Fantasy

Most of the other genres already have one, so we should have one too!

Have your characters go on a huge quest for a magical object
BP the quest is a sub plot, not the main plot
TBP if the object turns out to be useless because all it does is make cheese
QBP it it is actually useful because it makes cheese
Cookies if the object really helps save the day by making cheese

So that we don't clutter up the forum with dozens of writing buddy requests, here's a single, consolidated thread to post your requests!

Note: Please don't post excerpts in this thread. That's what your profile is for; pepole can just click on your name in the forums to see if they're interested.

Fantasy is such a far-reaching label that it simply can't cover all the possibilities. Here you'll find a comprehensive listing of those who aren't writing just fantasy!

NOUN: A subcategory within a particular genre: The academic mystery is a subgenre of the mystery novel.

• Arthurian Fantasy
• Comedic Fantasy
• Contemporary Fantasy
• Fantasy Mystery/Thriller/Spy-fi
• Historical Fantasy
• Urban Fantasy
• Steampunk
• Sword and Planet
• Sword and Sorcery
• Young Adult Fantasy
• The New Weird

Okay, now that November is over, we're going to open this up for you to post your own links. :)

I've yet to see anything regarding Golems, and i'm just curious on my fellow Nanoer's ideas on the subject.

What do you think of when you first hear of a 'Golem'?

When I think of a Golem, I think of a large structure made of stone or metal, of anywhere between human height to gargantuan proportions (say the size of a small building), with varying builds; it could be the shape of a human or, say, a spider; regardless, i think of them as alive. I don't see them as puppets to a magician in which they have no life force of their own; I see them as real beings with their own life force.

I'm just throwing my idea out here for how golems would work: The desired body is made of rock or metal or other material, made with joints and other required pieces to move and function, and then life force is tethered to the body, giving it life. This can be life force taken directly from Essence (the 'pure' energy plane in which the building block energy of all things is (from my story)), or from another. (obviously if i take one person's life force and use it in this fashion, the person's body dies, though they live on in the golem.)

Exceptions to the joint rule could be if a life force is engineered specifically to hold the body together on it's own, though it would require great skill to bend life force in such a manner. They can think and act of their own free will unless magically bound or otherwise controlled, and their intelligence varies depending on several factors. They can have emotions and 'feel' in that sense, though physical feeling would be very difficult to achieve; it would require rare magical talent.

Obviously my idea of Golems revolves in part around magic and life. What kind of ideas do you have regarding Golems?

My 2 MC starts off as enemies. One is a warlord that invaded and took over MC#2's land. MC#2 is the heir of the land, and is also a military captian. Why would the warlord want to keep MC#2 around after the invasion? I need to be together somehow cause eventually they will ban together to fight a greater evil. If MC#2 is integrated into the warlord's army... how would the warlord ensure MC#2 wouldn't sabotage him? Some kind of hostage situation?

I've thought of some ideas... but none got me far. Argh!!!!

My next fantasy novel will only contain one scene with any sexual stuff. The background is as follows:

The heroine, who is 16 years old, has sneaked into a city and lives on the street. She has tried to work as a begger and as a thief but without success. She has no money and is hungry. Then she gets the idea to work as a whore. She meets a man and they make some kind of deal and walk off to do some "stuff". Now there are two possible scenarios:

1. She gives him a blow job but she thinks it's gross and when he wants to have vaginal sex she changes her mind and refuses. Later she might get some symptoms of oral herpes.
2. She changes her mind early and doesn't give him a blow-job, so they have no sexual activity at all.

Personally I would prefer scenario 1 but as the novel has no other sexual content at all I'm thinking that maybe I should go with scenario 2 to make the novel sex-free and thus make it readable for younger people and for sensitive people who don't want to read about such things. I'm also wondering if she is too young to be described as involved in any sexual activites. On the other hand there is a lot of horrible violence and wounds in the novel so it might not be for younger people anyway.

What do you think?

Hi there.

I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with a religion for my country. I have very basic ideas of what the religion needs to achieve, but that's about it.

First, it has to focus on sexual energy. It understands sexual energy as the first force: not necessarily the thing that created the entire universe, but certainly the thing that created the world in which my culture lives.

Second, it has to laud heterosexual sex over homosexual sex. This is an easy problem to resolve, since heterosexual sex affords for creation and homosexual sex does not. I do, however, have to find some sort of reason or origin for the lauding of creation over non-creation. After all, if we're building a sex-based religion, you would think that the sex itself would be its own excuse for being, right?

Third, it has to afford for the development of a slavery based largely on sexual gratification... and the slavery has to be strictly same-sex based, so men have male sex slaves and females have female sex slaves. Again, I'm thinking I can probably link this back to the importance of creation, of having pregnancy be the highest form of worship and something to be shared only with the person's (opposite-sexed) monogamous life partner....

I need a way to keep different-sex, open-to-procreation sex in the religious realm and same-sex, sex-for-getting-off's-sake to be encouraged by the religion but kept OUTSIDE of any idea of religious worship, etc.

Basically, I need this religion to explain the following:

1) Why my culture has same-sex sex slaves strictly for sexual gratification

2) Why my culture insists on a monogamous opposite-sex life-partner EVEN WHILE it supports an avid, indulgent sex life away from that life-partner (but only with sex slaves, and then only with same-sex slaves, and then only with YOUR same-sex slaves, not your neighbor's)

I'm also curious as to what you think the repercussions of this type of religion/life would have on a culture.

I'm a Christian, so nothing with sex or a lot of profanity.
Any other ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

In my dragon-based fantasy, the mainland needs some form of communication with the dragon compound a few miles out in the bay. In fact, the entire country on the mainland needs a way of communicating that isn't reliant on the dragons themselves. Electricity is out, and fire beacons don't communicate specifics or work in wet weather. Those are the few ideas I've had but I can't progress writing until I figure this part out.

So, I've started a new novel, and it starts out with the main characters being tested for entrance into a magical school. They're not going to stay there very long, at least I haven't planned for them to, but it still feels like I'm starting my story with a cliche. Are magic schools too done, do you think?