Things not to do in a quest novel?
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Have a mystical artifact mysteriously and for no good reason split up into parts and scattered to the four corners of the world with easy clues for the characters to follow and find them...
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There are too many cliche's to count with the quest novel. Prophecies, evil villians for the sake of being evil, the wise mentor who knows everything but wants the characters to figure it out for themselves, the magical talisman that can only be weilded by the innocent farmboy who knows nothing of his real heritage, etc.
Just do your best to avoid as many cliche's as possible, or at least put your best unique stamp on the ones you can't avoid or would like to keep.
Just do your best to avoid as many cliche's as possible, or at least put your best unique stamp on the ones you can't avoid or would like to keep.
The farmboy is not a farmboy, but a baker, and he has no mysterious heritage. He's just a baker. ~ Check!
No stew over fire in less than two hours. The food needs are taken cared of with a magic item from Slavic folklore. ~ Check!
Nothing is mysteriously split up and scattered. No going in circles. They are out to catch a magical creature, and they know just where to find it. ~ Check!
No prophecies and no resident evil. ~ Check!
No galloping horses. Everyone's on foot. ~ Check!
No mentors, just a cranky wolf as a companion. Now, this one does have a mysterious heritage. (Is that a cliche? Gosh, I hope I can do this one right, because he is definitely staying.)
I bet others have some of the things on the list in their projects. Don't be shy, please do share.
No stew over fire in less than two hours. The food needs are taken cared of with a magic item from Slavic folklore. ~ Check!
Nothing is mysteriously split up and scattered. No going in circles. They are out to catch a magical creature, and they know just where to find it. ~ Check!
No prophecies and no resident evil. ~ Check!
No galloping horses. Everyone's on foot. ~ Check!
No mentors, just a cranky wolf as a companion. Now, this one does have a mysterious heritage. (Is that a cliche? Gosh, I hope I can do this one right, because he is definitely staying.)
I bet others have some of the things on the list in their projects. Don't be shy, please do share.
Another two:
- No one save the MC has a solid reason to tag along. Prophecy don't count.
- Minor characters who travel in a group/party only communicate with MC.
This is more of a pet peeve on all fantasy but also quest related:
- great, legendary, epic and unbeatable warriors who fell entire hosts of minor redshirts fail at tactics & strategy 101.
Of course there are tons of these. Someone pointed this out.
However picking out the obvious ones seems like a good time-waster. At least for me it gets me thinking about what bothers me most when I read or write.
- No one save the MC has a solid reason to tag along. Prophecy don't count.
- Minor characters who travel in a group/party only communicate with MC.
This is more of a pet peeve on all fantasy but also quest related:
- great, legendary, epic and unbeatable warriors who fell entire hosts of minor redshirts fail at tactics & strategy 101.
Of course there are tons of these. Someone pointed this out.
However picking out the obvious ones seems like a good time-waster. At least for me it gets me thinking about what bothers me most when I read or write.
"This book is warranted to be free of ingredients known to harm originality in contemporary speculative fiction. It has no magical swords, rings, orbs, wands, torques, gems, or other trinkets. Here are no elves, dwarfs, or gnomes, no vampires, zombies, golems, genies, imps, goblins, or other bugbears. No orphans or other children are the rightful heirs of kings. Nobody discovers hidden wizardly powers. Dead people stay that way. And there is not one prophecy in sight. But you will find adventure, soldiers, war, diplomacy, and a dash of magic."
--from the back cover of Storm Approaching
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Get yourself a copy of Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasyland, too.
--from the back cover of Storm Approaching
---------------------------------------
Get yourself a copy of Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasyland, too.
It depends on the recipe. The vegetable stew I usually make takes about an hour to cook, as all the ingredients are relatively quick cooking. In two, that'd give time for getting the fire going. That said, I wouldn't volunteer to make it after a hard day travelling.
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I think people are referencing the rabbit stew made in Tolkien's LoTR books, which would presumably take a lot more simmering time.
I thought the corn and beans cooked at the start of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker novel was even more egregious. The protagonist takes DRIED corn and beans, boils them on the stove, and they're done in about 15 minutes (the time it takes for an inner monolog). Sheez, this isn't Cream of Wheat! Beans take hours of soaking beforehand and they'd still take about 40 minutes to cook once softened. They'd take hours & hours to simmer if they're not presoaked.
Silly novelists. Make more food from scratch! Food prep is something any author can research first-hand, unlike horse care and weaponsmithing mistakes, which I find more forgivable because those facts are less likely to be experienced first-hand (to writers and readers alike.)
Though I guess at least the Boneshaker character was cooking in a kitchen. Who would carry around a cookpot while traveling on foot?
This kind of bugs me. Isn't the stew thing really just a matter of semantics? Call it soup and nobody cares. I think I'm going to add a scene in my WIP where a character makes 'stew' while traveling and somebody critizises it, leading to an entire discussion about the difference (and whether one even exists) between soup and stew.
I don't think anybody expects gourmet cuisine while travelling cross-country in a medieval setting. So making a 'stew' with water instead of gravy in an hour seems pretty reasonable. As long as you're not hungry afterward it was a successful meal, regardless of taste or culinary nomenclature.
And in general, what else are characters going to call "a bunch of ingredients cooked in a pot"? Your POV character likely will call it a stew, whether it fits the approved definition or not.
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It's the "cooked in a pot" part in the first place that I find questionable, regardless of what you call it. If heroes are traveling light and on foot (as they often are) why would they carry around a heavy piece of iron cookware just so they could eat something brothy? The extra weight and just setting the pot up over a fire seems needlessly complicated for a group on the go.
It makes perfect sense in a tavern setting where a fire is blazing all day and the soup/stew has plenty of time to cook, but if you're traveling dried rations just makes more sense. If they're hunting fresh game on the road, it would be faster and easier to just roast meat over coals on a stick than try to chop it up all nice and make a fancy casserole with it.
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Things not to do in a quest fantasy?
Write like you're just writing for fun so it doesn't matter if it is stylistically interesting or innovative in some fashion.
Write like you're just writing for fun so it doesn't matter if it is stylistically interesting or innovative in some fashion.
That's what horses/ponies are for. And a giant iron cauldron isn't exactly necessary. A turtle shell works well (though probably just as cumbersome and still kind of heavy). You can also use an animal stomach as a sort of pouch to cook in - similar to the modern hobo stew cooked in tin foil. Not too difficult to carry or find. Again, it's not gourmet but it's food - and technically it's stew.
And on top of that it makes for some fun imagery.
There's a reason nomadic peoples don't have any stew-like dishes as part of their traditional cuisine. Even nomad peoples who had/have access to horses. Using stomachs and hides as pouches can be done, but it's far more labor intensive than skewering meat and veggies on a stick. Usually they were used to ferment dairy products for making stuff like cheese, yoghurt, or kumiss because all that was required is you fill the silly thing with milk, strap it to your horse, and voila, by the end of the day it's ready to eat/drink.
Personally I'd like to see some fantasy adventurers head out on the road with their beloved nanny goat. Cause, you know, milk is good for your bones and stuff. Plus pack goats can carry quite a bit, and browse as they walk so don't need to stop and eat like horses do.
I have a goat!! I have a goat!! It doesn't exactly take place of a horse in my story, but still...
I have to say, I think turtle shell is clever.
Depends. Are you a fan of breaking teeth on a bit of meat that so tough you could use it as a brick?
Oh man, one time we went camping and I tried roasting a pheasant... yeah. He could have stood to age a couple of days first. The flavor was the most incredible meat I have ever tasted. Too bad the texture was like boot leather. And no, that is not in any way an exaggeration. Animals that actually use their muscles for a living are definitely in a class far outside the grocery store chickens who live in boxes.
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Something you should do is read Diana Wynne Jones's Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Covers pretty much every cliche in the book, and is damn funny.
A personal peeve of mine is the travelogue story, where the heroes inevitably wind up traveling to every corner of the world like clockwork, picking up denizens of each place along the way . . . looking at you, David Eddings.
A personal peeve of mine is the travelogue story, where the heroes inevitably wind up traveling to every corner of the world like clockwork, picking up denizens of each place along the way . . . looking at you, David Eddings.
I just checked, and our library actually has a copy. I appreciate the recommendation.
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I second the recommendation. In The Tough Guide to Fantasyland Diana Wynne Jones covered just about every fantasy trope and cliché there is, in convenient alphabetized encyclopedia fashion. You can read it straight through, or jump from reference to reference. Either way, it's a lot of fun and a guilty pleasure.
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