Comments on: Five More Mistakes of First-Time Authors (#21-25)

By: Irrevenoid

Irrevenoid — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 03:20:56 +0000

re: #23 you have to be careful – violating the audience expectation for no good reason is a good way to annoy your reader. If your elves are unsophisticated, hideous warmongers your reader will go “Why EVEN call them elves, then!?”.

Likewise playing against type risks its own cliche (“Oh ANOTHER Dark Elf who has shunned his race’s evil ways to become a hero?”).

Finally, there’s an advantage to using instantly recognisable fantasy races – they’re instantly recognisable. If you want to tell a new story against a recognisable background, sometimes that’s what you want.

P.S. In Australia, Target is more a lower-middle class clothing chain. So we’d be COMPLETELY thrown off by the reference.

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:40:29 +0000

Heh. A classmate from New York City once asked me what they sold at Target. According to their website, they only have ~5 stores in the New York metropolitan area, so I’m not too surprised that he’d be unfamiliar with it. So… depending on where you live, the reference might totally miss you. (Apparently not if you live in Australia, eh? )

By: The ReTARDISed Whovian

The ReTARDISed Whovian — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:07:43 +0000

“Readers from outside the Midwestern United States might not even know what Target sells, let alone who shops there”

Clothes, toys, electronics and assorted homewares. I shop at Target, I get most of the stuff for my iPod from there, like covers and iPod socks.

By: BM

BM — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 04:20:55 +0000

“24. umm.. mine dont wear clothes, /really/.” In that case, I suspect that brand names would probably not be the most serious clothing-related problem for your story.

Well, I guess clothes aren’t always required. For example, most Disney animals and Looney Toons don’t have them.

By: esnipplee

esnipplee — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:27:09 +0000

21. i’m fine, YAY!
22. also fine, YAY!
23. i think i’m okay… i’ll be careful
24. umm.. mine dont wear clothes, /really/
25. i’ll try to avoid this. off to act on it.

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:41:56 +0000

That's definitely an interesting question. First, I assume that most of your readers are going to be fairly familiar with concepts like THAC0 and D20 because your audience will probably be comprised mainly of D&D convention fans. However, assuming that your readers know very much about the field will probably cut out people who are marginally interested in D&D, forcing you to try to sell to a market that's probably pretty small.

Having said that, I think you will be most aesthetically and economically successful if you are able to write this story for the benefit of laymen and outsiders. Can you convince someone who's not familiar with D&D that these characters are likeable and that the culture is endearing rather than "nerdy" or "weird"? The individual concepts may be alien, but I think that the underlying motivations are very similar to the same reason someone would join a fraternity or fantasy football league: entertainment, camaradarie, and casual (nonjudgmental?) companionship.

That's a tall order, but I've read several excellent books that have immersed readers in foreign cultures. For example, I recommend Making the Corps as an excellent civilian's guide to the military way of life. Also, Kavalier and Clay immerses modern readers in a time and industry (the 1930 comic books business).

What do you think?

By: t3knomanser

t3knomanser — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:23:05 +0000

Re: 24

Here’s an interesting question: what about a story about subcultures? I’m working on a story about a fantasy-themed nerd-metal band that plays Cons. In such an environment, certain brands and references are pretty much impossible to avoid.

While I don’t intend to have characters debating D20 vs. THAC0, I did bring it up in passing mention, mostly to illustrate that the characters care about obscure details like THAC0 and the omission of Tom Bombadil from the LOTR films. The idea wasn’t to have the reader recognize the terms, but to establish that the characters care about things slightly alien to the average person.

Is there a better way to do that, perhaps?