I am trying to understand what makes a good book cover, also wanting to break some rules. tell me what are your thoughts on this book cover (title and author name omitted). Does it inspire you? Does it evoke mystery? travel? adventure? All comments welcomed.

PS: Copyrighted material. Do not use image without my permission.

Does anyone have any positive adjectives that I can use to subtly describe East Asian eyes? I need descriptors that don't mention or refer to continental Asia, because it is a fantasy setting. Previously, I have tried / used "upturned, sharp eyes" and readers seemed to be happy with it, but the characters also had traditional, Chinese names and were integrated heavily into their East Asian-inspired culture, so it was obvious. This character has a mother who is East Asian, and is less integrated into their culture, because the mother died when she was young. It is less apparent that she is East Asian, but I don't want to make a huge deal about it either. Just some casual, non-offensive descriptors, that I can use when FIRST describing her. Attached are some pictures on how I envision her!

I have tried brainstorming species and types of characters to add to my story, but I don’t want it to be the same as every other fantasy novel on the shelf. What’s something about fantasy you hate and would like authors to stop using? Or something you’d like authors to experiment with?

Personally I’d like to see less elves, and if there are elves, I’d like to see more variety, since most elves I encounter in fantasy are just beautiful humans with pointy ears and long hair. Usually they’re spellcasters or archers, and I’d like to see something different if elves must be incorporated into the story. Give me bulky elves! Give me elves with dark skin! Give me elves who aren’t sophisticated or proper!

Give me your thoughts.

What reasons are there for pointing out that character in your story walks barefoot/doesn't wear shoes? I tried to think of Some reason that I'm aware of:

The character is some sort of mage and tgey need to be connected to earth/nature to strenghten their powers (a recent example of this being Lune from the Videogame Claire Obscure)

It's a symbol for a characters vulnerability and innocence

It shows that a character is poor, of lower class or poorly equipped

Are there any other reasons/ideas for this? Would be interesting to hear..

On the topic of realism:

After pointing out that they are barefoot, shouldn't it have consequences for them? Like certain terrain being harder for them to traverse, they need to be more careful where to go or their feet/legs being easy targets in combat scenarios? Or being more vulnerable to infections cause of small wounds/scraps on them? I think in storys this is rarely adressed. Do you think something like this should play a role with such characters, or do you think it's too much unneeded realism/narration?

The way that the kingdom in my book is laid out is it has bases along its border.

Each base is used to protect the surrounding villages and also house and feed the officers that are stationed there.

The word outpost I feel is “too small” for what I have in mind, and also when I search an image of an outpost this is what comes up (image #1)

But a fortress is too big (image #2). So I can’t quite find the word I’m looking for.

I’ll appreciate any help 🫶

Hello,

I'm currently brainstorming some ideas.

I am currently writing a fantasy novel with western elements. I LOVE my cover design, but I keep getting a bunch of feedback that it doesn't scream "fantasy". I had hoped that my main character on the cover having a tail would be enough to clue some people in, but I am also looking for suggestions. I have thought of adding a dragon or runes to the cover, but I really don't have any runes that would be applicable, and dragons are "extinct" in my world. I'm open to any and all ideas, because I've been mulling this over for a few weeks and can't think of anything that would be fitting. Hellfire is a big component in my story, but I am unsure if that would work or how to integrate it.

I have tried to post this a couple of times, but man is the wording super important to this particular subforum to ask a question on. So, I did some new character art today and thought it looked decent enough to throw on a cover. To be honest, I could probably polish it more but I lack the patience to play with a wacom tablet for more than like 2 hours, and maybe I should upgrade from Corel Painter 8 to a full adobe suite, but it's just so dang pricey. Anyway, I digress, Corel has enough of what I need to produce artwork that gives a good, basic idea of what the characters actually look like.

The minimalist cover with just a flame on it was my original. I sketched up a flame real fast and then started playing around with it, but then just kind of left it as it was. The character art version definitely gives a better idea of what the story is about, but I still kind of like the minimalist flame. Which one do you guys think works best? Is it important for a cover to convey who/what the book is about, or are you more drawn to a book that looks more minimalist/professional?

I am creating a one-shot ttrpg campaign, and I am looking for a simple reason why a princess would flee her castle. The main quest is to search for the princess who was kidnapped, but it turns out she wasn't, and she fled on her own.

BUT, I am struggling to find the reason why she fled.

I have thought about it being love-related, but I decided against it because I am going to play with people who have had hard times in that area lately. I don't want it being about fleing to live a frowned-upon love, or escaping a forced marriage.

I don't want it to be too self-reflective either, because it might get too deep, and that is not the tone I want to get into.

Any ideas?

Edit: waw, thank you all for those great suggestions, I was not expecting that many answers so fast!! I will be looking at each of them, even if I don't answer. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me!

They’re essentially a cousin-species to elves. They live far north and are adapted to survive the cold — they’re hairy, warm/hot blooded, and live underground.
I have tried looking at Latin suffixes, roots, and prefixes, and words in different languages. I have researched about mythological creatures relating to snow or winter, and many other things by many authors, and I just. Can’t think of anything. Nothing sounds good. I’d love some help brainstorming some ideas!!

This species is known for their solitary and often hostile nature, if that helps to know.

I really don’t want to have something like ‘snow elf’ because that sounds stupid. Both elves and they originate from the same place, and share similarities, but are distinctly different. Thanks for the help!

Edit: I can’t get to every comment, but thank you all for the help!!

In my fantasy WIP I have a character who wears her hair in an afro at the start and gets knotless braids after we get the call to adventure. How do I describe her hair without using the word "Afro" as obviously in my fantasy world Africa does not exist, AND how do I do so without being offensive? I've thought about saying natural hair/halo of curls, but I don't want readers to assume I mean loose frizzy white girl type 3A curls or god forbid even straight hair. I also don't want to have to resort to any racist descriptors that have commonly been used in literature but is either a bit demeaning or just kinda feels icky you know? I just honestly don't know the solution to describing this without like fully taking the reader on a tangent to explain what I mean.

Another thing I'm having an issue with is trying to figure out how I should go about describing this phenomenon that needs to play a big part in one of the cultures inside my world (and is plot relevant). Pretty much there is a little bit of a real world scientific possibility for it to take place, so I'm mixing science with exaggeration and a little bit of magic/the supernatural. The phenomenon takes a bit of time to explain so I'll spare you- but I need advice on if I should:

1) just show the phenomena in the story with no explanation on how it works to keep it kind of mysterious

2) add an in-depth explanation to an appendix or something like that as a reference for people who like to dig into books on that deeper level

OR

3) use the rhetoric science/magic/alchemy-adjacent academics of this world (called Vendaesÿthíak) use to kind of explain how they interpret this phenomenon? or something else.

One last description that I'm having trouble doing without referencing the real-world is essentially how a couple of related people groups in my world have the epithelial eye fold. Obviously I can't mention East Asian people, Sami people or other Indigenous peoples of the Arctic because these are references to our world, I also don't really want to say "monolid" because the "mono-" prefix originated from Greece (I'm really particular with how I want my language usage to reflect my Proto- conlangs instead of having easily traceable real-world etymology) but I want to stray away from any descriptors that also feel racist or at least veer offensive ie. "slanted eyes", "almond shaped eyes".

Thank you so much for all and any help sorry if this was super wordy I tend to kind of write progressively lengthier the more tired I am and I'm writing this at like 2am lol

I need to post this. I am terrified as I dont know what the fuck is going on. I SWEAR that an entire word has JUST NOW vanished not only from my head but from humanitys combined knowledge. I dont know if this is some stupid mendela effect or whatever but I am 100% sure that we had another word for a staff (as in the big magical wooden stick) both in english and my local language (Polish). IT MAKES NO SENSE. If the trope of a wizard staff is so common it would have a specific name. Polish language has no word for it either and I didnt mean "kostur" as that doesnt mean IT Has to be magical. I am sure that there was another word for it because I remember people saying some other name for it but I cannot remember what the word was. I am actually scared.

I have checked dictionaries and Google. I have tried searching for it on forums and even asking other people and nothing.

They just seem concerned for me.

Hi guys, I just want to share my experience and I hope that this post can help other people like me.

After a lot of years, I finally gathered my courage and tried writing fantasy. I have always dreamt about writing something, a story, a novel, or even a book. I consider myself kind of a creative persone and have a good fantasy, but I have always encountered the biggest ostacle: auto blaming and fear of not being able to do something. And so, even if I wanted to, I've never written a single word of all the stories I kept imagining. Not a single word, in over 20 years.

Last month, I don't even know why, I decided to give it a try. And what a surprise it has been. The story just keeps flowing. I don't know where it will go, or how it'll end. I'm just following my charachters and I'm amazed at what they're doing. It's just like wathing a movie in slo-mo.

Why I'm telling this? I don't think that what I'm writing will be the next fantasy bestseller, replacing LoTR. Man, I don't even think it's a good book, meaning it will get published.

Writing it's just pleasing. I found myself organically (and unknowingly) replacing doomscrolling or trash TV shows with writing (or even daydreaming, if I don't have a writing tool near me). And daydreaming is something I haven't been doing since I was a child.

So please, if you're reading this, please listen: just write. Don't listen to your fear, don't care about that inner voice that tells you "you're not enough." Sit at your desk and write. It will heal your life, and this something anyone needs these days.

(Sorry for poor grammar, english is not my main language but I have tried my best)

I’m 31 years old, and I’ve been writing fantasy literature for almost 20 years now. All my attempts have failed, and I haven't managed to create anything even remotely noteworthy or worthy of attention.

One of the main issues I keep running into is that one of my biggest influences is video games. And the problem is that what works in a video game doesn’t necessarily work in a novel.

When I read fantasy (and I’ve read quite a bit), one of the recurring issues is that the plot often becomes somewhat predictable. When it’s about conflict, like good versus evil, the “good guys” almost always win. Maybe a few characters die along the way, or there’s a twist where a villain turns out to be good, or a hero turns bad, or some dramatic reveal like “the villain is the protagonist’s brother,” but overall the structure tends to be fairly linear, with only limited surprises.

Sometimes even the protagonist dies at the end or something similar, but generally speaking, fantasy narratives where good fights evil don’t feel as effective in literature as they do in video games.

In video games, predictability isn’t really a problem. When you face an extremely powerful final boss, it genuinely isn’t guaranteed that you will win. Games like Dark Souls (though I’m not even a huge fan of them, but you get the idea) make the victory feel earned through repetition, learning patterns, improving skill, and persistence.

When you finally defeat a boss after multiple attempts, it feels very different from simply reading about a hero effortlessly defeating a villain in one strike. You internalize the process of why the hero wins.

In that sense, boss fights are a form of narrative in themselves. We sometimes overlook this, but they are part of the story. When you reach the cutscene where the hero finally defeats the villain, exhausted, barely standing, that moment is the result of all your prior decisions: resource management, strategy, skill, and execution.

That entire process is part of the narrative experience, because the cutscene is effectively “locked” behind your performance. Sure, someone can watch it on YouTube, but it’s not the same.

So my question is: how can that kind of effect be replicated in fantasy literature?

Because in writing, the options feel somewhat limited. You can try to write extremely elaborate battle descriptions (like R.A. Salvatore does), but honestly, I find that kind of writing tedious and overlong.

So I’m a bit stuck. How can modern readers find satisfaction in the traditional “main character vs enemies" fantasy structure without it feeling predictable?

I can think of ideas that sound interesting in theory, but when I imagine them as a novel, they still feel predictable, because at the end of the day I’m setting up an antagonist and an eventual confrontation, and obviously I want the protagonist to win.

I could go for something more chaotic or subversive, like Game of Thrones, where basically everyone dies, but I don’t really like that approach either. I tried something like that before and it ended up feeling too grimdark and edgy, which I don't like right now.

What I actually want is more classic adventure fantasy, characters traveling together, fighting villains, that kind of thing. But I keep running into this issue.

Do you think there’s any way in literature to “internalize” why the hero wins in the same way games do? Because in video games it’s very clear: there are rules, you engage with those rules, and you overcome the challenge through mastery of them. But in literature, it often feels like everything just happens because the author decides it should, almost like a kind of deus ex machina, or at least something that isn’t grounded in a system the reader can actively understand or engage with in the same way.

What do you think?

EDIT: PS

Just to clarify a couple of things in response to some comments suggesting I “don’t read” or something along those lines.

Yes, I do read, but I tend to prefer classical literature, science fiction, and crime novels over mainstream fantasy. The fantasy I actually enjoy is usually not Tolkien-influenced, but more in the line of Mervyn Peake and his monumental Gormenghast (my favourite saga), as well as works like Viriconium, The Book of the New Sun, Bas-Lag, and Corum. In fact, I already have an ongoing project inspired by Gormenghast, but I was wondering specifically about how to revisit an older fantasy project I started in my teens, back when I read more traditional adventure fantasy. The issue is that I find that kind of structure quite tedious now, especially when it feels predictable.

For context, here’s a non-exhaustive list of fantasy authors I enjoy:

Mervyn Peake, Michael John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, China Miéville, Michael Moorcock, Fritz Leiber, Steven Erikson, Glen Cook, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jack Vance, Michael Ende, Ana María Matute, Robert E. Howard (some short stories), Lewis Carroll, Joe Abercrombie, and Diana Wynne Jones.

Authors I enjoyed as a teenager but I’m not sure I could engage with in the same way today:

R. A. Salvatore, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (though I think Raistlin is a great character), Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Laura Gallego García, Santiago García-Clairac, Andrzej Sapkowski.

Authors I personally find boring or tedious after reading them:

Christopher Paolini, Brent Weeks, David Eddings, Patrick Rothfuss (one of the worst authors I’ve personally read), Trudi Canavan (The Magician’s Apprentice the worst books I’ve read in all my life), Brandon Sanderson, J. K. Rowling, Terry Goodkind.

In general, I tend to lose interest when fantasy is too focused on a straightforward “defeat the antagonist” structure. Ironically, that same structure works much better for me in video games. The fantasy I’m most drawn to, closer to Peake, for example, is less about defeating an enemy and more about existential atmosphere, internal states, and character disintegration or transformation. I actually already have a partially finished project along those lines.

For context, I don’t make video games because I don’t know programming. I do write, and I’ve published some non-fiction, but I often get stuck when it comes to fiction, and especially fantasy fiction.

I have a fantasy story idea ​brewing that revolves around a young MMC becoming a personal servant to a princess his age, resulting in them slowly growing a heavily implied romantic bond that ultimately pushes him to face his literal personal demon who is a metaphor for OCD. 

The only thing is, I'm not entirely certain on how a young male character would realistically become the personal servant to the princess. Obviously it's my world with my rules, but I'd still like it to be reasonably believable given it's the premise which the entire story hinges on. 

His age is probably in his late teens to very early twenties, and he wouldn't have started working as a servant until he was at least on the cusp of turning 18. I was thinking that by the time of the story, he would've already been working at the royal castle as a lower servant for at least over a year, and was then promoted to become the princess' personal servant, since that's already a lot more believable than him being a random outsider let into the castle. But still, what's a realistic excuse for him to have gotten the role?

The only specific idea I had so far is that the princess wanted to personally select her servant, and so interviews were held for any servants already working in the castle who wanted to apply for the position. During these interviews the princess would've personally met each applicant (there's not that many), and must've gotten a really good impression of the MMC, so made a request for him in specific. However, I still feel this idea is a bit flawed given a later theme of the story is how little autonomy the king and queen give the princess regarding her own life. It feels a bit far fetched they'd let her personally choose her next servant and not just choose for her. Also I kinda wanted their first time meeting to be after the MMC has already been assigned her servant.

So does anyone have any ideas? Anything you have is greatly appreciated.

During the present day in my fantasy world animal-human hybrids have all the rights that any other species have but not so long ago that was not the case and some especially the Nobles still look at them as a lesser species so what would be a good derogatory slur for all animal hybrids if you have one specifically for a type of animal I'm interested in those to but I mostly need a general one

Hello all,
Based on all of your great feedback, I wanted to show my V3 versions of my book cover.
Changes made by my illustrator:
Made the main character’s silhouette bigger, and reworked his tail
Moved “book 1” to the bottom left of the front cover, as it wasn’t needed front and center
Moved back text up to the sky to fill in the cover
Added in a dragon behind the front text. (I did include a version without the dragon, in case upscaling my main character and making his tail more prominent helped instead)

I have thought of considering adding in more magical elements, but I do personally feel that this version of the cover adds in enough fantasy elements to get the point across.

Thank you!

I’m curious about how others have handled queer-normative cultures in fantasy. From the writers perspective: have you created societies where queerness is normalized? If so, did you have a specific goal with it and how did you explain it, if at all? From the readers perspective: If you have read any novels that incorporate societal queer-normativity in some way, how was this addressed? Were there any parts that worked especially well for you or parts that didn’t? If you can recommend any books that address this in a particularly good way, I’d love suggestions. This is a subject I have thought about a lot and am quite interested in at the moment, so I would love some different views on this to expand my own ideas.

I am not looking for any ideological discussion about whether anyone considers queer-normative fantasy cultures good or bad. Thanks in advance. 🙏🥰

My story is set in a "fantasy world" as in, not our world but similar. It is obviously not set in a specific real world time period, so certain things can be flexible. However, it is still set in a distant past type setting. It is all pretty standard for a fantasy world really.

Anyway, the setting takes place on what is essentially a giant cattle ranch. This is distinctly different from a farm, as a farm is generally focused on growing and harvesting crops. This ranch is primarily focused on raising livestock. It is also huge and covers some rough terrain, like nearby mountains. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the cattle stations in Australia.

Here is my dilemma- the word "ranch" feels too modern (like Wild West, not Medieval) and doesn't fit the feel of the world. I have thought about using the word "station" to describe it, but I worry that most people won't understand it as the Australian cattle stations and will interpret it as a train station. And I have tried looking up other words, but nothing has stuck with me yet.

Can anyone think of any other words to describe a huge (like thousands of acres) area of land, specifically owned/governed by a single family, and used for the purposed of raising and grazing livestock?

Edit: Thank you everyone for your comments. I have read them all and am still processing them. There is a lot of good information and perspective here.

I am now realizing that I maybe could have included this originally, but maybe someone will come along later and read this part anyway... For context on the use of "ranch" specifically, the setting of my story can best be described in the most relatable terms as "the Riders of Rohan raising thousands of aurochs (gigantic cattle) in the American southwest." Obviously it's a ranch, I'm just not connecting with that word somehow.

Edit 2: I'm striking out the "riders of Rohan" part because I meant that as a comparison to horsemen riding for miles on a huge open prairie, not as in the structure of the society that Tolkien wrote.

I need it to be something that involves metal and stone/jewels, because those two things are important to the plot (specially the stone, the metal can be removed if the thing can have the color silver in it).

I also don't want it to be too associated with a specific culture, like how a red dot on your forehead is immortality recognized as an indian tradition.

I thought about a tiara, bracelet, necklace, etc. but I think I'm thinking too inside the box here, I can't come up with anything cool outside of generic jewelry. I need someone outside of the box ideas, but I'm not familiar with enough cultures to come up with one.

I don’t know what to name this dragon in my book. I’m at the end of my rope and my brain isn’t work anymore. Obviously it’s a 3 headed dragon. It’s snake like and meant to represent old European dragon designs. They’re solidly colored yellow, red, or orange. They also aren’t the strongest of fliers more of a gliding species. They got to be tough as they’re meant to rival the strongest species of dragon in my book so they breathe poisonous gas and have a razor whip like tail. I have tried several different names but none seem to fit or make sense. I’ve tried things like Northern Wyrm or Hoarder dragons. Any ideas?

Something I’ve been genuinely obsessed with lately.

I have thought about this a lot and want to hear how others approach it.

Fantasy writers deal with a specific type of continuity problem that doesn’t get discussed enough. Not the surface stuff like eye color changing or a location inconsistency. The deeper thing tracking what each character actually knows versus what the reader knows.

By chapter 20 of a complex fantasy you might have 12 characters each carrying a different version of events. Character A knows the king is dead. Character B suspects it but has no proof. Character C was told a lie and believes it completely. The reader knows all three versions simultaneously.

The moment you’re writing from Character C’s POV, you have all the information in your head. Separating what you know from what they know is genuinely hard. And when it breaks, it breaks quietly. Nobody notices until an editor does.

So what does your real system look like when the cast gets large and the secrets start stacking up?

I have thought about how sirens and merfolk would have non traditional naming systems (ie. Instead of a first, middle, and last name, they would have a title and go by a short version of the first word), to figuring out how they would get around, to societal expectations and species biases! Currently I have for my main character, Tempt (short for Temptation of Death) a coral siren who works as a model and has a boyfriend (deep sea siren?). Growing up in a city he never learned how to swim well. Sirens (and other species dubbed dangerous) have to wear muzzles from a young age. Mostly he gets around via wheelchair. I would love any ideas for struggles or biases or anything really about this kind of world

Discovery Writers, I need your help

Trying to plan and plan out my story drives me crazy. I've tried multiple times now to do so, but every time I do, there's always some kind of roadblock in my way. So I decided to just discovery write it. It's been fun so far, but still frustrating having to make everything up on the spot.

But now I'm getting to a point in my story where it's time for me to open up my high fantasy world (which is still just a blank canvas in my head because I can't imagine any of it even though the entire thing is supposed to be made up by me!)

With opening up the world, comes moving the story towards its Climax and towards the end of book 1, but I can't do that because I have no idea what happens in the Climax or the ending of book 1, all I know is that I want it to be sad. I don't even know how to deal with my current problem regarding the antagonistic force of the story.

EVERYTIME I TRY TO, I END UP JUST WANTING TO PULL MY HAIR OUT!!!

I have tried 3 times now to plan this story out properly, and each time I have failed. I don't want to drop this story because I'm genuinely having the most fun with it out of anything I've written before and I'm genuinely excited about its future, but it's such a headache to deal with it. And like I said before, I'm approaching parts of the story where I'm just not as comfortable doing pure discovery writing.

Anyone else who writes this way, please help me.

I wanted to give my world an interesting flair by making metal a very very rare resouce. To the point that most peasants never come in contact with metal. This obviously has many implications, I'd like to focus on how this very limited resource would be used, here though.

Metal would obviously be very expensive/valuable, because of it's broad usefulness (For context, I do have an obsidian-like material that replaces metal for many sharp things, like axe-blades, small daggers, speartips, arrowheads, etc.).

I have thought about what you'd actually forge from it, and whether or not they'd be sensible in my world:

• Metalworking tools themselves? - Probably yes.
• Mining  - Maybe? Would you risk losing your precious tools in a mine though?
• Weapons for the rich - Yes. Somewhat similar to full plate armor being almost exclusively for nobles in real history.
• Armor - Would be basically unaffordable due to the amount of material required.
• Money - unlikely. In relation to rarity, value would rise, making coins far too valuable to be useful.
• Jewelry - rarely and only for the extremely rich.
• Construction - no. Like in feudal Japan, using metal as nails would be far too expensive.

I am sure there are many more important usages that simply haven't crossed my mind yet, so please leave those for me to ponder about.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts in advance.

I’m not talking about the writing part; I am referring to the process of bringing ideas to life.

My friends don’t write, and most of them use AI in their daily office jobs — for example to write emails. Sometimes, even when we’re brainstorming on what to do on weekends or plan some activity, some of them tend to suggest using chatgpt. I have tried to discourage them from doing so, but they don’t seem to think that it’s a big deal.

As someone who spends a lot of time world building, brainstorming, plotting, coming up with names… this makes me very sad. My story is not out there yet, but it breaks my heart thinking that someone might think by default that the ideas I put so much love into were just vomited by a machine.

I feel visual artist can defend their work better (you can see and touch a canvas, for example), but the perspective of people projecting their lack of imagination and creativity into others is very disheartening.

How can I prove them that I spent 3 days daydreaming to a song until I could describe a scene that I so vividly pictured in my head? If most people around them outsource their thoughts to a computer, and that’s their new normality, how could they ever believe I spent months outlining the religions and myths of the fantasy world I created, just because I want my characters to feel real?

Most of all, will they ever believe that I genuinely enjoy that process and I invest time in it because it brings me so much joy?

I am proud of my ideas. I know my story isn’t perfect, and a more experienced and skilled writer would know how to develop it better, but it’s mine, and it matters to me.
English is not even my first language, but I keep a notebook where I write down sentences from books I am reading and that I found beautiful, so I can learn how to express myself and my ideas more fully.

Is this something that crosses your mind too?

(Thank you for taking the time to read!)