Yeah, writing fantasy can definitely be a challenge. One of the worst parts about writing fantasy is avoiding anachronism. Anachronisms are things that are out of place in a historical or mythical time period. For example, if you’re writing about a medieval kingdom, you can’t just throw in a smartphone or a car. And your characters can’t use modern slang. You have to make sure that everything in the story fits with the world you’re creating.
Another challenge is avoiding clichéd elements that are commonly found in fantasy stories. For example, it’s all too easy to rely on the classic “hero’s journey”, or “chosen one” trope. Or to have an evil sorceress as the main villain. While these elements can be effective when used in new and interesting ways, they can also make a story feel stale and unoriginal if they’re used too frequently. So, it’s important to strike a balance between creating a world that feels believable and unique, while also using familiar elements in a way that feels fresh and exciting. It takes a lot of creativity and effort to get it right, but when you do, the result can be a truly amazing piece of fantasy fiction.
This post pokes fun at these common difficulties when it comes to writing fantasy:
So, clearly the way to go is to find a poetical way of naming them. For example, have a culture which understands that people are drawn toward money, so they name it after that. So they have a Yen for…. oh.
Okay, forget that. Go a different way. Name the coinage after a tragedy that it commemorates. Ten centuries ago, all the bells in the kingdom were silenced, to the sorrow of us all, so to remember that, we use the ruebells, or ruble– drat.
Okay, okay, what about honesty? Yes. Honesty is valued as the highest currency, so they use the frank…. I’m really bad at this.
the technology anachronisms are probably the worst though.If say, you are writing in a setting based on the Stock Medieval European Fantasy then introducing pretty much any discovery more modern than 12th century will screw up your world-building.
The most dreadful thing that could happen would be your readers going: “If they have the X technology, why don’t they also have Y, or use Z, and why do the still use the now-pointless Q?” And at that point they drop their Suspension of Disbelief, and put the book away.
It does not have to be as anachronistic as a smartphone. Even medieval discoveries like paper, gunpowder or brandy can upend your world if it otherwise depends on older medieval and ancient tropes.
Your stock “Knight In Shining Armour saving a Princess imprisoned at a Castle and guarded by a Dragon” falls apart immediately if your setting has guns, cannons and explosives, which would make mince out of the knight, the castle and the dragon in minutes.
The moment your setting has paper, your oppressive feudal theocratic empire goes the way of the dodo, because you’ll have exponential science, literacy, rudimentary republicanism, democracy and proto-capitalist merchant princes all over the place, undermining it.
What about social progress, instead of technology? lets say you want to have a medieval-ish society but also gender equality so that you could have lots of female heroes and villains. Won’t work. The moment a society gives women equal rights, literacy skyrockets, economy skyrockets, and science gets exponential, because now you have 50% more literate and educated people, and mums can teach numbers and letters to their kids. You’d get from 15th century level to 19th century level in a blink of an eye.
Hell, you do not need to even go for such an obvious thing. Consider pockets. Pockets as a thing, were not really invented until late 18th century, and only used sparingly in the centuries before. But what if we had pockets since antiquity? Every literary trope about thievery, espionage, spycraft, assassination, survival etc would be different, if goods were not stored on a super-obvious belt-pouch!
Pockets are a lot older than that. They were separate, worn on a fabric belt inside both skirts and trousers, and accessed through the side seams. At least as far back as a thousand years ago (W. Europe). Pockets sewn into garments are indeed much more recent. The separate pockets continued to be used by women until the end of the 19th century. Edgar March writes of Cornish fishwives carrying up to 50 lbs of salt, 25 in each pocket, under their skirts.