Suggestion post

[limyaael]

I've been trying to come up with new ideas for rants so I could do a poll, but unfortunately my brain seems to run best on prompts at the moment. If you'd like to see a particular rant, go ahead and suggest it here, and it'll probably make it into the poll. (Feel free to second/third/etc. someone else's idea that you like

Comments

[tumblecoyote]

Not sure if you've done one before, but how about a rant on names? Y'know, people names, place names, etc. It always can be tricky to get 'em right.

Not to mention it's really annoying when you get it wrong. I'm looking at you, Goodkind. Richard? Not so bad a name- until you realize that everyone else has random collections of syllables instead.

Like Darken Rahl.

I'm not sure which's worse.

[triad_serpent]

This is what I was going to suggest. Names are SOOO important. They really bring the feel of the world together, I think. I mean, if you're reading along, and there are all these people named Evera, Alyrea, Rythan, etc., and suddenly along comes "Albert" you're going to be jolted out of the story

Names

[catskickass]

I completely agree with these two... although I don't know if names would take up an entire rant. Names of animals, countries, and other geographical features could be explored in addition to character names, but it still might not be enough substance for a full-length rant. Hmm... maybe language in general, too? Like how the characters find instances of an ancient language that no one has spoken in 300 years... but they can STILL read it and figure out what it's saying. (This is one thing that Terry Goodkind did pretty well, I think; Richard and Berdine had to compare the High D'Haran diary they found to a High D'Haran copy of a children's book Richard had memorized in order to pick up new words

[fleurrochard]

"Swetlana" sounds German

Just as an aside: not really for a German. ;)

But otherwise I agree with what you say.

[minervasolo]

Rant on making countries/regions appear different? I'm thinking in terms of food, fashion, architecture, and so on. Not making a world one homogenous mass. The same applies to history, too; so many fantasy worlds seem unchanging, with no progress whatsoever. Too entrenched in the medieval.

[chocomog2006]

I know you mostly are into fantasy, but I'd like to see more on sci-fi and fantasy hybrid stories and how to do those well.

[munchehpuppeh]

Seconded.

[cinnamonical]

Thirded. My two main original projects at the moment are definitely a strange bastard child of both sci-fi and fantasy.

[khajidu]

Why not a Renaissance-like or 18th century-like setting ?

[illidanstr]

Yay for Stephen Brust.

[limyaael]

Thanks for the suggestion!

If you want to read a rant on the urban fantasy clichés I hate, here it is. A rant on urban fantasy potential will be different, though.

[wikdsushi]

Could you do one on angels/winged humanoids? They get such a bad rap, and I suspect it's because they're so often portrayed as goodness-and-light, or sex with feathers. Ninety percent of the time, they're one-dimensional or purely archetypal.

Seconding the units of length/measurement/time one, too. It irks me when everything in a fantasy world is measured in miles.

[khajidu]

Well, in my setting, there are miles, but also leagues (4 times as long as miles) and a longer measurement unit which represents about a month's journey.
And of course shorter units.

[wikdsushi]

Nice. :) I'm working on a series that uses a combination of Imperial and Biblical lengths: inches, handbreadths (five inches), spans (three handbreaths), cubits (two spans), and kilocubits (roughly 2500 feet, per Imperial reckoning).

Are your miles standard modern, Roman ones, or another measure? :)

[khajidu]

completely another measure, in fact they have some kind of metrical system and a mile is roughly just under two km (a league is about 7.5 km)