Are You Writing Serious Fantasy? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Tarthang · 05-04-2002, 05:06 AM

Depends on what you mean by serious Fantasy. Do you mean strictly writing books?
I've been writing material for my own RPG (paper and dice variety) for about three or four years now (far from complete). With the intent to publish it one day if any takers can be found.
It includes a creation story, detailing of deities/powers/gods, playable races, creation of the mechanical system to resolve issues (i.e. the rules on how to make it playable), maps, defining various political, social and religous organizations. In other words world building.
I've read a great many books by a lot of different authors, so ther is little reflective of Tolkien. Except for the Race of Hobbits, in which I'm using only the name (don't like the term Hafling, Waerlinga, Kender and whatnot applied to a race of mannish midgets).
There are a lot of pitfalls to avoid to this type of writing. The hardest to overcome is to synthesize a concept from an author without plaigarizing and making this concept ones own, not a quick, cheap imitation. Other pitfalls include creative dryspells and finding time to work on such a project.

05-04-2002, 05:06 AM	#11
Tarthang Wight Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Paths of the Dead Posts: 108	Depends on what you mean by serious Fantasy. Do you mean strictly writing books? I've been writing material for my own RPG (paper and dice variety) for about three or four years now (far from complete). With the intent to publish it one day if any takers can be found. It includes a creation story, detailing of deities/powers/gods, playable races, creation of the mechanical system to resolve issues (i.e. the rules on how to make it playable), maps, defining various political, social and religous organizations. In other words world building. I've read a great many books by a lot of different authors, so ther is little reflective of Tolkien. Except for the Race of Hobbits, in which I'm using only the name (don't like the term Hafling, Waerlinga, Kender and whatnot applied to a race of mannish midgets). There are a lot of pitfalls to avoid to this type of writing. The hardest to overcome is to synthesize a concept from an author without plaigarizing and making this concept ones own, not a quick, cheap imitation. Other pitfalls include creative dryspells and finding time to work on such a project.