Top 10 Worst Fantasy Cliches

Why do they want to destroy the world? Do they have any reason or motivation for their evil plots? Complex, believable villains are very important for fantasies. If you're gonna write a good villain then make him real. Hitler and Stalin both thought they were doing the right thing. Try having your villain think he's doing the right thing too. Give him real motives and good traits.

When I see this on the page, I throw the book down. Villains should be interesting too!

This includes 'instant love' and love triangles. Most young adult fantasies involve at least one element of romance in them. If a love story plays no real part in your actual story and is only there for the sake of including romance, it'll appear contrived and unrealistic.

Not all books need romance. Sometimes in stories, romance can really ruin it. It has for me many times before.

It's either too modern, too weird or too wordy. If you're going to use modern dialogue, use it with caution. If you're going to use weird dialogue, have it make sense. And if you're going to use wordy dialogue, don't have it be too long or filled with purple prose.

When I say stereotypical characters I mean predictible and recurrent character types and traits. A few examples would be the chosen one, the wise old mentor, the feisty weapon-wielding woman and the orphan whose long-lost parents were actually royalty, making him/her heir to the throne.

Now I'm not saying you have to avoid those types of characters. If you find yourself swaying into stereotypical territory, you don't necessarily need to scrap or change characters entirely. Instead, think about what makes them truly unique, original, interesting and vital to the story. What makes them a character only you can write?

Flat, stereotypical characters can't hold up the weight of a good plot.

Because so much traditional fantasy deals with the conflict between good and evil, both readers and writers often fall into the trap of seeing heroes as purely good and 'villains' as purely evil. The fact that you're writing fantasy, not realistic fiction, does not mean your characters don't have to be realistic. They absolutely do-and to be truly realistic, they shouldn't be oversimplified.

"The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside of us."-J. K. Rowling

This is really only a cliche in certain types of fantasy, usually especially dark fantasy books are a lot less like this and show that all the characters are flawed instead of portraying the protagonist as completely good and the antagonist as completely bad. Quite a bit traditional epic fantasy is admittedly like this though, although it really just depends on the specific novel as some aren't like this.

This is almost impossible to write well, and 95% of works with this are trash.

The races in most fantasies I've witnessed are elves, dwarves, dragons, fairies and many other creatures derived from different mythologies. It's okay to include them sometimes but why not come up with your own race? We hardly ever see any tall insect-like creatures or one-eyed mollusk-like humanoids. Why not add something more imaginative and original instead of ripping off Tolkien's races?

It's all the same. Dwarves are short humans, elves are tall white people with pointy ears, orcs are green fodder, it's boring. I get that making a whole new race is hard, but you don't even have to do that! Where's the moving about the chupacabra? I wanna watch a fantasy story where the dwarves and the nuckaleeves are fighting, where the trolls are scholars or something. We need originality!

Funny thing this simple race is never humanity. If you can write diverse humans, write other races with variety!

Many fantasies often use this type of setting and it's so overused that I don't even bother going to medieval fantasy conventions anymore. At least come up with something more creative and don't reuse the same setting for every fantasy story you write.

Powerful magic objects have a rich history in fantasy fiction. While these kinds of objects provide a great magical plot point and help drive the story along, the truth is that by now they're nothing new.

If you wanna avoid this cliche then have your characters' journeys, quests and actions be the main focus of the story. That way, even if a magical object is included as an important element in your story, it'll be secondary to what really engaged the readers: the characters.

It makes me feel like all of the emotions I had through out the story was all for nothing. That it was all a waste of my time since NOTHING that happened, actually happened.

Why would the reader invest time in a completely made-up story? Why should they care?

Why should I invest my time is a simulation? Give me a reason to care.

Staying on the same world is gonna get boring after a while. Fantasy should be about being creative with your imagination. If you really are that creative then you can come up with different worlds to explore instead of just having the entire story take place on only one.

I have seen this at least 3 trillion times. It's so unoriginal but I'll admit, it's actually really hard not to include this. Every fantasy has one (most fantasies, anyway, but I haven't seen it not in a fantasy) but why not change it up, why not make the chosen one a secondary character and the protagonist their best friend or worst enemy?

Unless the race is made of hatred, death, anger, and all things bad in the world, one race being solely evil is just really annoying. Same with one being only good. Everyone everywhere is both good and bad. It takes me out of the story when I read about how the orcs are monsters who murder people and elves who are delicate pretty princesses who save people. Why not have it the other way around?

I have seen this way too many times in fantasy novels and it is incredibly unrealistic. It's like Elves = Good, Dragons = Bad and there are no exceptions for either side. Not even modern societies can pull this off. Every single elf or fairy is always kind and helpful and every single dragon or goblin is mean and greedy. Please, add more diversity!

If someone dies, leave them dead. Unless it has strong plot relevance. Any other time it makes me infuriated to see. Especially if it is a main, or the main character.

I hate it when the 'good' guys kill the 'bad' guys and they have a celebration but then it turns out that the bad guy isn't dead and they have to fight him/her agaim.

This one's not too bad but it's a little lazy. If you're really gonna create your own world then you should also think about creating your own distinct language instead of deriving a real one.