I think I only answered yes to one question, I do have dwarves in my world...and I'd like to see someone try to convince me there's something wrong with that! To tell the truth, though, I've not written much fantasy, just world-built. But most of that stuff I wouldn't have had anyway, but also quite a lot of it might have showed up in some form or another, just because I wouldn't know that it's a cliche.

But seriously, if someone else has done it, that doesn't mean you can't do it too, just make it a little different...

Or a lot different, as the case may be. Some sorts of my dwarves are bald, beardless, and their hands cling like geckos. But of course you should do something because you like it, not just because you had to make it different. Better to accidentally think of some one else's idea than throw away quality for originality.


I was wondering about that too when I first did this. I should probably do it again now that I have written my Nanowrimo story.


I have seen around three dwarfs since we moved to Ireland three years ago, and we saw one at the airport when we were leaving America. He was standing in the "elf" assisted line (the "s" was missing from the sign).

That's right! Dwarves are real (in a sense)! To say you can't use them would be like saying you can't use people!

Amen!

I'd like to see someone convince you that it is wrong to use, because if it is, then Tolkien and Lewis were copy cats. *gasp * Just because they are the fathers of fantasy, doesn't mean everything they created were original. They took elements from old literature too.

Exactly! Besides, for something to become cliche, it must not have been all bad. I try to take things that I like and make them my own, even if my dwarves are archtypical (whatever) in some ways, there's no way they will be exactly the same as narnian or middle-earthling dwarves.

*nods *

I also operate on the theory that there is nothing new under the sun. We all steal from God's masterpiece as it is. So we take what He has already created, or we take things that the imagination of man has already implemented since before The Epic of Gilgamesh (which has magical dragons, by the way, so take heart dragon lovers, you are NOT necessarily an Eragon copycat).

Agreed! Boy, I really need to read Eragon, I feel like I'm already behind the times, and I'm only seventeen!

*laughs * Don't feel bad, I haven't read the whole series either. I need to, but my trilogy has taken away all my reading time.

I know! I used to be worried about finding good books to read, now I'm more worried about getting through all of the books I have found. So many books, so little time...

I have a world, but not really much of a story yet. So, Yea, Nay, Sorta, and N/A will be my answers.

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
N/A

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
Nay. Young, yes; but not a farmhand and nothing mysterious about his parents (a woodworker and a tailor).

3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
Sorta. Not royalty, but he is descended from an ancient people of importance.

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
Sorta. Gains some power, and plays a significant role in an upcoming conflict. But I'm interested to see if I can make someone else the main hero.

5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
...
6. How about one that will destroy it?
Nay.

7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
Nay.

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Haha, Nay. "Hoot, hoot! How you've grown already, Link!"

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god/elf/fairy in disguise?
Sorta. There is an angelic being of great stature and historical importance who hides this, showing himself first as a regular unscented angelic being.

10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
Nay.

11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
Nay, my world has many kings, but few of them are kindly. And a kindly one stupid enough to be duped by evil magicians would be taken out out of the picture faster by the unkindly ones.

12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
N/A, no such character planned.

13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
N/A, no such character planned.

14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
Sorta. I could see something like this happening; but the mysterious reasons would have to be actual reasons.

15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
N/A, no such character behaviour planned.

16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
Nay. If there's one thing I want to avoid, it's token characters. But I do still have lots of indecision about main female chars.

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
N/A, no such character planned. Sounds like a good thing to avoid, I guess.

18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
...
19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
N/A.

20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
...
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
...
22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
...
23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
Nay. No hobbits, dwarves, elves or orcs.

24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
Nay. There's a huge commerce between continents by airships and boats.

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Nay, I don't! But point taken.

26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
Nay.

27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
...
28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
...
29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
...
30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
...
31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
...
32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
N/A.

33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
Nay.

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
Nay.

35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
Definitely Nay. *Abhors this*

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
Nay. I do use "ae" some, tho.

37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Nayt really, nay.

38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Nay, as long as they're different species.

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
...
40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
...
41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
Nay.

42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
Sorta. Not dwarven mines, but ancient underground caves and passages that connect two different parts of the world.

43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
N/A, but Nay I won't.

44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
...
45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
Nay.

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
Nay.

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
Sorta. I'm kind of inventing my own analog. Good point, a good topic to research.

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
Sorta. There will probably be a significant amount of travel, but plenty time will be spent doing things at destinations.

49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
Nay, that would be an unacceptable plot-/world-hole.

50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
Hmmm, Sorta. The cobha would probably allow for it, anyway. People are creative.

51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
Nay.

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
Sorta. There will definitely be an analog.

53. Do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Nay.

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
Yea I do; I'm actually pretty good with a periodic table.

55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Nay.

56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then go celebrate at the local inn all in the same day?
N/A, but Nay.

57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
Sorta. There will be "magically" endowed weapons with unusual properties, but all much more interesting and far more powerful than the above.

58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
Nay.

59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
I'd go so far as to say Yea. We have Cobha.

60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
Nay. Most don't (medium confidence--done a little research here), but some Zweihander-ish ones do.

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?


62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
N/A.

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
Sorta. Could happen. Highly circumstance-dependant.

64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
Nay. I'm no expert, but Boromir was pushing it.

65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Nay...the answer is Lembas bread. And mooore...Lembas bread.

66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
Sorta. The Norse-ish dudes do live in the north.

67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
Nay, I understand that mead involves honey..?

68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
Nay. Races of men, yes; many kingdoms and religions.

69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
Nay. Thieves' guild?

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
Yea, probably. Those who die are given a chance to serve him again, and those who refuse can stay dead and out of the way.

71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
Nay.

72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
Nay.

73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
Nay.

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
Nay.

75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
Sorta.


...Rips more offa the Silmarillion, actually.

Airships! Interesting!


Ey! Why is that?


Agreed.


Interesting. I as well.

See, and I think this can be done well. I do it in my book; however, it is not at all conventional.

Just like anything else on that list, it can be done well. Most everything is a cliché and a rip off, honestly. You just have to be creative enough to make it your own.

While I would typically roll my eyes at that question as well, I chose to portray it in a very specific way in my story, and I like it.

I agree, I'm drawing ideas from Narnia and middle earth, and hoping to make a world out of them that fans of narnia and middle earth will enjoy exploring while at the same time making them my own. My dad and I were thinking a good character would be a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a frying pan than with a sword would have some awesome potential...has that been done before?

*laughs *

I think there was this movie... what was it called... Tangled, that was it! Feminine, lovely female character who wasn't a pansy, used a frying pan, and yet was still saved by the hero in the end.

*laughs over this *

Ooh, so that's cliche too, better abandon the whole idea! Lol

Oh I don't know....

I know, if my character doesn't have fifty yards of hair, then she'll be different enough to avoid cliche-ing! Seriously, though, I think that using cliches in your story in a way that makes those people that write annoying articles saying no one should ever use dwarves again or whatever, choke on their advice. I can't remember if I've said this before, but if something became a cliche, it must not have been all that bad! You just need to figure out what you like about it and change what you can while preserving the parts of it that you want (sorry if I'm repeating myself )

I agree.

I'm not saying it can't be done well (all you'd have to do is say "Lucy Pevensie" and I'd be like ), but it's a breach between fantasy and reality that I don't really like and can't see myself doing. It feels like it takes away from the integrity of the fantasy world, makes it less real. Like hanging your tiny "masterpiece" artwork right next to God's huge magnum opus.

Fair enough. I think you're right that it can be done well. I think I the way the question was phrased biased me to imagine something shallow and contrived, which need not be the case. Good on you for taking it on and making it work!

I kind of feel that way too, Cephron! Except I likened it to putting my masterpiece through some kind of exercise that I wasn't sure it could do...It'd be hard to do it right.

That is an intriguing thought... I have never looked at it that way before.



Yeah, like I said, my typical response would be the same as yours. It is shallow, most of the time. However, having written this in my trilogy, I now know it can also be portrayed another way. So I was just pointing it out, since this thread is all about clichés, and I am a big believer in... well, I've already said my two bits (and then some) on what I think about clichés.

Okay, I was going to just skip through this because I'm so busy, but I noticed this answer
and burst out laughing.

Kaepora has to be the most hated character in the game. (and it makes no sense that such a major info-dump character suddenly disappears a third of the way through the game never to return )


Exellent answer.

*laughed over a few other answers*

I also agree in another sense. I think it is a task that should not be taken lightly because it is difficult to give a believable reason why a fantasy world would be connected to the fictional equal of earth. I have not read many stories with such portals. In the Chronicles of Narnia it was well done, in Journeys to Fayrah it was a ridiculous story on the whole, in Myst it was well done, and of course in Phantastes, other than that I have hardly read any of that type of story. Of course it will be done marvelously in Triterrus.

Come to think of it, that is sort of how I feel about it too, it does make it seem even more fake than it will anyway...unless God shows me how to bring earthling characters to my world, I don't think I will try to do it. But if I feel led to, I'll do the best I can with it!

I need to do this soon.

Looking forward to it! These are fun.

Yeah, they are.

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Well, since in Chapter -1 there's a car wreck, attempted personal assault, and an execution, that may be quite a bit.

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
NO. He's more of a city-slicker.

3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
NO. See above.

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme badguy?
No.

5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world? No.

6. How about one that will destroy it?
No.

7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No.

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
No.

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god/elf/fairy in disguise? No.

10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No.

11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No.

12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No.

13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
Is Achilles slow? Or Beowulf? Or Chuchulain? I thought not.

14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No.

15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
The FMC does, but that's because she suffers from depression often, and insecurity. Not because of the MMC.

16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
Maybe...

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No.

18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters? No.

19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
Maybe a tennis racquet...

20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No.

21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No.

22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different? I have neither.

23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No.

24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
No. I have done a great deal of research on maritime knowledge.

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
No, I have no clue when it was invented.

26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
No. The world can't be mapped, it keeps changing.

27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
No prologue.

28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
No.

29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
No.

30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
Haven't written it, nor have I seen a NYC phone book before.

31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
No idea what this means, but the answer is no.

32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No.

33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
No.

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No.

35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
Yes, and no. It's fantasyish, but not actually a real world.

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names? No.

37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Yes. A few.

38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"? No, I don't. Not if they have different ethnic backgrounds.

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
No.

40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Pardon? You asking about the pest management company?

41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No

42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No dwarves, remember?

43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
That would be GURPS or SW:RPG, wrong genre.

44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No

45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
I wish.

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls? No. They need drinks too.

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
I know how feudalism worked, I think.

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place? No, they can fly.

49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot? No.


50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"? Only if you count a torch.

51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No.

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
Maybe...

53. Do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
Maybe the MMC is a gamer... ever think of that?

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
It's fairly heavy.

55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
The characters can fly. Have you been paying attention, Questioner?

56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then go celebrate at the local inn all in the same day? No. They're outlaws.

57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No.

58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
No.
59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
Maybe. Probably not.

60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
Of course they don't. Claymores weighed about 7 pounds.

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains? Sort of. She's the one who has depression and suffers from thoughts of suicide.

62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No.

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
Huh?

64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
Did you know it often takes more than one bullet in the chest to kill someone nowadays? That's why they use the three-shot burst.

65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Never made stew.

66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No.

67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
No.

68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No.

69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No, but that's probably how it works in the real world.

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
I think so.

71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No.

72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
Of course. No. The language spoken depends on who's hearing it.

73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No.

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
No.

75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.
No. Hah!


There, I did it.

You know it would be kind of fun to make a story that had to have all of these Elements.
It would be quite a challenge.

That it would.

Cool, do these guys make appearances?

Wow, sounds like a very dream-like world.

Bahaha! That's great!

Hah, that'd be awesome! Make a really good story with all of these things in it and then send the manuscript to whoever made this questionnaire, or get it published and then ask that person to review and recommend it!

Yeah, they make appearances. One of them will be one of the major minor characters.

It's a dream world.

Thanks.

My current WIP is gaslight sci-fi (like steampunk, but reactionary), but I'll give it a try anyway.



There aren't even going to be fifty pages.



No.



No.



No.



No, no, and no.



No.



No.



No.



No, no, no.



No.



No.



Hmm. I suppose so, though I don't think of her that way.



No.



No.



Certainly not.



I have no fantasy races.



I'm pretty sure I don't have anyone under four feet tall.



My book doesn't feature seafaring vessels heavily. I do use airships, though. And they have several uses, including piracy, transport, and warfare.



Off the top of my head, no. But my story has no farmers in it.



My story takes place on earth. The map I have yet to draw will contain places such as the United Kingdom, the German Empire, and China.



No prologue.



Nope. A series of indefinite length.



See the last answer.



Nope. It's not strictly a novel, anyway.



This is the first.



Well, sort of, but they also stand alone.



When was the last time a dog lied to you, pal?



I don't role-play.



No.



No.




Not if you're only counting first names.



I don't have characters from an isolated village. And my characters mostly have real-ish British names.



No.



No.



Half-English maybe, at some point. But thus far no.



I haven't got any dwarves.



I don't play RPGs. And anyway, that might interfere with my ability to have my battles go as I please.



For the last time, I don't play RPGs.



No.



My characters don't stay in inns.



My story is set in the reign of Queen Victoria. Do you think you know when feudalism happened but really don't?



They go from London to New York and back...




No, I don't think so.



I don't have magic users, and if I do in a later installment, they'll be more like demonic cultists than Dumbledore.



Goodness no.



No.



Come on.



My characters carry paper money.



I don't use horses much.



No.



Nope. In fact, my main character has no weapons of his own at all. He's a mechanic.



No.



No.




No.



Well, he does fall in love. He's an apprentice who falls in love with his master's daughter. As a teenager, he's caught making out with her and gets the stuffing beaten out of him. By the end I think they're married. I don't think she was ever particularly unattainable, though. She's about his age and of exactly the same social class.



No.



No.



Arrows, schmarrows. My characters carry guns.



My characters don't walk around a lot. It's hard to walk from England to America.



No. This is the Victorian era.



Certainly not. I have a Viking friend IRL.



No. My story involves mostly one race, which has many cultures, many rulers, and several religions.



No. For that you want "21st century realistic fiction."



No.



The lute is long out of use in my world. And no.



No. If anything, French is, at least for Europe.



Well...no.



No.



This question is insulting.

No one needs to read Eragon. Trust me.

lol, I've started it and might know what you mean, but I still want to read as much as possible because I want to be able to recognize cliches...

Well, Inheritance is an excellent field guide to clichés. If you want to avoid them, all you have to do (provided you're in the same genre) is ask "did Christopher Paolini do this?" If the answer's no, you're probably safe.

Not really. It's nowhere near that bad. He probably missed more cliches than he hit. And as always, just because something is cliche, doesn't mean it's bad or that you shouldn't use it.

Perhaps I'm being uncharitable in my remembrance; he had other flaws that led to my thinking little of his writing, and I may be unfairly attributing all my dislike of his work to clichés. He certainly had:

Elves, Dwarves, and Men
An evil king who was once a knight in a mysterious and noble order, but turned bad and killed them all
Dwarves living in the mountains and riding weird things
A magic language spoken by Elves
A language in which you can't lie, but that for some reason managed to die out for the most part
Female elvish warriors
The town lunatic turns out to be the last of the mysterious and noble order and the hero's mentor
Dragon riders

That may be all. I'm not sure. And on the "clichés aren't all bad" point, I do agree, actually, for what it's worth.

*shrug* I don't consider all of those particularly cliche, myself, but I do sometimes miss tendencies and trends in things like Fantasy. I wouldn't call Brom the town lunatic, though, and to the best of my knowledge, Dragon Riders weren't all that cliche. I don't know of very many stories that use them, at least.

This made me smile...some of my earlier works did not fare well under this. This is for my most recent story, Hope.

1. Does nothing happen in the first fifty pages?
Ha! No.

2. Is your main character a young farmhand with mysterious parentage?
No

3. Is your main character the heir to the throne but doesn't know it?
No

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme bad guy?
Kind of? Indirectly but it's more a group effort.

5. Is your story about a quest for a magical artifact that will save the world?
No

6. How about one that will destroy it?
No

7. Does your story revolve around an ancient prophecy about "The One" who will save the world and everybody and all the forces of good?
No

8. Does your novel contain a character whose sole purpose is to show up at random plot points and dispense information?
Not yet

9. Does your novel contain a character that is really a god/elf/fairy in disguise?
no

10. Is the evil supreme badguy secretly the father of your main character?
No...Star Wars much?
11. Is the king of your world a kindly king duped by an evil magician?
No, but there's an evil magician-ish character. But they're both evil.

12. Does "a forgetful wizard" describe any of the characters in your novel?
No

13. How about "a powerful but slow and kind-hearted warrior"?
No

14. How about "a wise, mystical sage who refuses to give away plot details for his own personal, mysterious reasons"?
No

15. Do the female characters in your novel spend a lot of time worrying about how they look, especially when the male main character is around?
Nooo...

16. Do any of your female characters exist solely to be captured and rescued?
Golly no

17. Do any of your female characters exist solely to embody feminist ideals?
No, even though a lot of my female characters tend to be strong, it's not feminist purposefully or directly in any sense.

18. Would "a clumsy cooking wench more comfortable with a frying pan than a sword" aptly describe any of your female characters?
No

19. Would "a fearless warrioress more comfortable with a sword than a frying pan" aptly describe any of your female characters?
My two main characters can both fight, but one is a good shot with a bow, the other skilled with knives, not one of those fighting chicas we see in the movies.

20. Is any character in your novel best described as "a dour dwarf"?
No
21. How about "a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage"?
No (oh, Legolas)

22. Did you make the elves and the dwarves great friends, just to be different?
No...and how different really is that, LotR fans?

23. Does everybody under four feet tall exist solely for comic relief?
No

24. Do you think that the only two uses for ships are fishing and piracy?
Ha! No

25. Do you not know when the hay baler was invented?
Lol

26. Did you draw a map for your novel which includes places named things like "The Blasted Lands" or "The Forest of Fear" or "The Desert of Desolation" or absolutely anything "of Doom"?
My first story: "Temple of Doom" lol. But no.

27. Does your novel contain a prologue that is impossible to understand until you've read the entire book, if even then?
Haha no, but I actually really like those.

28. Is this the first book in a planned trilogy?
Maybe...

29. How about a quintet or a decalogue?
Maybe...

30. Is your novel thicker than a New York City phone book?
Don't know yet

31. Did absolutely nothing happen in the previous book you wrote, yet you figure you're still many sequels away from finishing your "story"?
Haha

32. Are you writing prequels to your as-yet-unfinished series of books?
No, but that's a cool idea lol

33. Is your name Robert Jordan and you lied like a dog to get this far?
lol

34. Is your novel based on the adventures of your role-playing group?
No

35. Does your novel contain characters transported from the real world to a fantasy realm?
No

36. Do any of your main characters have apostrophes or dashes in their names?
No

37. Do any of your main characters have names longer than three syllables?
Nope

38. Do you see nothing wrong with having two characters from the same small isolated village being named "Tim Umber" and "Belthusalanthalus al'Grinsok"?
Haha

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?
Nope!

40. How about "orken" or "dwerrows"?
Nope

41. Do you have a race prefixed by "half-"?
No

42. At any point in your novel, do the main characters take a shortcut through ancient dwarven mines?
No

43. Do you write your battle scenes by playing them out in your favorite RPG?
No

44. Have you done up game statistics for all of your main characters in your favorite RPG?
No

45. Are you writing a work-for-hire for Wizards of the Coast?
No

46. Do inns in your book exist solely so your main characters can have brawls?
No, but I do tend to have a lot of inn scenes...

47. Do you think you know how feudalism worked but really don't?
Lol

48. Do your characters spend an inordinate amount of time journeying from place to place?
No

49. Could one of your main characters tell the other characters something that would really help them in their quest but refuses to do so just so it won't break the plot?
If that happens there's a reason they hide this information not just for fun.

50. Do any of the magic users in your novel cast spells easily identifiable as "fireball" or "lightning bolt"?
No

51. Do you ever use the term "mana" in your novel?
No

52. Do you ever use the term "plate mail" in your novel?
No...chain mail

53. Do you ever use the term "hit points" in your novel?
No

54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?
haha

55. Do you think horses can gallop all day long without rest?
Duh...

56. Does anybody in your novel fight for two hours straight in full plate armor, then ride a horse for four hours, then go celebrate at the local inn all in the same day?
No

57. Does your main character have a magic axe, hammer, spear, or other weapon that returns to him when he throws it?
No

58. Does anybody in your novel ever stab anybody with a scimitar?
How's that supposed to work?

59. Does anybody in your novel stab anybody straight through plate armor?
No

60. Do you think swords weigh ten pounds or more?
lol

61. Does your hero fall in love with an unattainable woman, whom he later attains?
Nope

62. Does a large portion of the humor in your novel consist of puns?
No, most is in repartee

63. Is your hero able to withstand multiple blows from the fantasy equivalent of a ten pound sledge but is still threatened by a small woman with a dagger?
lol

64. Do you really think it frequently takes more than one arrow in the chest to kill a man?
Haha

65. Do you not realize it takes hours to make a good stew, making it a poor choice for an "on the road" meal?
Truth

66. Do you have nomadic barbarians living on the tundra and consuming barrels and barrels of mead?
No

67. Do you think that "mead" is just a fancy name for "beer"?
Haha

68. Does your story involve a number of different races, each of which has exactly one country, one ruler, and one religion?
No

69. Is the best organized and most numerous group of people in your world the thieves' guild?
No

70. Does your main villain punish insignificant mistakes with death?
Sometimes, but he's a psycopathic freak so...

71. Is your story about a crack team of warriors that take along a bard who is useless in a fight, though he plays a mean lute?
No bard

72. Is "common" the official language of your world?
No

73. Is the countryside in your novel littered with tombs and gravesites filled with ancient magical loot that nobody thought to steal centuries before?
No

74. Is your book basically a rip-off of The Lord of the Rings?
Nope

75. Read that question again and answer truthfully.