Annoying Fantasy Clichés?

I’m writing a fantasy book, and I want to stay away from too many annoying clichés. What are some clichés that annoy you the most, and why? -[name_u]Sidney[/name_u]

P.S. My main characters are ten years old. Thanks @anon73426543 for bringing it to my attention that I should probably have included that.

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Love triangles- they are always used and most people expect them but I find them annoying and tiresome- so you might want to avoid those. :blush:

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Thank you. I wasn’t going to do anything of the sort being as my main characters are ten-year-olds, but thanks!

Ah okay!:joy: silly me!

No, it’s fine! You wouldn’t have known unless I said so on my first post. (Thinking about going back and fixing that)

I have “four”. I put that in quotes because there’s:

Ila- temperamental, often told she looks and acts younger than ten but then she opens her mouth (as in, basically a “kid genius” with severe pyrophobia and a mental age of like seven)
Lessy- kind, pacifist, always has [name_f]Ila[/name_f]’s best interests at heart, struggles to live up to people’s expectations (her mother is really famous for being a pyrokinetic prodigy)
[name_f]Becka[/name_f]- bossy, basically [name_f]Zoie[/name_f]’s antagonist
[name_f]Zoie[/name_f]- quiet but has a small temper, very skilled with her hands (for a second when I was naming her I considered a boy named [name_u]Dexter[/name_u] who was ironically left-handed but then I realized that wouldn’t make sense to non-name-nerds)

The story’s told alternatively from Lessy’s then [name_f]Zoie[/name_f]’s points of view.
What do you think?

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Thanks!

So, not cliché?

That’s totally not cliche! And your story sounds very interesting I love the whole pyrokinetic theme! Good luck writing it!:grin:

Thanks. Yeah, they’re not all pyrokinetics ([name_f]Ila[/name_f] and Lessy are cryokinetics) but it is centered around pyrokinesis because of [name_f]Ila[/name_f]’s pyrophobia and Lessy’s mother.

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@caramel107 thanks so much! I’m going to go read those.

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Since your protagonists are kids, I’m not going to list my number one pet peeve in any sort of adventure story (treating the death of side characters or evil henchman as unimportant, even with a very moral protagonist), but things that sound helpful for your story…
-Side characters without any motivations but helping the protagonist (they can help the protagonist, but still have their own goals)
-Putting each character into a specific role, instead of sharing traits and nuances
-Ignoring the existence of a character’s family, or killing them off just to get them out of the way. There are a lot of orphan hero stories that kill off the family to give the main character freedom, but I think it can be overdone if not balanced carefully

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Thanks for the points. Lessy and [name_f]Ila[/name_f]’s friend group is actually based off of my friend group, so I’m trying to give them all goals like that of my friends. For example, I have a character named Korah (the spelling was on purpose, I don’t actually like it though) who is based off of my friend [name_f]Paige[/name_f]. So I’m going to give Korah attributes of [name_f]Paige[/name_f].

As for the character’s family, a lot of my main characters are only children because it’s a thing where they live. If you know what I mean? (if you don’t, just ask)

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Do any of the characters have parents?

This is completely and totally random but the one thing that always gets to me in fantasy novels is when they have a ‘brave’ or ‘loyal’ horse who sticks around or protects them. Horses are cowards. Being prey animals, they’d sooner step on your skull, flee and never return than they would protect you from any kind of danger. I don’t even know if you have horses in your story but there you go lol.

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Yes, Lessy has a mom and dad.
[name_f]Ila[/name_f] has a mom
[name_f]Becka[/name_f] has a mom, but she pretends she doesn’t (not because she doesn’t like her mom, but for [name_f]Zoie[/name_f]’s sake)
[name_f]Zoie[/name_f] is an orphan

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No horses, but thanks.