November 14, 2023 will be the 10 year anniversary of the November 14, 2013 murder of my 8 month old infant son, at BugLight Lighthouse Art Studio of Southern Maine Community College in South Portland, Maine. If you have any information about who his killer is, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207-774-9322
My Son Was Murdered, The Killer Walks Free, Your Child Could Be Next!
FAQ: What are the most visited pages on this website and how many visits do they get?
Several years ago, I wrote an article on how to write different types of magic uses, or rather how I personally write various types of magic users within the context of my Quaraun books. Today that page is one of my top ten most visited articles. It gets 50 to 500 views/reads/hits/visits per day depending on the time of the years and has had over 200k visits total since it was published.
Amphibious Aliens: Debunking The Atwater Family's Alien Abduction Hoax with more then 30MILLION reads since 2007 and The GoldenEagle: Debunking Stephen King's World's Most Haunted Car Hoax with over tenMILLION reads since 2007 still rank as the two most visited articles on my website, but, neither of those are writing related.
Writing Medieval Servants is my most visited writing related article with over 7MILLION reads.
This website was started in 1996 and has 1 to 3 new articles (all written by me, I am the only writer on this site) published almost daily. In 2017 we crossed ten thousand articles published. As of 2023, EACH article gets MINIMUM 10 to 70 reads PER DAY, with the high traffic articles getting 500+ reads per day.
And since December 2019, my website now gets three hundred thousand to 7 million reads per month - well over ONE HUNDRED MILLION PAGE READS PER YEAR, making it not only the single most trafficked site in the State of Maine, but also one of the most visited websites in ALL OF NEW ENGLAND!
{{{HUGS}}} Thank you to all my readers for making this possible!
How can I write fantasy novel with elves and wizards that's not LOTR?
Uhm...if you wrote it, why would it be Lord of the Rings? You planning on plagiarizing it or something? I find your question somewhat confusing and baffling.
Are you afraid that you'll be tempted to write the same story, because you read Lord of the Rings and it is your favorite book?
You are not clear with your details. In fact, you've given no details at all, so I've really nothing to go on. You've given me one sentence with errors.
Why can't you just think of a story and write it? Why does it have to be anything other than your own creation?
You know, it's very much annoying me that you don't know to capitalize races. The words Elf, Elfs, Elves, Elflings, and Elvish should always be capitalized.
You also did not capitalize your genre, and you used abbreviations and you used a contraction in non-dialogue. Quite a few errors for just one sentence.
We as writers make mistakes, sure, but we should at least have a basic grasp on Grammar rules, enough to write a single sentence.
You are worrying about writing a novel that'll get mistaken for someone else's novel, but you don't even have a basic grasp on Grammar rules. There are four grammar rules you've ignored in your question, and that's just one sentence. If you have this much trouble with one sentence, how will you write a novel to begin with.
Harsh, yes, but, it shows that you've yet to sit down and write ANYTHING.
You have no practice in the art of writing, you have no knowledge of how to write, and you are already jumping ahead and worrying about writing a story similar to someone else's.
You have plenty of years to worry about that. Get some writing practice in first. Learn Grammar. Figure out the basics of storytelling. Then you can focus on writing your story, and then in 3 or 4 years, AFTER you've learned grammar, written a book, and edited and revised it a few times, THEN you can start worrying about your novel vs someone else's novel.
Horse before the cart and all that, you know?
But let's answer your question directly.
Uhm... you want to write a Fantasy novel.
You want to include Elves.
And you want to include Wizards.
You are afraid it'll be too much like Lord of the Rings.
Though I'm not sure why.
And you asked me.
Why?
Why did you ask me specifically? Because I write Elves and wizards who are nothing like LOTRs?
Is it because I write Fantasy? About Elves? And Wizards? But it's not like Lord of the Rings?
I write Fantasy.
I write Elves.
I write Wizards.
But I suppose the real question here is, is what I write like Lord of the Rings?
I don't know, let's find out...
Let's go and take a look at what it is I write...
It's about a transvestite wizard Elf who dresses like a female Liberace and whose primary lover is a purple Unicorn and secondary lover is a half-Elf/half-Demon who from the waist up looks like an Elf, but he keeps his legs and feet hidden because he has the legs and hooves of a Cotswold sheep, with long silkie white wool.
They are three Wizards.
One an Elf.
One a Faerie Horse.
One a half-Elf/half-Demon.
All three of them are horny as fuck, and spend an inordinate amount of time interrupting the plot by stopping to fuck each other.
“I don't think this is a good idea,” Quaraun whispered shakily.
“Why?”
“Unicorn. He'll kill us both if he found out. He's so violent. You don't know him. You don't know what he's like. You don't know his temper or how possessive he is of me.”
“Sometimes, it's good to live dangerously,” GhoulSpawn said as he shook Quaraun's hand off and began removing his own clothes.
“GhoulSpawn...”
“Shhhh,” GhoulSpawn hushed and leaned forward to kiss Quaraun softly over his open mouth, preventing any further objections from being spoken.
Quaraun felt the thick curly wool of GhoulSpawn's legs, brush against him. Quaraun forced GhoulSpawn off him.
"You're a sheep!"
"You knew that."
"Uhm... I... wow... I don't think I realized what that... oh my god. You're an actual sheep! You've never let me see you're legs before. I suppose this goes a long way towards explaining your sheep rescuing fetish."
Quaraun stared at GhoulSpawn, awed by what he saw. He had known GhoulSpawn was a Uruisg, and thus only looked like an Elf from the waist up and from the waist down was very clearly a Cotswold ram. Thick eight to twelve inch long curls of fluffy ivory white wool covered GhoulSpawn's hips and legs. His legs were not shaped like a man's, but instead had the deep curves of sheep legs. GhoulSpawn had no feet. Where there should have been feet, there were a pair of glossy black sheep hooves.
“Can I touch your fur?”
“Yeah.”
“It is so soft.”
“Are you any specific type of sheep?”
“Cotswold.”
“Your fleece is beautiful.”
GhoulSpawn’s fleece hung in locks, and the fibres had a lustrous, silky sheen and a slightly golden coloured wool. Quaraun’s hand wandered from petting the long curls, of GhoulSpawn’s legs, to stroking the short tight curls on his scrotum.
"Your balls are huge."
"Yeah. I'm a sheep from the waist down."
"You have the testicles of a ram."
"Yeah."
"I can see why women like you. Balls like that must swing quite a bit when you're fucking someone."
"It's easy for you to find out."
"You want to fuck me."
"Very much."
~From "GhoulSpawn and The Lich Lord's Lover" (Volume 22 of The Quaraun Series)
“I hate women.”
“Really? Wouldn't know it to look at you.”
“I resent that.”
“Why? It's the truth. You hate women, but you spend all your time trying to be one.”
“I am not trying to...”
“You're wearing a dress, Quaraun. A pink, beaded, embroidered, silk saree. And you paint your lips and your eye lids, and you have feathers glued to your eyelashes, and your hair is longer then Lady Godiva's. And pink, Quaraun. Did I mention pink? Pink. Look at you. You’re... pink!”
“I like pink.”
“You have pink feathers glued to your eyelashes.”
“What is wrong with that?”
“Your dress and lips are pinker then my hair is yellow. And Unicorn's right about those ridiculous earrings.”
“What is wrong with my earrings?”
“You look like a female earring merchant! Quaraun, your ears are foot tall over your head, and there isn't one space that isn't pierced, all the way from the bottom to the top. Have you looked at your ears in a mirror.”
“Are ya kidding? Him do never stop look in mirror,” Unicorn stated.
“That's true. He's right, we can't get you away from mirrors...”
“I am beautiful,” Quaraun said as he pulled out a silver mirror to look at himself with.
“And what you look like is all you care about. You don’t care about anything else.”
“I am the most beautiful creature on the planet.”
“We know, Quaraun. Every one knows. You are the most beautiful thing on the planet. We know. We don't need you to remind us. Quaraun, what would you do if something happened to your face?”
“Him would become hermit un never let any one look at him.”
“That’s true. Unicorn’s right. You would.”
“Apologize,” Quaraun demanded.
“For what?”
“For insulting me.”
“Why?”
“I am your king.”
“King?”
“Yes.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“King? King? Ha ha! King! You! Ha ha! Ooooooh that's hilarious. You a king! Woo hoo! Ha ha! King! Ho heh ha ha ha!”
GhoulSpawn was suddenly laughing uncontrollably. Unicorn, knowing Quaraun's temper was about to flare up, tried very hard to resit laughing with the Sun Elf, but he wasn't very successful in the endeavour.
“Stop encouraging him,” Quaraun growled at the Phooka.
“I can'na helps it. Him be right. Ya looks nothing like king. Queen, maybe, but king? No!”
“You can't be a king,” GhoulSpawn said between laughter and tears. “You're too busy being a very shallow, quintessential, ditsy, damsel in distress, pink Princess without anything important to do but look pretty all day long. We should give you a mirror, lock you in a tower and rename you Rapunzel, your hair's long enough.”
GhoulSpawn continued laughing and was nearly to the point of falling over.
Quaraun glared at the half-Elf then spun around and snarled at the Human girl the three of them had been ignoring since her arrival.
“What do you want?”
~From "GhoulSpawn and The Lich Lord's Lover" (Volume 22 of The Quaraun Series)
They live in a Steampunk style universe set mostly in the 900s and 1400s and 1970s and the year 2525, in Maine & Quebec, where there exists portals to castles in Scotland, portals to the past (such as Ancient Egypt and Persia) portals to the future (such as the time they went head to head against 1920s rum running gangsters) and some portals zip them across the galaxy where they meet Lovecraft inspired squid headed aliens.
They frequently find themselves in a White Rock's insane asylum in the year 2525, when the world is on the brink of self destruction as the moon come hurtling towards the Earth.
They sometimes travel with a half-Dwarf/half-Troll and sometimes with a Vampire Leprechaun, and sometimes with green skinned, pink haired Flower Gnomes.
Several times they visit the North Pole to make attempts at rescuing the enslaved Cookie Elves from the sweat shop slave factories of the evil red robed Leprechaun Santa Claus who obsessively gives shoes to children and his blood thirsty Phookan partner Krumpas who obsessively eats children.
The creature races include Phookas, FarDarrings, EachUsty, Ghuillie Dhu, Tweegs, and other creatures from Scottish mythology. They fly around the world on a purple pirate ship named The-Rent-A-Prize, Captained by a Gnome named Quirk with his first officer Schlock, and a parrot named Dr Macaw. Some of the villains fly around in Zeppelins. Other villains ride in on ice powered stealth ships and shot 1960s style ray guns.
Humans are always evil, and in spite of it being the 1400s are armed with 20th century guns. In this version of Maine & Quebec, taverns and wild west saloons can be found in every city, yes, Maine & Quebec are teaming with cities in this alternate version of the 1400s Earth.
And the most feared Necromancer on the planet is scared of dead things and faints at the sight of blood and has a fetish for being tied to trees and BDSM tortured by Unicorns.
The Universe is ruled by talking cats, who are trying to find The Grand High Emperor of the Triple Planets, who is a Pink Necromancer who long ago was murdered by a tiny pink jelly fish from outer space that ate his brain and now lives in his head and controls his body.
The cats are being hunted by 8 foot tall bird men from Planet Ptarmagin, who live in gold plated palaces on top of floating islands, and toss their victims to the surface below, into the mushroom forest when mushrooms grow 100 feet tall and the deadliest thing you'll meet are man eating fuzzy caterpillars 30 feet long and cute fluffy, fuzzy wuzzy, blood sucking bunny rabbits.
Does that sound like Lord of the Rings to you?
I don't know.
Do you want to know why I don't know?
I have never read Lord of the Rings.
Shocking.
Yes.
I know.
So, I have no idea if the Fantasy I write is anything like Lord of the Rings or not, seeing how I don't know what Lord of the Rings is.
I am however a Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master who ran a SpellJammer session for well over a decade and kept detailed game session notes of every game and later used those notes to create the novels of the series mentioned above.
And there you have it: how I wrote an entire series of Fantasy novels that is NOT Lord of the Rings and yet, still has Elves and wizards in it.
The thing of it is, if you want to write a story, just do it. Just sit your ass down and write.
Create characters.
Build a world for them to live in.
Then write stories about their lives.
That's all you have to do.
Sitting around worrying that you are writing too much like this or that author, is nothing but you being lazy. It's you sitting around thinking up reasons NOT to write. It's you procrastinating. It's you not writing.
There comes a time when you eventually have to stop lazing your ass around, coming up with excuses why you shouldn't write.
The difference between you and all the published authors in the world is simple: they sat down and wrote a book, while you sat down and cam up with excuses why to not write a book.
Well, the above article, rant, or whatever you want to call it was written a year ago. Today is January 27, 2018 and over on Reddit I have found this same question asked differently, so I'm gonna update this page and add this to the end of it seeing how it fits and is more or less the same topic.
>>When writing in a medieval/fantasy setting, how appropriate is it to use the same terms George R. R. Martin uses so famously in his books?
Heads to Google to find out who he is.
...
Aha. Game of Thrones. Never read it. From what I've heard, it sounds incredibly boring. I've no interest in political intrigue or war.
>>Words like nuncle, your grace, mayhaps, name day, etc.
These are actual words from Medieval times. If he's using them in his work, I applaud him for his devotion to historical accuracy. It's rarely seen in Fantasy works. I wish more authors had that kind of initiative.
>>But every time I want to describe a garment as roughspun, or boiled leather, or say someone is wearing a leather jerkin or a tunic, I can’t help but feel like a fraud.
SIGH
I have a degree in Fashion History. I focused on 1300s to 1500s. These words were a part of everyday life. Again, if he's using them in his work, I applaud him for his devotion to historical accuracy. It's rarely seen in Fantasy works. I wish more authors had that kind of initiative.
>>How to Not Emulate GRRM?
Well, not having read his books. I don't know.
But reading your description, it sounds to me like he's a history buff and put a lot of work and effort into researching the real world language and names of real world items from Medieval times.
Now, if YOU are ONLY using the EXACT same words he used... well, yeah, you are copying him. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, until you start using words that he DID create, without realizing you are doing so because you yourself didn't do enough research to know which words are real and which he made up.
And what happens when he is using a real life word, but NOT using it in a real life meaning? And then YOU use it the same way he did?
The simple solution here is to do your research. Fall in love with the history of the era you want to write about a research everything you can about it. Maybe consider getting a degree in it. That's what I did. It's actually not uncommon for authors to get history degrees that focus on the time period they plan to write about. Lots of authors do it.
If you are using the term boiled leather... have you considered the limited access people had to it? And how expensive it was? Or how difficult it is to make? Those things are important. Consider the blunder you make when you have a peasant or serf wearing it. Sumptuary laws prevented certain classes from wearing certain items. Readers WILL notice.
If you are going to use niche words from historical eras, you would do best to choose those words based off actual research of how those words were used, rather then just randomly using the words you saw some other author use. Just think how you'll feel if you use a word the way some other author did only to find out later that author was using the word wrong?
>>Particular expressions and terminology like mummer's farce, ser and anything else that is deeply ingrained into the culture of his world but still unique to it are things you'd want to avoid, as well as anything very particular to Martin's voice.
>>mummer's farce
not sure how he is using it, but mummer was a real drug used in Medieval times and mummer's farce means "to have a hallucination" ; I used both terms in one of my books published in 1987; so it's not unique to him either, unless he's using it somehow that is dramatically different.
mummer continued to be used into the 1920s
mummer is made by taking an Egyptian mummy (thus the name) and grinding it into a powder, then snuffing it up your nose; it caused LSD like hallucinations, because a fungus that is found in mummies
mummer is the reason tombs in Egypt were grave robed so heavily from Medieval era into the 1930s
The Space Dock 13 WebRing
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What do you want to become?
What did you do today to step closer to that goal?
Whatever you do, be your best at it!
And remember to have yourself a great and wonderfully glorious day!
~EK
EelKat.com
pinterest.com/eelkat/
Evil men go out of their way to try to drive a person to suicide.
Are you an evil man?
Are you sure you're not?
How many people have YOUR hate filled words killed?
Next time you go to do a mean thing to a fellow human, stop and really think about the consequences of your actions.
Did you ever notice how every one has a story to tell about me, yet not one of them ever speaks the truth?
What lies has YOUR gossiping tongue spread about me?
Did you know...
October 16, 2006, bomb blew up my house because of YOUR lies.
August 8, 2013, the house which replaced the one the bomb blew up, was driven over by a backhoe.
November 14, 2013, my 8 month old infant son was murdered because of your lies.
November 14, 2013, I was beaten up, paralized for 5 months, spent 18 weeks relearning to walk, I'm now crippled for the rest of my life, because of YOUR lies.
Are you proud of what you have done?
Enjoy your eternity in Hell. You earned it. You've certainly worked hard for it.
~EelKat
If you have any information about any of these events, please call FBI Agent Andy Drewer at 207-774-9322
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