Simple things that a lot of Fantasy Writers get wrong in their books....

aixsponsa said:

I noticed something while rereading The Fellowship of the Ring earlier. In the first chapter, at Bilbo and Frodo's joint birthday party, Gandalf is setting off fireworks. I quote: "The dragon passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion."

The fact that Mr. Tolkien used a freight train in the simile about the dragon firework took me out of the story. I thought, there are no express trains, let alone trains of any kind, in Middle Earth, so why did he put that in there? It stood out to me, though I may be the only person who has bothered to think twice about it.

Jenny

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I think he might get away with that because it's written with an omniscient narrator, who is telling us the story in modern times.

I've run across the firework dragon sounding like an express train as an example of Tolkein's being out of voice too, but yeah, he's telling it in omnisicent, so the story is not being told directly through any of the character's perceptions/voices, though Tolkien does share their thoughts and feelings fairly often.

Think of it as having the narrator in a room with you (in 1937) telling you the story. Since you both know what an express train is, he uses it as an example of what the dragon sounded like.

Kind of like the scene in the Hobbit where he tells us the Trolls' language is not drawing room fashion at all or that, of course, "tomnoddy" is insulting to anyone. That's old JRR telling a bedtime story to his kids

Reminds me of something that bugged me in a story where the author twice refers to someone behaving like a detective. Yet in the world of the story, there didn't seem to be any detectives, as became apparent when there was a murder and they didn't know what to do. Can't remember whether it was in omni, but I do remember it annoying me. Mind you, the story won a major award, so what do I know?

Medievalist said:

If you have to work with your hands—in my case, working on a generator and sugaring and dealing with animals—mittens in many cases aren't going to allow for manual dexterity.

Gloves under mittens make it easier to do your work and get back inside.

You take off your mittens if you really need to be able to use your hands, and then put them on again when you've finished the task.

And you carry an extra pair of gloves in your inside pocket, where they're kept warm and dry. Wet clothing can be very very dangerous.

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Solid tips! And yes, depends a lot what you're doing in the cold. I've noticed than if you go horseback riding when it's over -20 C, the best bet is a pair of riding gloves and then a pair of riding mittens over them (and on a sidenote, leave the saddle home). Also, wet clothes = nasty. I've fallen through ice into a lake. Lucky me my feet reached the bottom and head the surface, so there was no danger of drowning, but man was I cold afterwards! Not to mention doing physical labor in the cold -> sweating -> cooling off. Now that leaves you freezing your butt off too. In a fantasy story, I'd find these rather relevant things to mention unless one is a sorcerer or whatever and can manipulate their body temperature and whatnot.

As pointed out above, I too get a bit irked when a very modern thing is mentioned in medieval type of a fantasy setting (like the express train). It nags on the mood. There was too much of that stuff in Sandman Slim (granted, not medieval fantasy). Like he had spent years in hell, but knew all kinds of contemporary stuff, as if he had never missed "the hipster movement," and I think he mentioned a car type that wasn't even developed yet when he had last been on Earth.

Another thing I just remembered. Sex. Oh, an endless source of opinions, I'm sure. I'll try to explain this delicately: I get a teeny bit irked when the author gets negligent about some simple things when in medieval fantasy the characters go at it
a) in a body of water
b) on a beach
c) in some mud hole / cave / barn. I'll only elaborate on this last one as it's possible without going into too much detail: so they do it without washing (oh, the odors!), and they do it all the way, no coitus interruptus or anything, yet the lady is later more peeved about the weather conditions rather than the sticky feeling between the saddle and her nether regions.
I understand the author probably has another purpose in writing such relations than to slap the reader in the face with realities, and I understand certain things can be perceived irrelevant (why upset/gross out the reader?), but suppose I'm an oddball in this regard that I get a bit peeved by their absence.

K. Trian said:

Another thing I just remembered. Sex. Oh, an endless source of opinions, I'm sure. I'll try to explain this delicately: I get a teeny bit irked when the author gets negligent about some simple things when in medieval fantasy the characters go at it
a) in a body of water
b) on a beach
c) in some mud hole / cave / barn. I'll only elaborate on this last one as it's possible without going into too much detail: so they do it without washing (oh, the odors!), and they do it all the way, no coitus interruptus or anything, yet the lady is later more peeved about the weather conditions rather than the sticky feeling between the saddle and her nether regions.
I understand the author probably has another purpose in writing such relations than to slap the reader in the face with realities, and I understand certain things can be perceived irrelevant (why upset/gross out the reader?), but suppose I'm an oddball in this regard that I get a bit peeved by their absence.

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I concur (if you've ever been to forests, you know just how unpleasant they can be as a milieu for romance). And the reason why that is, is a nice segue into the following:

You reminded me of another pet peeve which applies to both, books and film:
No bugs! Whenever someone's on a picnic/camping out, why is it that more often than not the people in the story don't end up cursing the mosquitos/ants/wasps/horse flies etc? Just last summer K. Trian and I paid her mom a visit and seriously, I don't think I've ever seen so many damn mosquitos in one place as we did when we went for a hike in the woods! We all wore appropriate outfits (including those silly-looking net-things to guard the wearer against mosquitos) and still we all ended up loosing some blood to the winged bastards. Mind, that was about 1-2 hours. Now, if I wore only medieval clothing and hiked in a similar place in excess of 8 hours... I can imagine feeling like I did the time when I committed a slight faux pas with a glass door and almost died of blood loss.

Granted, mentioning how the characters flail about with their hands and curse all the time might not drive forward the plot that much but I feel it would add to the mood/tone of the piece if the author is striving for a fairly gritty/realistic portrayal (kinda like in Joe Abercrombie's and G. R. R. Martin's works).

T. Trian said:

You reminded me of another pet peeve which applies to both, books and film:
No bugs! Whenever someone's on a picnic/camping out, why is it that more often than not the people in the story don't end up cursing the mosquitos/ants/wasps/horse flies etc?

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Mine do!

Probably depends where you are tbh

Where I am you might get the occasional wasp and that's it (so more often then not, no bugs buggering your picnic). In Scotland in the summer, you don't need a picnic, you just need to walk outside to get bitten by claggies. So it doesn't seem hugely unrealistic to have no bugs at a picnic to me, depending on where they are/what serves the story.

As for the *cough* rest, well as long as you arrange yourself right, it's mostly not a problem and let's leave it like that One of those things that it's just as believable either way, to me, from experience. Can't say I've ever ended up with mud in my nethers! Fern once...Sticky patches can be a problem where ever *again cough* but if they don't serve the story or add anything, I can understand not putting it in (it's a matter of subjective taste whether to or not). But if my I needed to, to serve the story, that's not a stretch either.

I can forgive a lot of hand-wavium in fantasy - so long as it's consistent. If a mage can cast a spell that makes a horse carry him beyond its normal physical capacity, I want to know that such a spell is possible and that it has limits, rules and consequences.

Mr Flibble said:

Probably depends where you are tbh

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Absolutely true. I was rather thinking about coniferous and marshy forests one might encounter up north since it's a fairly common milieu for a lot of fantasy. For example, if you look at Middle Earth (or The North in First Law series, some parts of SOIAF, the Witcher books etc), a lot of the milieu seems continental and foresty.

Btw, how about ants? Because here in Finland, where there is grass, during summer there are ants. The two seem to go hand-in-hand up here but how about elsewhere in the world? Maybe Scotland is luckier (because it's not continental?) than, say, norther Europe? AFAIK, Norway, Sweden, and Finland are the promised land of winged bugs with a penchant for blood.

Of course it's a given a book can be great without ever mentioning the word 'bug' and the characters can romance one another on an antless anthill but for some reason I personally just seem to gravitate towards books that have a bit of this... in Finnish we call it 'inhorealismi,' the second word of the compound of course being 'realism,' the first something along the lines of 'disgust/loathing/some other word for strong dislike.'

For that matter, why does the Shire appear to exist in the 19c when the rest of Middle Earth is clearly medieval (except Mordor, which is the industrial dark side of the 19-20c)? Clearly there must be trains in the Shire, just discreetly off-stage so we can ignore the noise & the smoke & the dirt.

Tepelus said:

Mine do!

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Heh, awesome

Mr Flibble said:

Probably depends where you are tbh

Where I am you might get the occasional wasp and that's it (so more often then not, no bugs buggering your picnic).

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Then I want to live where you live! Virtually no bugs during summer sounds like heaven
But yes, e.g. if the author lives where you do, it's not a given they'd think about bugs when constructing a milieu with swamps, pines, moose, and no seas nearby. Besides, fantasy is fantasy, it's a fantasy setting, it can be virtually bugless and birds would still have food, certain plants wouldn't depend on bugs for pollination, etc. Also, there's the thing as you pointed out, the relevance for the story. While in my mind it attributes to the mood and realism (which I value quite high), from someone else's POV other things are more important.

Heh, funny thought: maybe the absence of bugs could also be explained by the vast amount of British fantasy writers? j/k, but seriously, I've only been around England (not e.g. in Scotland), and there weren't noticeably many deer flies, black flies, tics, mosquitoes, horse flies, or large pine weevils (that are just gross, btw), and other such wondrous examples of the beauty of mother nature (I'm getting flashbacks from the South Park episode 'Rainforest Shmainforest'). There were ants, though.

Mr Flibble said:

As for the *cough* rest, well as long as you arrange yourself right, it's mostly not a problem and let's leave it like that One of those things that it's just as believable either way, to me, from experience. Can't say I've ever ended up with mud in my nethers! Fern once...Sticky patches can be a problem where ever *again cough* but if they don't serve the story or add anything, I can understand not putting it in (it's a matter of subjective taste whether to or not). But if my I needed to, to serve the story, that's not a stretch either.

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While mud can go to the nethers, I meant something else from a more... manly than muddy source. But, again, these details don't have to be there, but I sure wish someone pointed out the nuisances every once in a while (like if you do it in water, well, turns out there's a reason why people do not use water to... enhance the slide of the sleigh...) Some of these simple things could be used for more or less amusing silliness -- or even tragedy *gets a vision*

But as you and others have pointed out and implied, people have different, even contradicting experiences of certain things and while some simple thing seems oh-so-wrong to some, they may make or break the scene for others.

T. Trian said:

AFAIK, Norway, Sweden, and Finland are the promised land of winged bugs with a penchant for blood.

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This holds very, very true for Norway! And I don't even live in any of the "famous" mosquito habitats (Finnmark, our northernmost county, is indeed famous for it), but summer evenings are a real hell--there are mosquitoes everywhere. Wasps, ants, bees and ticks are readily found here as well.

Okay, this applies mostly to urban fantasy but nonetheless:

"Wrong" gun stuff. Like some guy is supposed to be a real pro, ex SEAL or whatever, and he's talking about "clips" when he means magazines or "bullets" when it's obvious from the context that he means cartridges.

Also improper gun handling only makes sense if the person doing the wielding doesn't know how to work a gun. A good example of such mistakes is the Sandman Slim series. There was a scene where the lead guy tussles with two men who are supposed to be pros at what they do. Still somehow one of the antagonists takes ten bloody seconds wiping blood out of his eyes before he can squeeze off a round. Really? I've gotten hot sauce (the overly ridiculously hot kind, Blair's Mega Death) in my eyes while wearing contacts, no less, and still managed a sight picture in around five seconds and with ketchup I managed in three. This was with a pistol, btw, whereas the guy in the book had a G3 which would be even easier to align at the target, especially with a scope (can't remember if said rifle had a scope in the scene but if the guy was a pro, he'd likely had one or at the very least a Crimson Trace because, seriously, who prefers irons over scopes/CT?).

I also don't get Kadrey's fear of polymer pistols. The funny thing is that his protagonist talks like a seasoned veteran and still insists 1911s/big bore revolvers are superior to "tupperware guns" in every way or some such which actually makes the author/lead character look like a dilettante rather than someone serious about their shooting.

Seeing bad descriptions when it comes to weapons/fight scenes in books is likely a deal breaker mostly to people who are familiar with the subject matter, but it's just so refreshing to read a book where the author has put in the effort to get it right. I know, not everyone can be a SEAL or a recon marine, but if you lack the necessary experience, ask the pros. I've quizzed an ex-narc, a SEAL, a military combat instructor, and a police officer when my own know-how hasn't been enough. When it comes to sword fights, I've contacted local guys who teach e.g. medieval European fencing (longsword and rapier stuff). Every single one of those pros was very receptive and happy to help, even those I didn't know beforehand.

I actually stopped reading the first Elfsong book because the fencing scenes were just... well, a tad too far in the realm of "fantasy" for my taste.

T. Trian said:

Maybe Scotland is luckier (because it's not continental?) than, say, norther Europe? AFAIK, Norway, Sweden, and Finland are the promised land of winged bugs with a penchant for blood.

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Western Scotland is bloody awful in summer for midges; so small you can barely see them, but by God you feel them.

What do these things eat when they can't get Hobbit?

Yeah, my character goes into a wood and has terrible problems with his horse, who does not like being bitten. At all.

waylander said:

Western Scotland is bloody awful in summer for midges; so small you can barely see them, but by God you feel them.

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Echo this. Been there, done that, lots of hill-walking out in the Applecross-Kinlochewe region, north of Glasgow. At least where I live now (Alaska) the mosquitoes are the size of robins and you can see them well enough to shoot at.

caw

Buffysquirrel said:

Reminds me of something that bugged me in a story where the author twice refers to someone behaving like a detective. Yet in the world of the story, there didn't seem to be any detectives, as became apparent when there was a murder and they didn't know what to do. Can't remember whether it was in omni, but I do remember it annoying me. Mind you, the story won a major award, so what do I know?

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Lol, those kinds of things sneak through sometimes. And being in omni isn't always an excuse either. It depends on the narrator's voice and perspective. If the omniscient narrator is speaking in the voice of someone from the same "world" the story is taking place in, then he or she wouldn't know about express trains or detectives either.

Ms_Sassypants said:

I thought when writing books you can't go into details about every single thing... especially the character's bowel movements! Imagine the hero pissing or take a shit every chapter. That would totally kill the fantasy!

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Hilarious! Yes, I think that while sometimes these sorts of things irritate me, I understand that writing is not like real life. The writer has to assume that her readers are intelligent and can make mental jumps. For example: when the author decides to change the scene; the character is in one place and then there's a space between paragraphs and the character is in another place. We don't always know everything the characters have done in between but we go along with it because of the format.

jjdebenedictis said:

Yes, Mittens. Clothing keeps you warm because air is a good insulator. The more warm air you can trap near your body, the less heat you lose to the outside environment.

Mitts keep your fingers in a larger pocket of air, and so provide better insulation. Gloves only have whatever air is trapped in the thickness of the material, plus whatever insulating properties the material itself has (which mitts can also have.)

Also, surface area affects radiative heat losses, and individual fingers have more surface area than a big blob of mitten does. (This is why curling up in cold weather helps keep you warm; the closer your body is to a sphere in shape, the less surface area you have, and hence, the less heat you radiate away.)

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While I'm sure you are right, it doesn't make it wrong for people to wear gloves in very cold places. I've never worn mittens in my life, yet I've lived in Moscow and Iceland, amongst other very cold places. Gloves worked just fine for me. Okay, for working outside or being out long-term I suppose I'd go for mittens, but most people don't linger outside long in such conditions, and gloves suffice.

Bergen said:

Sorry, WillS. I'm interested in fantasy. And that's what I read most. So i don't want to draw conclusions about other genres. Still, I'm sure you're right.

The reason I thought about eating and cooking stew is because I had just re-read the Return of the King. The scene with Sam making the rabbits got me thinking. But others have corrected my ignorance about how long it takes to make stew.

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There's a moment in one of my fantasy novels where I wanted to poke fun at the whole stew thing, so I had my group stop their journey early so that they would have time to make stew for a change...and readers still wrote to me that it wasn't possible to make stew! It's become a cliche to say that one can't do stew in fantasies.

K. Trian said:

Simple things I can get nitpicky about: Horse-stuff, fighting, camping, winter-depictions, warfare. Like... sword-fights tend to be short. Brawls tend to be short. The blade doesn't cling or swish dramatically when you pull it out of a leather sheath unless you've lined it with steel or some metal in which case your blade might get a bit rusty after a while (then again, I've no idea if there're people who do this. Many professionals don't afaik, so there must be a good reason for it). Lighting a campfire sucks if you haven't a lighter/storm lighter/matches and haven't camped out before, there're often mosquitoes too so sleeping in the woods is not so much fun (you can be a woods-goer all your life and not get used to mosquitoes). Horses don't chortle and neight all-the-frigging-time. You don't usually hang out Game-of-Thrones -cool hatless and gloveless and your coat open in midwinter. Unless you're that guy who runs marathons in boxers in sub-zero.

Since the writer can't take everything into consideration, some funny slip-ups may occur (unless the writer falls back on "c'mon, it's fantasy! Fantastic moon phases/wool/horses!"). If I spot some, I do give leeway to the author 'cause they can't be experts on everything, but sometimes it's really nice to note that 'hey, this writer really got something very specific right!', and somehow it's even more delightful if I check the writer's bio and see they are vegetarians and Greenpeace members or somesuch, but wrote a meat-munching hunter in such a way I found her/him thoroughly believable (yes, I crawled out of cold, dark far north woods before I settled in a city, so some of the stuff is pretty familiar to me).


I've always found a pair of gloves and then mitts over them a bit warmer. But I've gotten used to both practices, so not sure which is really better. Then again, I don't even bother to go out if it's -40 C.

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I made all of my sword fights short and brutal, but some readers complained I didn't build enough tension. Well, I was going more for reality.

I don't really get the moon phase complaints...aren't most fantasy worlds not set on Earth? My fantasy world has three moons, so I don't think the moon phases would fall in line with ours.

knight_tour said:

I made all of my sword fights short and brutal, but some readers complained I didn't build enough tension. Well, I was going more for reality.

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I'd tell them to shut up.

j/k.

Not everyone's goal is to be (super)realistic, but if it is, I think the author should be consistent about it. If they aren't, like they pretend that 'yup, I'm writing realistic fantasy, see how gritty and brutal it is!' and then there's some ridiculously unrealistic fight scene, well, then it would be me complaining while, I suppose, those worried about tension would be happy with the endless fencing matches and whatnot. A lot comes down to preferences. I'd try to find some other way to build tension yet keep the scenes brutal and short.

On another note, three moons may effect the planet's conditions. Weather? Tides? The amount of light at nights?

T. Trian said:

I think the gloves vs. mittens (or any combination of either) depends on what you're doing (how much finger dexterity you need).

But yeah, the weather forecast promises -20 Fahrenheit /-30 (or so) in Celcius for next week here in southern Finland and presently if you step outside, you'll end up knee-deep in snow (except for the bits the plows have visited). I kinda got the idea from GRR Martin's Song of Fire and Ice that at least the Wall had similar weather conditions and, well, if someone can get used to standing guard outside at -20F without a hat and a ton of clothes on them, they get my respect (and sympathies) for being much tougher than I

About 10 years ago I stood at a line party in around -18F / -28C for a tad over six hours with only one pair of gloves and socks, long undies, jeans, t-shirt, sweater, and a jacket. Once I got inside, it took around half an hour before I could even feel my fingers/toes again. Oh, and I had holes in my gloves and shoes. Yes, I was an idiot (some argue I still am).


Probably the biggest pet peeve for me in fantasy is combat (be it about melee weapons or guns or whatever). It's such a rare treat to read anything that's even borderline realistic and at least for me a book can end up wallbanged if the fight scenes are, well, silly (unrealistic). At least if the overall tone of the book is realistic because if it's obvious the author has thrown any notions of realism out the window, it wouldn't make much sense for them to make an exception when it comes to depictions of combat. The reverse, however, is far more common, alas.

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I wish I could see what you thought of my fight scenes. I feel I do them well and realistically, but I haven't had any readers who are experts on warfare so far.

I had a -70 day in Moscow once. I only had to walk from my apartment to the metro--about a five minute walk--but my ears and nose hurt so badly I felt I could just snap my earlobes off.

K. Trian said:

I'd tell them to shut up.

j/k.

Not everyone's goal is to be (super)realistic, but if it is, I think the author should be consistent about it. If they aren't, like they pretend that 'yup, I'm writing realistic fantasy, see how gritty and brutal it is!' and then there's some ridiculously unrealistic fight scene, well, then it would be me complaining while, I suppose, those worried about tension would be happy with the endless fencing matches and whatnot. A lot comes down to preferences. I'd try to find some other way to build tension yet keep the scenes brutal and short.

On another note, three moons may effect the planet's conditions. Weather? Tides? The amount of light at nights?

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They sure do. The oceans are really bad, but fortunately for my first story, the oceans don't come into play. Yes, there are some nights that are really bright. I had a reader say that the moons all had to be in the same phase, but an astronomer friend told me otherwise.

knight_tour said:

They sure do. The oceans are really bad, but fortunately for my first story, the oceans don't come into play. Yes, there are some nights that are really bright. I had a reader say that the moons all had to be in the same phase, but an astronomer friend told me otherwise.

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Your astronomer friend might be right there. Mars has two satellites; I'm not sure could you get some confirmation on the subject from reading about the phases of Deimos and Phobos?