magician wise man type—or the ethereal sorceress type.) He’ll learn a lot and ask a lot of dumb questions.

6) The story is always a quest. We’re looking for a sword, a ring, a grail bearer, a princess, something. And of course, the FATE of the world hinges on the outcome of finding this person in a limited amount of time or someone more evil than Satan will take over and ruin everything

7) Villain has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. No backstory. Typically two-dimensional, so we will always support the hero.

8) The first to die is the mentor. Don’t worry though—he’ll usually show up as a ghost or a figment to counsel when you least expect it

9) The next to bite it is the sidekick. After all, the hero must face the Supreme Ordeal alone to prove he didn’t need any help. (The woman he acquires half-way during the quest doesn’t count because we all know women aren’t any good in a brawl.)

10) He marries the girl he acquires half-way through the story at the end…she gets to be queen to his king. And don’t worry about the whole Divine Destiny here. He could have been born of a peasant, but we find out that he was actually the bastard son of the previous king who was tragically killed by the villain.

11) Oh, almost forgot one. To keep this from being truly trite writing, make sure you put in your own liberal/political platform (i.e. deforestation, global warming, war, etc) within the novel so no one will notice the predictable mentor and sidekick hanging out with your hero, and so English professors can sermon on and on about what you were actually talking about when you made up that totally overdone predictable quest for a ring (sword, girl, grail) to save the world.

Anything I’m forgetting? Anything that always appears in a fantasy/sci-fi flick or book?