In the last part of this, I talked about whether or not clichés are bad. Now it’s to the discussion of whether or not fantasy clichés have any influence on publishing, in my opinion. My short answer is: well, yes, but… The “but” is the important part. While it is assumed by some that publishers are on the lookout for the next original fantasy novel, the reality is that they’re just looking for well written novels. That’s it. Sometimes they get it right, and sometimes they don’t. Publishers don’t care if you think that your novel is the most original thing since Tolkien. They’ve heard the same ego trip before and, at this point, it’s a bit stale. It doesn’t matter how original you think your novel is, because it’s not. Unique, sure, but not original. And that’s the important part. The best fantasy novels, as I mentioned before, aren’t ones that are claimed to be original by the author (who is almost always wrong and is almost always writing obviously clichéd fantasy trash); the best fantasy novels are ones written by authors who take clichés and make them their own. Publishers, again, are not concerned with whether or not your fantasy novel is cliché, because it already is by default. What they are concerned about is whether or not your novel is interesting, well-written, and worthy of the paper it may potentially be printed on. If a publisher doesn’t think it can sell your work, then it’s not going to take it. Period (with rare exception to those small presses that are less interested in sales and more interested in purely unique stories; such places have a tendency to focus their attention on matters of style and the nature of the content than on anything else). Having said all that, there really is little to be concerned about in regards to clichés. The only time one should be concerned is if their work is a direct ripoff of something already told, or if the clichés are made exceedingly obvious by poor execution. What this means is that you probably shouldn’t retell Tolkien’s LOTR series and you probably should avoid having Tolkien elves who live forever and act like Spock. Of course, you can still get published with these sorts of things, but I suspect that has more to do with a well-crafted plot than anything else. There is, of course, a problem with all this. We all have different opinions on what constitutes good execution. A lot of novels that are quite obviously cliché have been published, and quite a few have been rather successful. What does this say about the publishing world? I don’t know, to be honest. Those novels sell, so perhaps what it is saying is that publishers are simply following the money. As long as we buy the books, they’ll keep making them. So while many fantasy purists and junkies may find the clichéd forms of fantasy to be trash, but such folks aren’t necessarily the largest demographic for fantasy. They’re the folks who read the stuff that sells well, but not always well enough to get onto the bestsellers list. Perhaps the question to ask about all this is whether or not fantasy clichés are a good thing in the publishing world. What do you think? Are the more cliché forms of fantasy literature necessarily lesser forms (in the same way that media tie-ins)?

Recently over at Dragon Federation (the quite awesome new site for SF/F blog reviewers and their fans can hang out and tip back a few imaginary beers) SparklingBlue brought up an interesting topic that I have discussed before, but haven’t really delved into: I was wondering your opinion on the subject of clichés in fantasy–are they a good thing or a bad thing; and will a book still sell even though it has what is considered cliche in fantasy? The problem with fantasy fiction is that it is, by default, a clichéd genre. Very little, if any, original fantasy is being written today. What is being written is fantasy that utilizes interesting methods of retelling old ideas, revitalizing classic fantasy creations, etc. I’ve said similar before, and I often get lambasted for doing so. Why? Because readers of fantasy don’t like to have their genre criticized for what is a reality. Fantasy is incapable of escaping its mythic roots, as much as it tries–contemporary fantasy and magical realism are really as close as you get to an escape, and even then it’s only a faux escape hidden under flowery language or the intensely strange. It is embedded into the mythology of thousands of years of human history and equally as embedded into the exceedingly long, and truly astonishing history of literature. From the dawn of the written form (whether as words or pictures) we have been telling stories of gods, monsters, magical beings, and heroic journeys. Obviously these are some of the most cliché elements of fantasy, but I’m using them to make a point, because most fantasy uses some or all of these in some capacity or another. Some call the things I refer to as clichés “tropes,” which is pretty much the same thing in terms of literature (which seems to have its own dictionary in much the same way that science does, apparently). Whether they are tropes or clichés, these elements, whatever they may be, are built into the fabric of the fantasy genre. It is incapable of disentangling itself from its history and easily as incapable of disentangling itself from its commonplace parts. This is why the notion of “original fiction” is, by default, nothing more than a noble gesture. Fiction is only original in the sense that a particular author manages to do something different with an old thing. Some might argue here, however, that science fiction is a genre of the original; the problem with this assessment is that it assumes ideas are the same as plots, characters, etc. Science fiction is only original in that it sometimes invents new things that are separate, in some capacity, from the body of literature that precedes it. This has a lot to do with the fact that science fiction is as embedded into the present as fantasy is embedded into the past. None of this is necessarily bad. To get upset over this reality–that fantasy is a cliché genre by default–is like getting upset over finding out that ice cream and frozen yogurt come from cows at some point down the line. But clichés make a work crappy, right? Well, no, not always. Clichés are bad news when: There are a lot of them. The author fails to do something different with old concepts. The author tries something sadly obvious to make it seem like he or she is being original (having elves and calling them bingles instead, for example). The above list isn’t set in stone, though. But we’ll leave that to the next post, which will address the publishing side of all this. For now, I’ll stick with whether clichés are good or bad. The thing about clichés is that they are perceived to be bad when they are written poorly. It becomes pretty obvious when reading a book that the author didn’t care enough to try to mask his or her use of clichéd elements. You’ll find elves and wizards doing what they’ve always done in fantasy and the reader (us) is left wondering: why did I bother with this crap? Good writers try to write clichés in a way that doesn’t draw attention to the fact that you’ve seen it before. A prime example, I think, is Karen Miller (author of The Innocent Mage and The Awakened Mage). With these two novels, Miller succeeded in avoiding the instinctual drive towards originality by taking several clichéd elements and writing them in a way that doesn’t automatically draw the reader’s attention to the fact of their commonality. Her work takes clichés like prophecies and magic and spins them on their head. Instead of just another story of the chosen one rising up and winning against the evil bad guy, Miller gave us a story in which the chosen one is not at all what one would expect, and someone without any interest in matters of prophecy, magic, higher culture, etc. Her use of magic, too, avoids the cliché all-too-prevalent in fantasy (the white-haired or old wizard mentor) and instead twists magic around, making it dark, but necessary. There are few, if any, super-powered ninja wizards running around blasting holes in the moon. And Miller may be one of the few fantasy authors with the ability to write dialects into dialogue. Her main character, Asher, speaks with a clear type of accent, and the she writes his dialogue draws us into that world of peasantry and class conflict. All this is to illustrate the point that one doesn’t have to be original so much as unique. Yes, those terms are different. To be original is to precede all others, to be the first. To be unique is to be radically distinctive. Miller, I believe, is just that. And I think that will conclude this post. In the second installment I’ll talk about how the nature of clichés influences publishing (as I see it). If you have an opinion on this, feel free to let me know in the comments!