Pet Peeves in Fantasy Books
Even though fantasy is one of my top genres, certain elements bother me. Whether it’s a matter of style or the foundations it’s built on, even if it’s minor, these are the things I’d rather do without:
Prologues
It’s a fine idea to inform the reader of some event that occurs prior to the main story. But the majority of prologues are boring, unnecessary, “mysterious,” or dialogue-less masses of information that won’t make sense until you’ve read the book. Bonus points if they’re long.
I’ve never considered the prologue to be the true beginning and I like true beginnings.
Funky Names and Confusing Calendars
In the year 34 KI of the tenth year of King Ix-ijatal Dh’equ during the season of Fhirtina’od, the country of Bavqu Eshwi experienced its first cleansing rain on Girsday.
All right, that’s an extreme example, but you can see the problem. Fake dates carry no meaning and if every chapter starts with one, it makes me feel like I have to go back and figure out how much time has passed. I don’t like that, especially since it still won’t really mean anything to me. Am I supposed to assume that this fantastical world mimics the Gregorian calendar but just has funky names? Or is it some crazy system, in which case why are they foisting this on me? If Tolkien can use standard days/months, so can everyone else.
Strange names with no pronunciation guide are the worst. Even when there is a guide, it’s just one more thing to impose on your readers and I think there should be limited struggles between the reader and the story. Create names all you want, but please don’t have them look like you sat on the keyboard.
It Never Ends
Is nothing sacred? Can a series not stand alone?
At this point you’d be hard pressed to find a series that has no spin-offs, prequels, short story collections, companion books, or some sort of continuation years after original completion. Everything is being resurrected or dragged out. And then you have the movie/tv/game adaptations, so the creative bankruptcy is even more widespread. I’m sure most of this is due to greed. But can’t it stop already?
I know there are authors who could write something outside of their fame-making series and still have success. So why aren’t we seeing new worlds all the time? I can understand being attached to your creation, but I also know making something new can be just as exciting.
Variety is good.
Fat Books
I don’t inherently hate chunky books. But why must fantasy books constantly topple scales? I take one look at The Wheel of Time series (fourteen books across approximately 12,000 pages) and I hate to even pick it up. What story could require such thickness? Or I look at The Stormlight Archive (four books are finished in a ten book series—well over four thousand pages so far) and move to something else. Is it too much to ask for books under six-hundred pages?
Excessive History
If the history isn’t vital to understanding the plot, I don’t want to hear it. I would rather be left wanting more than wondering how many of these names I’ll have to remember. Backstory on a place or item needs to be relevant or so flawlessly integrated that it doesn’t sound like exposition. Make the history important and pithily witty, and I’ll pay attention. Otherwise it’s just the author cramming in a bunch of ideas that don’t matter.
I guess as time goes on (and as I edit more of my own fictional writing) I care less about the in-depth backstory of the world and more about a solid story and characters. When there is history I want it to mean something and not be relayed in thick paragraphs of non-dialogue sludge.
Modern Swearing
Just don’t. There is nothing more immersion breaking than characters sounding like they’re from the 21st century. Make up curses or don’t having them cursing or do anything that doesn’t sound like my neighbors.
Morally Gray Characters
What’s wrong with protagonists standing on strong, just morals? For some reason, the traditional image of goodness is now boring and no good (pardon the pun). I much prefer characters who do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, to those who flirt with darkness or take an occasional break from villainy. Call them antiheroes, but don’t paint thieving, cheating, adulterous, double-crossing, murdering scumbags as “gray.”
The rise of this trend makes it look like people are trying to blur the edges between right and wrong until the wrong is perfectly acceptable and justifiable. That’s dangerous.
Honorable mentions:
No Map
This doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s monumentally annoying. I’m looking at you, Witcher.
Warrior Women
Normally this would be my top annoyance because it’s overdone, boring, and stupid. But since it’s not something I only see in fantasy, it gets a brief mention.
Resurrections
This is another thing that happens in other genres. If a character dies, they should stay dead.
What are your fantasy pet peeves?
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(Thumbs through the tomes of loose leafs on the floor.) Now, where did I put that map?
Heh, ditto on the extra fat books. I tried both Wheel of Time and Stormlight, and the way they do it is to have 3+ books per book. They just interweave them so it doesn't look like 3+ books per book. Dragonlance can pull it off, and so could Robin Hobb, mostly by having a billion characters, but at least they stayed plot relevant.
Also ditto with morally gray characters. Every Stephen Lawhead has these and it gets so tiring. Stick to your guns for once!