There's a great subversion of the "villain underdog" trope in Saint Seiya and the Lost Canvas. The first bunch of episodes have the villain start from nothing, but then he gradually climbs the power scale which makes him really threatening later on.

The definition of anti-hero and anti-villain basically depends on whether your *protagonist* is a hero or villain. Yes, the protagonist can be evil and the antagonist can be good, e.g. Death Note

One of Arthur C Clarke (sci fi writer / scientists) 3 rules of technology is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". To which a fantasy writer replied, "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology," and that's why a good magic system has rules.

Personally, I don't really remember any smells from my childhood, sight and sounds bring back more memories. But I get the point, evoke the senses and all that.

Will you ever do one of these contests ever again?

Anti-villain is at risk of becoming too sympathetic of a character and end up distancing the reader from the main character of the story.... Well, what if the Anti-villain IS the main character of the story 😏

Gonna plug "A Practical Guide to Evil" among those recs. Has both hard and soft magic systems. Wizards learn "spells" for combat but the best basically rewrite reality. Plus the world itself reinforces character stereotyoes and tropes and thus thematic appropriateness has actual metaphysical weight...which the people of Calernia are very aware of and react to.

Graphically detailed and drawn out intimate scenes. Info dumping, especially when irrelevant to the topic in progress. I'm not going to remember 6 paragraphs of one characters background history when that isn't even the topic of discussion in the scene. Spread that out, don't stop your narration to explain everything about someone in one shot. You didn't make me curious about the new character and you're not making me care. Because I wanted to read the conversation going on, but you stopped it to introduce a new characters whole life story.

Any chance of doing this again? Even without a money prize, I'd love to enter.

I'm actually working on a fantasy novel with a fairly negative series of consequences to the use of magic and I don't want to do anything romantic with my female lead ( she is going to be somewhere in between antihero and anti villain) but I wanted her indifferent attitude to change so I came up with the idea of a child side character that she rescued in chapter three who literally was an orphan sold to the very organization that is hunting her and others like her lead by seemingly immortal beings

It seems like passive voice is more removed, and appropriate for history. "The village was destroyed by the dragon" [many years ago, before the narrator/characters got there] versus "The dragon destroyed the village" [just now].

I'm a stats guy. I haven't implemented this yet (just finished the video), but I can tell this is one of the best pieces of advice / methodologies I could have seen to get me jumpstarted and improving. Thank you for this!

Hi Jed Herne, After doing a lot of research and watching your videos and following your channel, I've learned a lot. Your content is really enlightening and I admire what you're doing. I wasn't always a fan of fantasy, but after delving deeper into it, I've come to appreciate its richness and depth. When I'm immersed in my fantasy novels, I often find inspiration from various sources, including the Bible and Christian films. Inspiration can truly come from anywhere. Currently, I'm working on crafting a fantasy world where women are at the forefront of society. The traditional patriarchy is flipped on its head, with women holding positions of power and influence. In this world, women and even teenagers boast impressive biceps and muscular, curved bodies. In my novel, I'm merging fantasy with fairy tales, envisioning a realm where women are descendants of Athena, the fierce Goddess of war, love, and wisdom. She is the daughter of Queen Goddess and her wife, who is also a Queen Goddess. These women, who are descendants of Athena, are born as adults, thanks to their Nephilim heritage, embodying strength and prowess right from the start. Creating a modern fantasy-fairytale fusion involves careful planning and handling of themes. It's about keeping the story engaging while blending elements of both genres seamlessly. It's a challenge, but with the right approach, it promises immense satisfaction. How do you suggest balancing the power dynamics in a world where women are at the forefront of society? What techniques would you recommend for seamlessly blending fantasy and fairy tale elements in a novel? How important do you think it is to challenge traditional gender roles in literature, especially in the fantasy genre? Let me know if these additional questions align with your vision!

Im writing a story where the main character dies and revives multiple times, but the idea is that fights still have stakes to them because the main character still _can_ die for real, and in fact i might actually have that happen later down the line, but more importantly, if any character that ISNT the main character dies, then they die, like really die, like even if the main character kills themselves to rewind time to before the other character died, the death will STILL persist, so the death of the main character isnt tooo much of a threat (although still a threat), but the death of the loveable side character will constantly be a threat

Let the magic system be hard as steel, but let the reader touch it in super soft gloves.

Where do they keep their runways if they live on top of spires? You might not really want to go back to that book idea. And no, "dropped take-off" isn't a solution, and landing would still be a problem. Where do they get the fuel? No, living on small spires, densely covered in buildings doesn't allow for planes.

My novel starts by introducing a random, unnamed guy who dies in the very same chapter that he's introduced, purely to establish how evil an evil artifact is (not even an evil _guy,_ just an evil inanimate object), and I might not even bring up that evil artifact again Edit: I'm probably gonna change it tho, I tend to do that a lot, write something, then just keep writing for another chapter, then go back and change almost everything about the last ~3 chapters and repeat, which is why I've only written about 6 chapters in half a year, that and _thinking_ about writing instead of actually writing)

I am fairly new to writing and world building myself, so these videos are super helpful. It also makes me confident that i'm doing something right, as i have avoided a lot of the common mistakes you mention. And if i didn't avoid them, i at least think about them now and can adjust accordingly.

Hi writer ❤ How are you 😊

I'm currently writing a story... it's amateur work and it's actually meant to turn into an anime and I have no way of appraising it so any ideas will be appreciated

One thing that always bugs me with soft magic is the notion that "soft magic has no rules, so I can do whatever I want!" No! Soft magic has rules, too. Gandalf couldn't just destroy The One Ring himself. Otherwise, he would have no reason not to. So clearly he must lack the capability. That's a rule. The main difference betwren hard and soft magic is that hard magic front-loads its rules and limitations. Look at what I refer to as giction's hardest magic system: Duel Monsters from Yugioh. Dark Magician has exactly 2500 ATK points. This means he runs over anything with 2499 ATK or less, damaging the opponent, loses to anything with 2501 or greater, damaging the controller, and crashes into other 2500 ATK monsters, damaging neither player. Unless you factor in defense mode... and so on. "But that's not magic, it's game mechanics!" ...What's the substantive difference? Magic systems basically _are_ game mechanics at the end of the day. They are the rules by which characters interact with the world they are in to exact their will. Characters optimize their own power, counter the powers of others, and generally exploit the upper limits of whatever powers they have access to. If a character has an ability and something they wish to achieve that can be accomplished via that ability, they will attempt to use that ability to achieve their objective until or unless impeded by an outside force. Or, in Yugioh's case, impeded by a _Mirror_ Force.

My most creative few hour this year were when I had a very bad cold and couldn’t sleep because my sinuses were throbbing from pain. I just sat in bed with tissues stuck hp my nostrils and wrote a whole song for a project I fantasize about.

If there is any over used trope of soft magic it's "I know your true name therefor I have power over you" and I'm a big hater of that specifically. Fundamentally it creates an inconsistent world. Number 1 if this was a reality and sharing your true name with someone gives them power over you, then you just wouldn't share it right? So if everyone is using fake names and nicknames for each other when do we address the naming problem. Names aren't prescriptive or descriptive language they're existential. As a result we have to consider the reality of if 99.999% of people call you Jakob but your "true name" is actually Phil, well what specifically makes that your true name? As stated 99.999% of people who know you, call you Jakob, so the overwhelming majority of people who know you, you're name is Jakob, that makes it 99.999% true doesn't it? What's the deciding factor of what is true and what isn't true? In the example to 99.999% of people you're true name is Jakob in only 0.001% of cases it's Phil. How could we with any reasonable sentiment say your true name is Phil, when there is almost nobody who calls you that, let alone this doesn't even get into the missing name problems. Where a character who's got a super special name, and with that name comes super special power, but they don't learn that name for most of their life and live under a nickname. Right at the pinnacle of their struggles, they learn their true name and with that gain super special power. But they didn't know that name for most of their life, so how is that their true name? It always just ends up reeking of "This is a story and you need to suspend disbelief for it to make sense" which I honestly just dislike. Internal consistency would be better.

The chosen one power up is yhe biggest mistake

Is it normal or fine to complete a rough draft and get part way into the 1st draft and want to work on another story?

0:54 kid logic xD

My concept for a magic system - mages basically have a patron spirit or something like that. (So it is a little like inborn magical ability. But it's not genetic. It's something about you that caught the attention of one among any number of inscrutable fey being. And catching their attention should scare you at least a little.) There are two important consequences of this: 1.) Your magical abilities are thematically connected to your "spirit animal" or whatever the in-world term ends up being. A frog mage, for example, will mostly wield water magic, but also magic related to jumping. With enough training, they may also access poisonous abilities (via the poison dart frog) or some shapeshifting abilities (via the tadpole to frog metamorphosis). 2.) Mages can perform a blood rite to share their magic within a coven, diversifying their magic. Perhaps our frog mage has a friend whose spirit is the chicken. Not a particularly impressive source of magic - you can get some fear manipulation, but mostly things like fertility and nurturing lend themselves to augmenting a pastoral or hospitality job. Not immensely impressive for a protagonist, but they can make life on the road more comfortable. (And in turn, our chicken mage gains access to frog magic). 2b.) But that's not actually the most important part of the blood rite. Because it also unlocks chimeric magic to members of the coven. In the case of a frog and a chicken - why that's the egg incubated by a frog that hatches into a cockatrice! Both our frog mage and our chicken mage have unlocked powerful petrification magic. Worth noting: This blood rite requires a vial of blood as a focus to draw upon, and it requires periodic renewal. And it must be given freely, not taken by force. So chimeric magic comes with interesting limitations of time (if you can separate the mages) and interpersonal relationships. If our chicken and frog mages have a falling out, they're likely to both lose petrification magic unless they can resolve their issues...

I think Dragon Ball has a good naming system. All of the names are based on a food or item. For example: every Saiyan is named after a vegetable. If you haven’t already noticed, VEGETAble. Other characters like Trunks are literally named after a pair of pants. I personally love the simplicity of the names. They are fun, easy to remember, and feel very unique.

Spice in dune doesn’t let you see into the future. Spice augments your brain functions, making you basically like a human computer. The only characters that can “see into the future” are paul, his sister and his descendants, and that is because they are the culmination of of centuries of selective breeding done by the gene beserict. And they dont see into the future, what they do is that basically their brain power is so advanced that they can process the possible outcomes for every action they take or not, functions kinda like seeing the future but they don’t actually see the future, just the possibilities the future holds

I've been writing in a serious sense for seven years. My method is simple: Be your first customer. Even if you never sell a book, have fun with your own stories. I write and rewrite my own stories as I make them better. Word count doesn't matter. Time writing doesn't matter. All that matters is I manage to write some.

i found that i can easily use fantasy name generator as inspiration. i let it generate until i find a name that speaks to me but i wouldnt use it then i just let my brain do the rest. it worked like a charm and helped me make some good town names.

I started dabling in writing and world building a few years ago, but most of my inspiration actually comes from Manga and Manhwa, instead of western writers. I really gotta check out some of the books mentioned here. Get a different perspective.

How can you judge something that is a fantasy in somebody's else's mind because yeah you're such the expert on it whatever dude

In regards to point 10, I had a character in my RPG use the phrase "Par for the course" upon discovering the women she had a crush on was already married. This means that I need to clarify that golf exists as a game in my world, and is popular enough that phrases from it have entered the common vernacular. Or I could just rewrite that one sentence, but where's the fun in that?

Or just do what Tolkien does; 'It's magic, that's all you need to know.'

I mean, if you're outside there's nothing wrong with always sending someone into the sky, as long as it's affordable to use. Of course one could do something more epic, but just as a sword fight, where the protagonist makes dozens of swings and moves before even attacking, it's not realistic. If you have something affordable that works just fine, then there's no reason to use something else, as long as it works, especially if your life depends on it.

I disagree with your analysis of Severus Snape. His hidden self is that he is a deeply damaged individual, who has never allowed himself to experience true connection to others, and is driven by his desire for revenge against Voldemort, who killed the object of his infatuation. He's also deeply unsure of himself, despite his surface level extreme ego. I mean, he was a young child when he "fell in love with" Lily, and never really knew her on a deeper level. It's not LOVE, it's infatuation, to an unhealthy degree. This is what we are SHOWN. What you explain, is what the fanbase, and to a certain degree, J.K. Rowling, have been trying to tell us. But it doesn't correspond with what we're shown in the books. I mean, he's a complete psychopath. He literally terrorizes his students, to such a degree that he traumatizes several of them. The fact that Dumbledore allows him to work there, speaks volume of how screwed up he is as well.

Everything is willpower. I made my magic like real life stories of magic, what we once thought to be true. The shoalin can imagine themselves a darpa. They can force themselves to see what they want. This system is just that anyone can, but it's about understanding how you could. It's... Impossible but only if you say it is. Anything can be... But humans are creatures that don't always focas on that... And there are so many and their mortal... The immortal ones have the time, but are rejected, outcast. And not all powers are this way. Some use it to make ki like energy known as korona. Others believe in evolution and thus their bloodline has become mutant, not unlike the X-Men but rather than one gene, it's more of nature's turn to change again. Creatures have always evolved. My story just says that evolution is an adaptation, a choice almost, a reaction. Change, growth... It's all the same source. And the universe is alive, and it has a mind. Mortals create concepts and they become real to various degrees. Thus we would create gods, and culture. It is the very system that every old story has. It speaks of what you see before you in life... With a bit of superhero stuff. Magic is also there, casting spells. Blood magic even, vampires. But the truth is... The power itself was always within usm we are all made of stardust my child...

Shilling your own books as examples for magic systems instead of giving a well known pop culture example was unfathomably cringe.

Bruh i just went out for 2 hours with a sketchbook instead of a phone and saw the difference _immediately_ I normally walk with music on and vibe to it, but there's something special about silence or ambience. It's also easier to start a conversation Only issue is that I've walked with music for so long, that shit just loops in my head over and over

Villain who doesn't think of them self as a villain? That's EVERY villain. Nobody sees themselves as villains. That doesn't make them morally gray. In reality, very few people are truly morally gray, and most of the ones who are, suffer from some sort of psychological condition, such as sociopathy or psychopathy. Writing such characters in a way that doesn't come across as a bit childish, is very difficult, and usually, when you encounter characters like that, they are extremely predictable and they server the direct purpose of being "the cool" character for immature young adult men to latch onto. Also, any sufficiently hard magic system, is indistinguishable from science ^^

David eddings series has my favorite magic system, can do almost anything but other magic users hear its uses, you commit to the magic so it will work or use soo much energy it will kill you, they have to be careful when they use it but when they do it can be anything

Thing is, the phrase "warriors rarely fought without respect" is informative and cannot be replaced with positive "warriors fought with respect". That changes the idea. For example, "I rarely skip my breakfast" is informative, it means I have regular breakfast, I may choose to skip it but it happens rarely. Choosing to say "I have my breakfast" destroys several ideas. I no longer tell if it's regular, if I skip any and the word "rarely" has no inverse word. "Often" is not the same. "Almost always" is longer and doesn't tell us if it's my decision or if someone interrupts me. And the same with warriors. They rarely fought without respect. It happened, but rarely. But I get the idea. Always think about your phrases, if it's necessary to say all that or if it could be shortened and filtered from complications.

2:21 I understand this one, but I actually find filler episodes in shows beautiful and engaging because they have in purpose, but in a novel it would feel really out of place and is not the place for filler or downtime episodes, aside from the quiet parts that actually make sense for the story.

"Morally gray" is so overused these days. For some reason a lot of people seem to think that morally gray is more realistic, but most people are not morally gray. I think teenagers, or those who should be adult, but haven't really matured yet, think that "morally gray" is cool and edgy, but it SO easily feels really predictable and tryhard.

Another limitation could be an environmental cost of using magic saps the magic from the surroundings leaving either boiling areas when using water magic, or freezing areas for flame magic, or infertile areas when using a lot of magic, or curses that the people who live there need to deal with etc (like radiation after a nuclear reaction) Also, magic without limitations may not always be simple. What if magic is prevalent and the characters need to overpower others who also don't have limitations, but more power, or the characters need to detect the magic that is being used to combat the situation like monster outbreaks.

I feel like this video could have been more in depth or lead people to more community rescources. Instead its just an advertisement for his writing course (even if the course is good, the reputation of youtuber courses taints it).

So Basically... Black Clover is the worst piece of fiction ever created. Literally fucked up ever single thing said here.

Being in a group of writers with the intent to learn/grow would accelerate almost anyone's writing career.

Dont squander what the audience really want (Drizzt book readers will know what i mean re the return of a major older character, the potential wonderful reunion, and the whole payoff just not given to us.). Stop with constant run-on sentences (Greenwood). Actually have a plot (Sigh, Greenwood). Dont let a writer drop the ball in a multi-author book series, ive seen that way too much. Editors do your job. Dont have the focus of a book split between 2 or more major sets of characters, where it takes far too long to return to what the principle characters are doing. Actially have a proper outro/ resolution of plot points and characters at the end of a book. I just read one where it seemed like the writer just ran out of ink. Dont force a romance on the principle hero with 'love interests ' who seem only there to nitpick , 2nd guess and tell them what to do (Salvatore..just when we had got rid of one, he saddles Drizzt with another.).