Link taken from... somebody....

[conuly]

Oh, my god. How wrong can she get?

Well, let's see. In the very first rule of fantasy she states that it must take place in a premodern world. Why?

Neither magic nor adventuring quests can be believably set in a modern, logical and scientific world (while science fiction can).

Young Wizards? Chrestomanci, which is close to modern? Harry fucking Potter, for god's sake?

My head is already hurting, yet still, I must read on....

It gets worse, if you can believe that. Oh dear. Is it all some sort of subtle joke I'm not catching?

Comments

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

If you want to be technical, at least one of the Chrestomanci books *was* modern when it was written. :-)

Her page in general makes no sense -- I wonder what would happen if we wrote her with counter-examples...

[conuly]

Bet she wouldn't add them to her FAQ...

I plan to, though. I'm coming up with more just off the top of my head - Artemis Fowl, Wrinkle in Time, this book I have called the Genie in... I don't know, Time Square? Whatever, point is it was written and set in the 60s - 70s. The Ogre Downstairs, at least a few of the books by Vivian Vande Velde....

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

...so the 'fantasy' in 'urban fantasy' is just there for window dressing? Neil Gaiman and Charles DeLint will be disappointed, I think.

[conuly]

Apparently.

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

Dear lord...

No, I don't think it's a joke. She manages to throw in some useful advice along with all the dreck, but this would do FAR more harm than good as a whole.

Another favorite: "There must be a significant population o 'have-nots', for it is from the have-nots that the hero (or the hero's motivation) will emerge."

[conuly]

Well, no. It'll weed out the sillies and keep them from publishing - if they feel they need this advice, and then take it, I don't have that much faith in them to begin with. Perhaps this was her diabolical plan all along?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, she's got to be kidding. The first series that comes to my mind (besides the Harry Potter books) is the Dresden Files, but God knows there are other ones. Hell, I'm working on a fantasy series set in modern-day Scranton, for crying out loud. Works fine for me.

[conuly]

Dresden files...?

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

Her "workshop instruction" reminds me of the writers' guidelines from a genre publisher that I actually considered writing for years ago - until I saw their writers' guidelines, that is! Their definitions and expectations of horror and fantasy were so bad, so limited, so cliched and out-of-date that I realized they had no earthly idea about what they were publishing... except that it sold, and so they must be doing it "right."

Apparently, this is where the bad genre writers come from: publishers, authors and workshop leaders with ideas like these.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

The book writing "industry" has become just that-- like any other industry. Accomplished writers are given free reign because they make a lot of money, and this is why you see so many go down the drain plotwise and grammatically (nothing ticks me off more than seeing countless misspellings in a PUBLISHED NOVEL).

Most bigtime publishers don't want new and edgy, unless it's something that's been established as new and edgy (hip, gritty urban fantasy, for example). They want what they know will make money.

Guh.

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

Oh, damn, I guess my story about werewolves and psychics at University must be science fiction...

[conuly]

Well, it might be. There's a thin line between fantasy and sf in the best of times. If you fall down a well and enter medieval times, that's fantasy, but if you do it because there's a time-travel device there using scientific principles....

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

What about things liek Shadowrun that some class as SF and I would class as Technofantasy because of the mix of dark future, cybernetics and magic?

oH NOES! We have been wronged!

[packbat.livejournal.com]

"Technofantasy"? That's a good name for it. I'll have to remember that.

[ril-chan.livejournal.com]

I like the part where she says dragons are overused....

As my girlfriend just said to me, dragons are overused because people LIKE them. I am MORE likely to read a book with dragons than one without. Seriously. Dragons are cool. They're just not cool if they're a carbon copy of someone else's dragons...but if you're writing a good fantasy story, you'll make all the elements your own anyway.

[conuly]

Besides, if you're good at what you're doing, you can't be overusing the dragons. And if you're not, a lack of dragons won't help.

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

Remind me to add that to the Fantasy World-Builder's Guide (http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy) under the "sometimes people have bad advice" links.

[conuly]

Okay.

Hey, mortaine! Remember to add this to your "bad advice" links in your FWBG.

[idonotlikepeas]

Not to mention War for the Oaks. Wow, what an amazingly clueless and horrible page.

Most of the time I see arguments like that from people who want to try to seperate off things they like so that they don't have to refer to themselves as Fantasy fans anymore. ("Oh... I like Neil Gaiman, but that's Magical Realism, not Fantasy! Only idiots read Fantasy!")

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. (I blush to admit that I read Laurell K. Hamilton, but her faery universe is set firmly and believably in modern America, with a few alternate-history flashbacks to explain why there's Sidhe royalty living on the north american continent at all. Someone said recently that "It's not that [Hamilton] puts a lot of sex in her plot, it's that she puts a little plot into her sex" and he/she was right.)

[l33tminion]

Incidentally, "The Wayfarer Redemption" series by Sarah Douglass is excellent (I've read the first four books so far). For all the good fantasy Douglass has written, I suppose she's been extremely remiss in reading it.

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

Hurrm, well miz douglass hasnt changed her tune much since I last heard her ranting bout this ohh, 11 or more years ago. Given her "remainder to success" ratio, ie the number of her books you can find in the "discount, everything must go" bookshops, I still think it is pritty rich of her to be telling anyone how to write a book. What was even funnier was after her premodern romance rant, we had isobel carmody explain exactly how it was she made a post modern fantisy coming of age oneshot into a carreer.
Then we had the australian SF editor for penguin explain how important it was to avoid clitches, random violence, and shitty romance.
To quote him "in your average fantisy manuscript that comes across our desks, it's obvious that the protagonist lives in a world without venerial deasies. Otherwise everyone would be dead not long after they hit the age of consent"

[moggymania.livejournal.com]

If you want to be technical, at least one of the Chrestomanci books *was* modern when it was written. :-)

Her page in general makes no sense -- I wonder what would happen if we wrote her with counter-examples...

[conuly]

Bet she wouldn't add them to her FAQ...

I plan to, though. I'm coming up with more just off the top of my head - Artemis Fowl, Wrinkle in Time, this book I have called the Genie in... I don't know, Time Square? Whatever, point is it was written and set in the 60s - 70s. The Ogre Downstairs, at least a few of the books by Vivian Vande Velde....

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

...so the 'fantasy' in 'urban fantasy' is just there for window dressing? Neil Gaiman and Charles DeLint will be disappointed, I think.

[conuly]

Apparently.

[raleighj.livejournal.com]

Dear lord...

No, I don't think it's a joke. She manages to throw in some useful advice along with all the dreck, but this would do FAR more harm than good as a whole.

Another favorite: "There must be a significant population o 'have-nots', for it is from the have-nots that the hero (or the hero's motivation) will emerge."

[conuly]

Well, no. It'll weed out the sillies and keep them from publishing - if they feel they need this advice, and then take it, I don't have that much faith in them to begin with. Perhaps this was her diabolical plan all along?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Oh, she's got to be kidding. The first series that comes to my mind (besides the Harry Potter books) is the Dresden Files, but God knows there are other ones. Hell, I'm working on a fantasy series set in modern-day Scranton, for crying out loud. Works fine for me.

[conuly]

Dresden files...?

[satyrblade.livejournal.com]

Her "workshop instruction" reminds me of the writers' guidelines from a genre publisher that I actually considered writing for years ago - until I saw their writers' guidelines, that is! Their definitions and expectations of horror and fantasy were so bad, so limited, so cliched and out-of-date that I realized they had no earthly idea about what they were publishing... except that it sold, and so they must be doing it "right."

Apparently, this is where the bad genre writers come from: publishers, authors and workshop leaders with ideas like these.

[maladaptive.livejournal.com]

The book writing "industry" has become just that-- like any other industry. Accomplished writers are given free reign because they make a lot of money, and this is why you see so many go down the drain plotwise and grammatically (nothing ticks me off more than seeing countless misspellings in a PUBLISHED NOVEL).

Most bigtime publishers don't want new and edgy, unless it's something that's been established as new and edgy (hip, gritty urban fantasy, for example). They want what they know will make money.

Guh.

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

Oh, damn, I guess my story about werewolves and psychics at University must be science fiction...

[conuly]

Well, it might be. There's a thin line between fantasy and sf in the best of times. If you fall down a well and enter medieval times, that's fantasy, but if you do it because there's a time-travel device there using scientific principles....

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

What about things liek Shadowrun that some class as SF and I would class as Technofantasy because of the mix of dark future, cybernetics and magic?

oH NOES! We have been wronged!

[packbat.livejournal.com]

"Technofantasy"? That's a good name for it. I'll have to remember that.

[ril-chan.livejournal.com]

I like the part where she says dragons are overused....

As my girlfriend just said to me, dragons are overused because people LIKE them. I am MORE likely to read a book with dragons than one without. Seriously. Dragons are cool. They're just not cool if they're a carbon copy of someone else's dragons...but if you're writing a good fantasy story, you'll make all the elements your own anyway.

[conuly]

Besides, if you're good at what you're doing, you can't be overusing the dragons. And if you're not, a lack of dragons won't help.

[mortaine.livejournal.com]

Remind me to add that to the Fantasy World-Builder's Guide (http://www.web-writer.net/fantasy) under the "sometimes people have bad advice" links.

[conuly]

Okay.

Hey, mortaine! Remember to add this to your "bad advice" links in your FWBG.

[idonotlikepeas]

Not to mention War for the Oaks. Wow, what an amazingly clueless and horrible page.

Most of the time I see arguments like that from people who want to try to seperate off things they like so that they don't have to refer to themselves as Fantasy fans anymore. ("Oh... I like Neil Gaiman, but that's Magical Realism, not Fantasy! Only idiots read Fantasy!")

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. (I blush to admit that I read Laurell K. Hamilton, but her faery universe is set firmly and believably in modern America, with a few alternate-history flashbacks to explain why there's Sidhe royalty living on the north american continent at all. Someone said recently that "It's not that [Hamilton] puts a lot of sex in her plot, it's that she puts a little plot into her sex" and he/she was right.)

[l33tminion]

Incidentally, "The Wayfarer Redemption" series by Sarah Douglass is excellent (I've read the first four books so far). For all the good fantasy Douglass has written, I suppose she's been extremely remiss in reading it.