I once saw someone say that “a bowl of Mac and cheese” fits the ‘a BLANK of BLANK and BLANK’ pattern and now that’s all I can think of when I hear those titles
My least favorite trend is the "I love him even tho he's kinda shady because he's just so hot." Oh, his arms, oh his shoulders....he maybe killed my sister, but, oh, his beautifully distrusting eyes...
There are actually some cozy fantasy regency romance ones that are more like the classic folk and fairytales where they are legitimately terrifying and alien but also just…sad. Half a Soul is the first one
The Dresden Files aren't focused on them but have some of my favorite depictions of them; in part because like the folklore they vary wildly. A faerie godmother that is somewhat horrifying and you wouldn't want, courts based on seasons (yet are not the only fae), interactions full of all the sorts of lying-via-truth and pleasantry traps from old stories.
Rosemary and Rue by Seannan McGuire is like that, too. Focuses on a Changeling that can't hold a decent regular job in the human world because the fae call her away for unspecified and unannounced periods of time to do lackey work. It just sounded unglamorous and all-too-real.
As a fifty four year old woman who's been reading fantasy since I was 14 I am way effin over having to SLOG through romance novels shelved with fantasy to find *actual* fantasy novels to read. It p!ss3s me ALLLLLLLL the way off
It's not even just fantasy, I find it a lot in thrillers too. And if it was only a side plot, I wouldn't care that much, but half the time it's legitimately their priority. The world is about to end, maybe you wanna quit staring at this guy's abs and do something about that, just a thought.
As an aspiring author who's going to use ai to dramatize my works, I hear your concerns and look forward to trying to sell you my product and associated merchandise. 😅
The thing that bothers me, and has for awhile, is how trope-heavy YA is. The plot, the writing, the worldbuilding, the character-building, everything comes secondary to "enemies to lovers," "grumpy vs. sunshine," "but there was only one bed," "love triangle" etc. YA fantasy gets a bad rap, which is a shame because there's some great stuff out there. I just wish tropes weren't quite as important as they seem to be.
But don’t you think that makes sense? It’s a demographic of people who are coming out of children’s books where tropes ARE the story, and they mostly exist to teach a lesson… I feel like YA books being tropey isn’t a problem, it should be expected.
@@raquelmarcalsantos I get where you're coming from, but I think YA should put tropes secondary to other things that makes stories wonderful. You should be able to come back to a fantastic YA at any age and appreciate it. So many people reread their old books and say "oh, I loved this back then, but not now." If tropes were more secondary, than good YA would simply be a good book, for any age.
@@hazelphoenix203 well, I guess… but I think if it’s a good book, even if its tropey, it’ll be nice to come back to. I still love and reread some of my favorites from when I was a teen, and they’re pretty tropey: Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Eragon, The Golden Compass… they’re all YA and I still love to reread them, even though they all lean very heavily on some tropes.
It's also increasingly present in adult books, especially in romance and fantasy. There's nothing wrong with tropes but since they've become a convenient marketing tool I think they often take the forefront of a book instead of plot, character building or world building. Somtimes it feels like the goal of some books is to showcase beloved tropes to make it sell and not to tell a story.
@@raquelmarcalsantos where in children's books are tropes the story? All the middle grade I read is more inventive, interesting, creative and less shallow and tired than majority of the YA I had to read through. And the protagonists are often reading more mature, balanced and intelligent too. Middle grade authors seem to aim at more than just checking of a list. To me YA looses the intelligence and wisdom you can find in middle grade and replaces it with half assed concepts, tropes and insufferable, dumbed down characters more often than not. There might be some good series far and above the average but the average quality of YA seems lower than in middle grade.
One author who writes Faeries very well is Holly Black. She makes them creepy and dark tricksters who sadistically treat humans as toys and yes eat them. Mermaids/siren stories are really cool too when they are portrayed as monsters.
Yes! I grew up reading her Modern Faerie Tales series and loved them all to bits, and eventually fell off of reading fantasy for a while when I got older. Now that I'm trying to get back into the genre, it's irritating to see what the faerie trope has devolved into. It's really a shame
This speaks to me from like ten years ago. I remember going into a bookstore and reading all the YA fantasy blurbs. It was like a Mad Lib. "SPICY FEMALE TEEN PROTAGONIST" goes to "FANTASY LOCATION" and meets "HOT FANTASY GUY". Will blank be able to blank the blank? I walked out without buying anything. I wasn't writing that kind of stuff and despaired for about ten years. Hearing everybody's tired of it is good to hear.
Same. I haven't purchased a storybook in at least a decade because of this, and have been getting my fantasy stories through other mediums, or writing and drawing them myself.
I think that some of the “smut in YA” books come from books that aren’t really YA being called YA because they have similar pacing and tropes to YA books. Also SMJ is everywhere.
There was also, at least for a while, a whole movement where some people were trying really hard to say that it isn't authors' jobs to censor what is or isn't put in books not even for younger readers-claiming it's the job of younger readers, or their parents, to manage their own reading content; since some teens can handle more things than others can, or whatever. Nevermind that it's kind of ridiculous to blabketly expect every younger reader to be able to tolerate reading the same things, or even fully know everything that could be in stuff and/or what their own personal limits are or aren't yet, just because there are some who can/do. That's a much more realistic general expectation of adults than for younger audiences who are relatively still just starting out in the world, and still learning about things and themselves, comparatively(even though there are of course still exceptions sometimes even amongst adults). ((Nevermind the age-old debate of how young is too young for smutty-times or smutty-content, in general, anyhow. 15? 16? 17? Hence why the Age-of-Consent and all varies so widely from one place to another, even just with the USA.)) Buut, yeeaahhh, things getting labeled or shelved as YA when they legitimately really aren't is also a problem-&/or having been written originally not as YA but then being reworked to be YA before being published because someone thought that was the demographic that story would appeal to most, or being published later on in a lengthier series that started as YA but kinda ages its content up along with its original readers rather than staying at them same level for every book from the series start to finish. OR that have only been retroactively labeled as YA, in hindsight, for literally no reason other than that it featured younger protagonists(even though books can be abour younger characters and still target adult audiences rather than aiming at young audiences because of certain themes or topics they're tackling/examining or whatever).
I think it’s honestly because YA is being pushed out more. It gets more attention, it costs a bit less than adult books (at least where I’m from), and it’s easier to sell in comparison to NA, which it should be placed under. It’s really weird nonetheless
@@BooksToAshes Plus, "New Adult" is a very new genre/category/concept/whatever...which many people don't yet know-of &/or acknowledge as an actual whole/proper/distinct thing yet.
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 Which I don't understand. I remember about 5 or so years ago there being a push for New Adult and people being excited about it and then it just poofed out of existence for some reason. So, it weirds me out that people are just now discovering it because I could have sworn this wasn't a new concept.
Me: *hoping to write a dark fae story and sweating as I wonder if that’s become overdone* 1:54 : “I don’t wanna see them fall in love, I wanna see them destroy people” Me: *sigh of relief*
In case you're serious, just write whatever you want. Fae stories have been written for centuries. If it wasn't overdone when Shakespeare did it, then you're good.
IDK why TH-cam sent me to this video while I'm watching baseball videos (I don't think the algorithm is that smart). But maybe it was to read this comment and recommend the book "Faerie Tale" by Raymond Feist. It's a great book I never hear about and it's exactly what you just described.
I feel like Fae are the new vampires. Is Sarah J Maas written as YA or marketed as YA? Sometimes it seems like the author has one view of her audience and the marketing team has another. I'm just curious.
All of her books (minus the Throne of Glass Series) have been put into the adult fantasy section at my local bookstores, so I don't know if they're even marketed as YA anymore.
they were all (minus crescent city) originally published as YA. when acotar book 4 was published (a court of silver flames), the publisher officially moved the whole series to adult, but it's still being shelved as YA some places
You are absolutely right! SJM is marketed as ya. For her acotar series, she expressed to her publisher that it needed ti be new adult, but they pushed it in ya because they knew it would sell.
Technically, ACOTAR should have never been in YA. MC’a age, etc takes it out of that classification. So I honestly think it landed in YA because of Throne of Glass being legitimately YA.
I am all for a designated “fantasy romance” genre to emerge. I am one of those girlies that needs more than just a romance, but often I get tired of just fantasy. Depending on my mood, I will verge deeper into fantasy or romance sometimes, but “fantasy romance” is definitely my comfort place/home base/happy place
This! I much prefer my romances to be mixed with another genre, like fantasy romance, paranormal romance, or lately I've started reading gothic romances. But just plain romance? Nah. A book with no romance? Also not for me. Give me more half genres!
Try Ilona Andrews - her Hidden Legacy series is more romance-centric than her normal urban fantasy. And Nalini Singh is a romance author that has amazing world-building in both her series (Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter).
If you’re looking for a book you should read “A dance of thieves”, it’s leaning a bit more fantasy, but the romance is beautiful! It’s my favorite so I wanted to share!
I’m kind of sick of having an entirely “morally gray” cast. Believe me, books like Six Of Crows and Cruel Prince handle it wonderfully, but I’m so sick of everyone being a horrible person. That’s what I appreciated so much about Realmbreaker. Yeah you had a few morally gray character (Mainly Sorasa). But watching characters like Dom and Andrey was nice because I missed idealistic good people. We’re so obsessed with darkness and angst and I don’t entirely get the hype anymore.
I think SoC handled it well because they're not entirely morally gray. I mean, Wylan constantly being like 'what the hell am I doing here' and really not wanting to kill people, Matthias who is very religious and very sweet (for example towards Alys when they kidnapped her lmao) and literally calling them out 'You're all horrible'. I think only Kaz is almost entirely morally gray.
I agree! When i read the way of kings and _absolutely_ loved Kaladin, who is innately a good person, i was like "why do i not see more characters like this absolutely amazing person that i now devote my heart to?" I also am kind of tired of darkness and angst and also- sad endings. Shocking sad twists and endings. They can be done incredibly well and be satisfying and i do enjoy that, but i just want happy endings, or at least peaceful endings. For a character like kaladin, i want him to get everything he deserves and not lose anything else anymore for example. I want the characters to get what they want/need. Idk i just see too many people on the internet _wanting_ characters ro die and have bad endings like- why?? And then they tend to also say "this isn't disney" which is concerning if you think about it they are basically saying happiness is only for children? Idk i'm just afraid that if this gets wider i won't be able to find stories with happy endings anymore haha. Hopefully not.
@@zynpkrdg People who say happy endings are for children, are people who got old and bitter before they finished growing up--or aren't interested in making other people happy.
@@zynpkrdg The issue shouldn't be happy vs. sad endings, but manufactured vs organic. Yes, happy endings can be shoehorned in with a ridiculous fix, but you can also manufacture a ton of bleakness for the sake of it, too!
If we're going to have really long titles in fantasy, I'd much rather they follow the Japanese Light Novel format and tell you what the book's actually about instead of being just a string of pretty but meaningless nouns
Oh no, I loathe the light novel title trend. It makes every book sound unoriginal, half-baked, and uninspired. Those titles sound like corporate products, often listing the tropes or fetishes in the title. They undersell their own books. I’m sure there are some good stories in there somewhere, but I’ll never give them a chance.
I can get behind that. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! and Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense are amazing, and their titles are at least part of what got me interested in them to begin with.
I'm just tired of fantasy romance being mixed into the regular fantasy/sci-fi section. It's like this at my favorite local bookstore, so it's hard to tell if you're going to get a fantasy book or a romance book with 10% fantasy lol.
I've thought for years, that incorrect marketing is one thing that does dirty to so many books, that are good and deserve to be appreciated. But if a fantasy romance is marketed as fantasy. Or fantasy is marketed as fantasy romance, you are just going to get disappointed readers! (Or whatever genre thing. Horror vs thriller etc)
Felt this- I generally stopped even _trying_ find non-romantic vampire books because it pretty much felt like every single one was a romance novel, with no easy way to make a distinction.
It's the same thing that happened with Twilight and vampires. Once that became insanely popular, a lot of copycat authors with YA vampires appeared and the industry followed suit-until it didn't anymore and the fad faded away.
That trend really came about because of Buffy and Anne Rice books. Before that, vampires were thin on the ground. I started reading werewolf books from around 2003-4 onwards and at the start of that there were hardly any and then werewolf books were everywhere. Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong and Sherrilyn Kenyon were around before Twilight and they all came off the back of Buffy and Anne Rice.
Yes it's exactly the same, what people are tired of is the basic sexy immortal, it's just that the new flavour of the month for that is Fae where a few years ago it was vampires. No one had a problem then with actual horror stories using vampires and no one currently has a problem with actual celtic inspired fantasy using fairies, the problem is when it's just a very shallow paintjob used to justify your creepy horny old dude.
I also believe the problem with smut in ya is down to stores not acknowledging that new adult is now a popular genre and just lumping these books in with young adult.
New adult? What on earth is a new adult? If there's overt sexual themes or thoroughly described "physical romance" to put it lightly, then it shouldn't be categorized as "YA" to begin with. Everyone discovers that stuff over time, and young people will find and read it regardless, but it shouldn't be marketed towards that demographic if that's the focus of the work.
This! I work in a book store and when I have parents ask me about the YA genre I warn them that YA is on a bit of a sliding scale. Some books are on the Y side of YA, and others are more on the A side. Stores should/need to create a new space for the New Adults genre so kids don’t get accidentally introduced to sexual content too soon.
@@ds90seph It’s meant for folks who want adult themes with lighter, more shallow or at least younger takes. Alot of adult genres only publish books if they meet certain writing “sophistication” standards. YA is about more than if it contains adult content or not. It’s also about the reading level, and story structure/complexity. Same goes for preteen and child genres. If it were all up to whether the book contained “adult content” or not, we would only have two separations: adult and kids. Why do kids get a variety of sub-sections while adults have to settle for just one?
Y'all want change in the bookstore shelves? I assume you mean B&N or Books a Million since they are the only remaining influential brick and mortar bookstores. Companies exist to make a buck, first and foremost, and since they have to compete with the virtual showroom attached to endless warehouses that is Amazon, y'all need to move first. Once it's established as popular social media trend, then the sectioning will follow. Brick and mortar bookstores don't have the money to invest in a niche-sounding, unproven market on limited, high-rent floorspace. Yes, you literally have to do most of the work of test marketing for them before they try. Internet sales and portable e-books broke the hold publisher's had over authors and also destroyed the bookstore industry and put Amazon in charge of many authors. Now you get to do unpaid marketing labor for the privilege of finding books you want and the privilege of paying money for them.
@@apmanda Sorry to have missed this initially, I'll happily clarify specifically. My point was and still remains that pornographic content or overt sexual themes should not be marketed towards a demographic below 18. It's not appropriate. Reading comprehension and writing sophistication standards have nothing to do with that, and the YA classification can still exist without including overt sexual topics. When it comes to these products, I do believe their marketing and sales should be clearly defined as adult or youth. Otherwise you end up getting childrens books with detailed depictions/descriptions of fellatio. That's an extreme example, obviously, but one which has already proven true. This is what happens when you start frivolously blurring lines. There's plenty of variety for everyone, and young adults interested in sexual topics can seek them out in adult content (as they always have). This is coming from someone who read Berserk as a teenager, so it's not as if I want young people to all be virgins and losers who avoid these topics completely. We simply shouldn't sell sex to teenagers, the same way we don't sell them alcohol or cigarettes.
I actually like fae and I hate SJM books. I feel she ruined fae for a lot of people while wildly misrepresenting them. She thinks they are just sexy elves when they suppose to be cruel and one of my favorite thing about the fae is that they can't lie so they have to be very creative and it just doesn't exist in her books.
She does that thing that some vampire books do where she tries to reinvent them to the point where they're something else entirely. Like, fae and vampires are already great, you don't need to reinvent the wheel.
IKR? In folklore they're actually supposed to be these otherworldly beings with minds that are terrifyingly alien. I love listening to/reading old faery stories. Some of the older generation still believe the fae are real where I'm from, and their faery stories are just as scary as ghost stories.
You haven't seen truly long titles until you've gone down the isekai light novel rabbit hole. "I'm a Behemoth, an S-Ranked Monster, but Mistaken for a Cat, I Live as an Elf Girl's Pet" - now that's a proper long title.
@@thatrandomweeb i saw an LN where the title is literally the book's blurb and the funniest Ive seen is about the Hero's dad going on an adventure and find him for being a dick, abandoning his lovesick childhood friend and give him the lecture of a lifetime
Or combined them with Tolkien elves and vampires. I don’t get how she can be a Lloyd Alexander fan and supposedly looked into actual mythology referenced (Tamlin) and then write something so generic that barely incorporates the actual folk tales
Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, which recently came out, is a different take on the fae that might interest you. Also, in terms of worst trends (which actually might be changing as we speak) is the overwhelming majority of fantasy books that are so very dark and despairing and (often) full of vile characters and violence. I don't mind that these books exist, but I'd like to see more "sunny" or whimsical fantasies as well.
There's tons of lighter fantasy out there as well. Rogues of the Republic by Patrick Weekes, The Band by Nicholas Eames, the Echoes Saga by Philip Quaintrell, Cradle by Will Wight and Codex Alera by Jim Butcher to name a few.
Elliot mentioned Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries in another video on new fantasies. I haven't picked it up and read it, though. It will definitely be on my list of books to read.
I'm hoping to provide that "sunny" fairytale, about appreciating work and the satisfaction that comes with doing a job well done, if in unexpected ways.
For me, characterization makes or breaks books of any reading level or genre. If I enjoy spending time with the characters, I can handle anything--nonsensical plotting, derivative or shallow world-building, generic prose, an unsatisfying resolution, whatever. In terms of the modern YA I've read, bad/flat characterization is the biggest failing. A few symptoms of that: -Instalove: Nothing says "My characters have zero depth!" like a romance that is founded solely on (and never develops beyond) mere and instantaneous physical attraction -Protagonists who are so dumb that you are ten steps ahead of them the entire time (but how else could the plot unfold if they were actually able to figure things out?) -Passive protagonists that you could remove from the story altogether without really affecting anything -Characters who are only special because of "destiny" or prophecy. If you use this as CONFLICT it can be really interesting (EG a character reckoning with the burden of their duty or struggling with the fact that they don't have any worth/identity outside of this role destiny has handed them), but as a shortcut to get me to care, or as wish fulfillment, it's dull. -Villains with no clear motivation except to get in the protagonist's way -Overcapable (see: "badass") characters who never seem to struggle with anything and can take on hordes of attackers without getting a single scratch -Characters who are thoughtlessly unethical. If they're operating out of a moral gray area or doing things they know are wrong for what they consider the right reasons, they can be fascinating, but it has to be dealt with thematically; otherwise it seems like the author is just unaware or careless or has no moral compass. -Characters we're TOLD are funny but who never actually prove themselves to be funny (or their jokes are so terrible nobody in the real world would actually laugh at them, but dammit if our smitten protagonist doesn't think they're hilarious). -Alternately, a book where everyone is deadly serious all the time and NOBODY has a sense of humor -Mean girls (or boys) who have ZERO dimensionality and only exist to get their comeuppance -"Cool" characters who don't care what anybody thinks and are so self-possessed they never have a single moment of doubt or self-consciousness. There's probably a scene where they confront the bullies and verbally dismantle them with such effortless grace and wit it leaves everybody with their jaws hanging open, stunned into utter speechlessness at the superiority of such an above-it-all creature. -"I'm not like other girls" protagonists...especially when they deride other girls for being vapid and shallow and then immediately fall into Instalove with a two-dimensional hotboy (but he's a vampire instead of a jock so it's not completely superficial somehow) TLDR: I'm overly frustrated with bad characterization in YA and should probably get a life
I'm seriously annoyed how every single book has to be a series these days. A good stand alone is very fulfilling. In many ways that's why I prefer Science Fiction (as opposed to Science Fantasy or actual Fantasy) much of the time. Science Fiction focuses on ideas more than on plot. It explores its idea and makes its point and then ends. Fantasy could really benefit from being more succinct.
Seriously. A book should feel like a self-contained story with some kind of conflict resolution at the end, even if it's part one in a series. Too many authors think that writing a first entry in a series means all they have to do for 400 pages is set up the world and characters, which should only be the job of the FIRST ACT of a story.
While I do love reading series, I agree. Each part should have a definitive conflict resolution or development. Doesn't have to be big, but there has to be a change at the end of the book. That, and I tend to have issues with fourth books in six book volumes. With the Erin hunters book volumes, the first three are good, the fourth one is bland, and the rest is good.
Me, at first: "What's wrong with the Fae? Bizarre, but terrifying magical entities who need to be maneuvered around, like Old Gods, but less guaranteed to wipe the party are great!" Elliot Brooks: "This one author made the Fae these SEXY animal-like beings who like to be dominant and have alpha males and-" Me, now with eyes open: "Oh. OH. Someone turned the Fae Folk into Alpha/Beta Werewolf type romance dynamics?! Yeah ok, I fully understand the hate now! :o " I'm using the Fae as an antagonistic force in the TTRPG world I'm putting together, and I'm honestly jazzed about how spooky and dangerous many of them will be.
The fae cover a lot of different beings, from you "house elf", to forest protectors, to water drowners, to bastards than seduce and destroy mortals using they own instinctcs, to love sick beaus than you can marry with this one weird trick... What kind of setting are you going on and sistem? I'm doing my own with Fae/titanspawn being a central part, along lots of isles for variety of palces to visit, a kind of odissey rpg.
@@yeraycatalangaspar195 I'll be running it in the Savage Worlds system. Basically, it's a casual Extremely High Fantasy setting (everyone has access to at least SOME magic), where the story takes place on the super prosperous continent that Humanity came from. Humans, it turns out, were originally created by the Fae, and due to Petty Fae Reasons, the Fae King eventually kicked humanity off the continent. After the humans came back, he proceeded to get genocidal about it. A group of heroes in the past managed to just-about-kill him, and let humanity make their own kingdom in his lands. As a result, most of the lesser Fae are EXTREMELY bitter about humanity bringing about "The Great Winter" as they put it. The campaign is largely casual fun adventuring with a maguffin hunt... But with the underlying theme of a world very slowly dying because of the impact of the old war, with the players needing to fix those side-effects if they want the world to still be around in a thousand years or so.
@@yeraycatalangaspar195 I ran a one-shot in this setting for some friends and they also liked the feel of the setting. :P It started as a fun Indiana jones style adventure where they were a team of experts who delved into an ancient ruin, finding that the royal knights that went there before them had turned hostile trying to get the treasure deep inside. Then, they realized "oh wow, there's a Philospher's stone in here! The effect is in the water! All the water in here is healing water! Oh man, we're going to be famous/prove everyone at the academy that I was RIGHT! / Be SO rich!" ...THEN they realized that the healing effect was powerful enough to wake the dead...And not in a good way. Cue "oh NO!"s through the voice call. Things swiftly got a LOT worse from there, although they still managed to claim the stone after a VERY intense final battle against a veritable HORDE of angry skeletons. :P
I wish more books would have a mass-market paperback edition. A lot of books seem to just have a bulky trade-paperback edition. If I'm hiking and want to sit and read by a lake or campfire I want to bring a book, and leave my electronic devices at home.
As a Welsh person I have such a bone to pick with how fae have been portrayed in YA fantasy/romance recently. They're just wizards with A/B/O tropes 😭 I definitely agree with your take, I'd love to see more fae inspired by actual folklore that are legitimately otherworldly and sinister.
Right? Welsh Fair Folk are generally more chill than Irish, and can even be helpful if you're polite to them, but that doesn't make them not dangerous. A character being forced to walk that tightrope of politeness plus the orange and blue morality would be fascinating but no they have to bang, apparently. Zero research done by these authors.
@epicwalrus7183 I remember a story I used to be told as a kid about a man who lived up on a remote mountain, and one day during a harsh storm a strange old woman arrived at his door. I forget the specific name of them but basically he figured out that it was the type of faerie woman who lived on the mountains, who were typically pretty malicious (chasing people, leading them astray, etc), so that meant he had to extend his best hospitality to her while she was staying there. He gave her the best seat by the fire and offered his best cheese (apparently Welsh fae specifically enjoy a good cheese). She was so impressed by his hospitality that she left without harming him once the storm was over, and he found that from that day on he never got lost on the mountains again. That's just one example, but Idk I always got the impression as I was growing up that dealing with the fae was a bit like dealing with something midway between an alien and a wild animal, if that makes sense? You had to treat them with caution and courtesy if you can't find a way to keep your distance entirely. Personally I find that dynamic way more interesting than them just being uber-sexy magic immortals. If that's the sorta thing ppl enjoy, then more power to em, but I don't see why they can't just stick to vampires at that point.
I think the issue with the fae trope being overdone is not the sexy fae romance story itself as much as it is the flood of bad writing that has accompanied it. Amazon's program for self-publishing opened the gates for many amazing and talented authors, but thrice as many terrible ones (and I would not be surprised to learn that the success of self-publishing has led to certain shifts in the professional publishing world as well). The majority of post-ACOTAR fae titles tend to read like fanfiction and we as readers are exhausted and confused because these are published books we've picked up and yet they are so BAD. And we feel like it's a problem with the trope because we see it the most and it feels so poorly done, but I don't think anyone would truly mind a sexy fae story if it was actually a well-written story with well-developed characters and an engaging plot. Our problem is that we don't have any of these things, and we're tired of it. Cover art does not tell a good story, and that's essentially all we're getting these days. Because ultimately it's not fae that are the problem. If you swap fae out with elves or vampires or wizards or CEO billionaires or lumberjacks, the books would still be cringy and awful and boring because the problem is the story itself is bad and the characters are flat, shallow caricatures of the characters they were inspired by. Wishing away the sexy fae trope will not actually save you, because the people writing those annoying sexy fae stories will eventually move on to the next trend and ruin that for you, too. Granted, the group of people who don't like the shift of classical faeries to SJM-styled fae and prefer to go back to the original have a different argument, and I totally understand that. Personally, I enjoy both versions when done well, but one definitely gets more attention than the other as of right now. But at least the more classically aligned faerie literature out there right now tends to be better written. At least that's been my experience. I'd like to add that the way books are being advertised and shared on social media has done a lot to help market indie authors, but it's also doing a lot to damage the entire author-reader relationship. Books are now being officially marketed as blog posts and twitter hashtags. Enemies-to-lovers used to be just a trope within a story, but now it's become a whole subgenre, as though that's all there is to the entire book. This used to be how people would weed through fanfiction, and now its being used a part of the cover blurb. While it helps some people access exactly what they are looking for (or think they are, since sometimes those labels are a stretch), this also severely limits our focus as readers and we wind up consuming way more drivel just because it's labeled in a way that appeals to us, and we miss out on some actually well-written fiction just because it isn't branded with the right hashtags. As an interesting aside, I heard that SJM was heavily inspired by the Tairen Soul series by CL Wilson, which is also about Fey. I recently read it and, let me tell you, a lot of what SJM did in both TOG and ACOTAR is shockingly similar to the Tairen Soul series in terms of tropes and characters (btw 3/5 of the books in the Tairen Soul series have a "Blank of Blank and Blank" title). Though it's easy to pin her name to the elements we dislike about current trends (either in blame or in comparison), we can't really fault SJM just because she got lucky with her success. She definitely is not the one who did it first, just the one who made it popular. Anyway, sorry for rambling. :) Thanks for the interesting video! I can definitely relate to some of the exhaustion...
Just adding one thing because you mentioned fanfiction: I for one have pretty much given up on published books and only read fanfictions by now. To be honest, they are often more interesting, because they dare to explore and question things from the given canon and in many cases they are even better (or at least just as well) written. Sure, there is also a LOT of bullshit among them, because anyone can post just anything they want. But then again: the writers can post just ANYTHING THEY WANT. They are not forced to write the story to please the market or people who want to make money with their stories. So if you just dig deep enough and know where to look, you can find real treasures. :) Bonus point: If a story turns out to be disappointing, you didn't waste a bunch of money for it.
@@MissEynah That's absolutely true and I completely agree with you. There are some really amazing fanfiction authors out there whose fics read as good as or better than published books. I think the stigma of fanfiction being bad comes from the days when publishing was more selective and self-publishing wasn't nearly as accessible. And because, when it comes to setting the bar, comparing a badly written book with a badly written fanfiction, the fanfiction is always much, much worse. However, and this is where fanfiction never gets the credit it's due, comparing a well-written book with a well-written fanfiction honestly puts them in the same place in terms of quality. You're absolutely right: a bad fanfiction will waste your time, a bad book will waste your money (and time). So I don't blame you or anyone who feels like published books aren't worth the financial risk. I do think it's a good thing that publishing companies no longer exclusively hold the keys to the kingdom as it has allowed some very talented indie authors to finally have a voice, but finding them can be be difficult because with the good also comes the bad. This power shift has also opened up the variety of works we have access to, which is always good. Some of it is terrible and overdone, yes, but some of it is original and refreshing and wonderful. But that just leads us right back to the problem of sifting through sand for pearls and how much money one is willing to lose on the endeavor.
The most annoying thing for me is the epic! huge! fight scenes in the last book. I like reading action scenes, I do, but it's exceedingly boring to read a continuous epic battle scene that becomes another epic battle scene in a 600+ pages book.
To me that's another example of "Is the author including this because it's organic to the story or because it's popular?" A lot of authors seem to have this template for how things are SUPPOSED to go for the genre they're attempting, and they stick to it even if it doesn't work for the story they've been building. Sometimes it would be way more interesting and organic to resolve the plot with a small, intimate, character-based interaction, but then the author gets insecure because how can you even call this fantasy if it doesn't conclude with an EPIC BATTLE???? So they force the story in that direction to be able to check off the box.
I always considered dark academia a genre or subgenre in its own right, not so much a trend. It's something you can easily avoid by just picking up a different genre. But some of the other things you mentioned, like fae or duologies, are things that are taking over certain genres like fantasy and may be harder to avoid.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think books with sex should be shelved in YA at all. A fade to black situation, or one that implies something happened, fine. But if you think about it, explicit sexual content in movie form is considered rated R or 18+ years. As a video game it would be rated M and kids would not be allowed to purchase it without the consent of their parent or guardian. Why should books be any different? I’m not saying to ban books, or anything like that. Just shelve them where they belong… in the adult section.
I’m a librarian and I also feel the same thing about violence , specifically in manga/graphic novels. I’ve had so many frustrating conversations with my supervisor about how just because it’s popular with teenagers doesn’t mean it’s FOR teenagers.
This always boggles my mind! Why make such a difference between the mediums? Books are just as influential on the reader as movies or games can be. But clearly whoever is behind those categories has a different opinion and must for whatever reason assume that reading something is far less likely to make an impression or influence you than watching something. This is very wrong though?! You need to actively engage to be able to "read"... But you can totally space out at a movie and have it run past you
I think a lot of this has to do with money. Pubishers/Production companies know that if they include graphic sex or violence in games and movies they will experience push back and negative publicity that will effect their bottom line. With books they know they can market books that contain adult scenes to YAs (a huge part of the book buying public) with a manageable level of push back and almost no negative publicity.
I still don't understand this. YA is Young Adult, with Adult being the operative word. Young adults. To me that implies 18+, since 18, 19, 20, 21 etc. is literally a young adult. ????
@@bellanacht I had the same thought recently, but apparently nowadays YA is read mostly by minors, and the new term for « young adults » is new adult?? Saw this on Instagram and was a bit confused, do words even have a meaning anymore?? 😭
My beef with fae consists of the following: 1.- The heteronormativity imposed into the mythical creatures most popular for being always a bit queer, for they exist outside concepts made by humans and can't and will not care for limiting who they are just to be more digestible to the minds of pewny humans. 2.- Sex with them tends to be approached with the most childish demeanor. Always hard, always for hours, always amazing. They don't really delve into the myriad of emotions one can go through when in presence of a beautiful eldtrich creature. And it will probably still only last a few paragraphs, some of them mirror versions from a different POV. 3.- Authors that copy SJM's _approach_ to storytelling don't tend to mind her flaws, which, let's be honest, are many. But the one that exasperates me the most is the use and abuse of "fae magic" innorder to create a soft magic system without actually needing to develop one. There's always this new ultra powerful thing that totally changes everything, there's always an escalation in power, there can always be a way out and there's always a vage, visualy pleasant justification for what should be considered a deus ex machina (for example, Rhysand just telling Amren's soul to not die and it actually working, because Sarah can't ever kill her darlings. She may assasinate them, but never kill them). So you have fairies that aren't fae A romance that doesn't allow itself to feel A roller coaster plot that never goes down And worldbuilding that takes a backseat to all three of them. The way the traditional publishing industry keeps pumping these up without care, just to profit from a popular niche they don't really care about, seems just so cynical. They've managed to create an environment when kisses have just as much importance as the final battle, but don't really see how precious that can be. They can help start a new genre for literature, one where love is not expected to behave as it does in the real world, yet they can't be bothered to pay for enough editing hours. I mean, it's just their job!
I write fantasy, and I feel like a lot of people's gripes with overused tropes is that they aren't done in a refreshing manner. Ideas more or less circle around each other, and even in my own work you can still find what has inspired me over the years. However with that in mind I try not to make my stories or characters boring. I also feel like some writers end up forgetting their audience when writing, and while writers should write what they want. They should also keep in mind that people will be reading this, and to write things they might want to read. (It's why I like watching these kinds of videos)
Juliet Marillier always does a traditional take on fae and fairies. In the way of Irish and Scottish folk tales. Like these were not beings that humans wanted to interact with as they are tricky and aloof. So the romance in her book is never really with the fae. It’s with other humans. They aren’t these sexy beings 😂 they are terrifying.
Yes! This is how fairies are supposed to be! It's so weird to read about sexy fairies when I had a very real fear of fairies as a child. The older generation told scary stories about them in hushed voices. My nan always told me to carry bread in my pocket so I wouldn't get abducted by them.
adding on to the fae trope: I have read actual fairy tales from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales that properly reflect what these fae stories try to represent. Fairies in actual folklore can be nasty but some of them are just plain silly goofy. Then are the stories where the fairies actually only mess with people who overstep their boundaries first, or they punish humans who make deals with them but then break them. It's sad that the fairy banging romance literature has distorted people's perception of Gaelic culture 😥 TL;DR: fairies aren't that evil or horny
Fae, for the exact reasons you mentioned, is basically an anti-buzzword for me. I’ve been burned so often that I genuinely will not risk it anymore: a mention of fae is an instant “will not read” for me, even though that might not be fair.
4:51 my biggest issue with duologies is that a lot of times, publishers won’t properly advertise books as being book 1 in duology. Gilded by Marissa Meyer is the example that comes to mind; I got to the end of the book and I literally flipped back a few pages but I could not believe it ended the way it did. I had been looking forward to this book but I was so caught off guard by the fact that it wasn’t a stand alone.
My favorite books involving Fae remain Robin McKinley's "Spindle's End" and Terry Pratchett's "Lords and Ladies" and the underrated work of Juliet Marillier. Let's see some female animal companions! With regard to "A Court of Thorns and Roses": I was considering giving it a read, until I started hearing stories about the protagonist's, er, character "development" in subsequent books. This is one of my own personal pet-peeve tropes: CHICKIFICATION -- taking a once-badass heroine and turning her into a weak noodle who either needs a lot of rescuing or is content to be a passive observer rather than an active participant.
About the fae, I do have certain creatures known as the Númenes (a name borrowed from latin Numen), and while these are spirits of woods, burial mounds, rivers and barrows, they have this exquisite aura that can manifest in different colors: blue, cyan, red, golden, and they always cover their faces with masks. They can be friendly and also aggressive. Similar to the Irish Aos Sí.
that's actually a cool concept, your descriptions sounds like something out of real-life animist cultures What's your book called? Is it published or a work in progress?
@@mon_moi Oh, i'm working in the first draft, and the name is: The Fantasy of Hanael. And yes, their description it is inspired by animist cultures. The story has a christian background mixed with paganism. The world is very inspired by spanish folklore, irish mythology and roman myths. I decided not to draw inspiration from out traditional germanic background. So, you will find Ojáncanos, cantabrian cyclops, with a twist there as these creatures who are insanely thin, quite taller, high pitched voices, yet retaining the classical one eye in their heads.
@@mercianthane2503 Spanish and Irish folklore, eh? I have a story project/OC backstory that incorporates Spanish and older Celtic beliefs in fairy creatures (mostly duendes) with Islamic beliefs in jinns; the story setting vaguely resembles Spain and Portugal during the Islamic era. That's a cool project you got going and I like that you're not mashing cultures too much like how many fantasy authors do (putting valkyries and fairies and Greek monsters all in the same setting, I never really that stuff as a folklore nerd) Good luck writing it out 👍
@@mercianthane2503 Man that's very cool, cantabrian (or Spanish as a whole) myths are severely underutulized, its very cool to see them being used more. I specially love the Basajaun, Busgoso and Treanties.
Fairies can be done really well, but it's mostly terrible :C I love Fae based on the actual fairies of myth, where they aren't good or bad but can fuck you up. Frances Hardinge has a great book called Cuckoo Song. I haven't really come across smut in YA, though I've come across way too many books listed as YA that are absolutely not YA. A lot of female authors get shunted into YA despite writing NA or Adult (or just books that technically could be read by YA people).
Sanderson is playing around with Stormlight 5's title and he gave us a potential title that was "A Blank of Blank and Blank" and man the cringe was real 😬
Hasn’t he pretty much committed to Knights of Wind and Truth? I’ll give him a pass this once because it’s hard to work with the whole palindrome thing.
Snap. That’s comical. But he’s Brandon Sanderson, doesn’t that in and of itself give him a pass. 3/4 have “of”, he just wanted to add an “and”. No biggy 😂
Fae in folklore and mythology were usually antagonistic, tricksters or playful. In general I feel most of fantasy is too derivative of other fantasy, and not off the things that early fantasy was inspired by: The actual folklore.
I thought The Never Tilting World and The Ever Cruel Kingdom were really good, if that interests you. I'm pretty sure she's the same author that also wrote the Bone Witch trilogy, which I also thought was great.
I'm currently writing a book series, and one of the main characters is Faerie, but he's not really dark and angsty. He's good-looking, and he is a prince, but honestly, most of his charm is because he is such an absolute nerd about magic. I am tired of how fae's are always displayed the same way now, granted I still find them hot and a bit of a guilty pleasure✋️😔
Dark Academia encompasses a wide variety of books, and I don't think there are that many DA fantasy books (especially super well known ones). Many commonly mentioned DA novels aren't fantasy like The Secret History, If We Were Villains, These Violent Delights, Bunny, My Dark Vanessa, many classics. And even DA classics with supernatural elements like Frankenstein or Dorian Gray aren't fantasy in the modern sense. Obviously Ninth House, Babel and The Atlas Six are very popular and probably inspire(d) more DA fantasy stories to be written. Still, there aren't as many of them as there are of, say medieval inspired fantasy or just epic fantasy in general. Even most urban fantasies, which many DA books tend to fall under, have nothing to do with Dark Academia.
My favourite representation of fae is from Terry Pratchett: beautiful, cruel otherworldly creatures that are NOT humans. I LOVE "Lords ans Ladies" (and all the Discword saga, honestly). It's one of my favourite books of all time.
The Call by Peadar O'Guillian is a good fae/body horror duology. Also the main character is disabled which was really well done. There is a scene where an "elephant" does something that lives in my mind when I think of horror in general now.
I think you're right about the title thing because the series is called Asoiaf but the individual books are all "A Thing of/for thing" with no "and". Acotar style titles really picked up after that series and SJM got popular and the most noticeable area where this happened is YA fantasy. I don't see publishers would see Asoiaf resemblance as a thing to sell YA books, it's more likely to be Acotar, which might no longer be published as YA but it's very popular with YA readers.
I can’t really say that Song of Ice and Fire started the “blank of blank and blank” trend because the books in the series have their own names. The first one is Game of Thrones (of course), the second one is called Clash of Kings, the third one is called Storm of Swords, etc. The books themselves didn’t become hugely renowned until the show came out, so it’s safe to say that Maas started the “blank of blank and blank” name trend.
In regards to duologies, I feel like there is too much pressure to conform to the latest success. Series need to be as long as it takes to properly tell the story, and if they try to conform to something they’re not meant to be, then ultimately the story will fail. Spin the Dawn was phenomenal, but Unravel the Dusk was trying to do far too much in a limited amount of space and failed to properly capture what it needed to. I also think there is pressure for books in a series to be relatively the same length because they look better, so if your first book is 300 pages it’s expected for the second book to be approximately the same, even if the story would benefit from 500, but there isn’t enough of an arc to justify a full middle novel.
I disagree with folks claiming ASOIAF started the ‘A Blank of Blank and Blank’ trend. Yes, it was the first, but none of the books following this trend have anything in common with that series. It’s all copy-paste SJM-wannabes capitalising on the popularity of the ACOTAR books - it’s honestly insulting to think they took inspiration from GRRM when literally 99% of those clone books are about sexy, smutty fae in generic fantasy worlds.
I'm also personally all for Fantasy Romance as a genre. I play a lot of d&d and a few of my characters have fallen in love within the world, and its this really cool thing to watch. Especially since love might mean something different based on the culture and lore the character is a part of.
One of the things that annoys me with romances in books (and movies) is the 'last minute hookup' with little to no buildup. Like this guy/gal has been ignoring you or simply tagged along for most of the story, and now that the final confrontation is over they suddenly profess love? That's not love, that's just post traumatic horniness.
I feel like fae have moved into the place where vampires and werewolves occupied a few years ago, haha. It only just recently occurred to me that with a few notable exceptions, I don't care about fae stories at all. At least in the current trend. Of all things, I actually really like the fae in Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter world, but they aren't the focus in those books. Also, Strange the Dreamer was originally intended at one book, but they decided to split it because it became too much, and I think I agree in that case. In general, I think I am fine with duologies, but I want to know ahead of time. I hate being surprised by a series after I read a book and move on, haha.
Good heavens. My reading tastes must have changed a lot, because all of what you're describing sounds like it's beyond even the fringe of what I now spend my time on. These days I'm reading things like Dune, The Lord of the Rings, and historical epics.
When it comes to smut in YA, it's just actually written s*x scenes. Ya is a category written for 12-18-year-olds, so all the YA books should be able to be read by 14-year-olds. If it can't, then it's not YA. I think the category NA, or New Adult, needs to come back because it is the perfect transition for YA/Adult books. It is a category written for readers between the ages of 17 and 25-year-olds. There were issues with it, mainly parents of young adults, but it is something that is absolutely needed.
YA is 12-18? That sounds wrong to me. 12-15 years old are NOT young adults. It feels very wrong that publishers lump them in with the YA genre of books. YA to me should be 18-25
@@jupitersnoot4915 I can understand where your coming from. But I'm based in America, unsure if you are, but here Adults are considered everyone over 18. so Young Adults are "younger than adults," i.e. almost adults. Their of the age where we start to prepare them to be adults (Or at least we are supposed to). I believe the category you are thinking of would be considered New Adults. People who are in the early years of adulthood. This would be the category where you have stories covering college, first job, first long time relationship, etc. I definitely think we should have New Adult, but it sort of got a bad reputation.
I used to read fantasy voraciously, but have abandoned the genre. It has become so repetitive and formulaic that it's pathetic. The same plots over and over.
I saw a book on a fellow teachers class shelf. Got a copy for myself and I was so shocked that 2 chapters in teenagers are uh doing stuff in the middle of the school hallway. I mentioned it and the teacher was like oh it's fine. Ma'am you teach 8th grade. It was way too graphic for YA.
Hi Elliot, Regarding duologues, I don't have any problem with a well crafted duology, but dangling threads, thinning plots or characters, etc. are annoying. I have wondered if some of the weaker ones were a result of pressure on the author to continue a story that was originally intended as a standalone. This may be more predominant in traditionally published works as a publisher certainly has more forceful influence on a signed author than can be effected on a self-published author by wide spread individual readers (social media notwithstanding).
You're so right about the animal companions, I was reading a book recently where the character got a magic wolf that became her best friend basically and I was *about* it. More pets please.
The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K Hamilton (from the 90’s) I believe took a turn for the worse by the extreme overuse of smut. So I think that’s definitely happened in the past but obviously that’s not a recent example.
This is so true. Some of my favorite Anita novels before I gave up on them completely were ones of her doing a case solo or had nothing to do with her narratively pushed horny aura or her love triangles. I don’t even hate smut or romance, but it was bad.
Yeah, first book was great, the second kinda repeats the first and after that Anita is constantly being manipulated and shamed for her "prudeness" and pushed to have sex, and after some time that is all she's doing, all the time, with everyone.
I just wish there were more fantasy books for audiences older than teenagers. Ive been reading paranormal romance / fantasy romance / fantasy for like 15 ys and as I grew up I had the impression that theres less and less for older audiences that arent waaaay too much (like laurell hamilton...) on the weird side. lmk if anyone has recommendations.
I'm ok with fae in theory, but i hate how authors have stripped it down and sold it as "really old, but incredibly hot, people." There is a lot about fae mythology that could be interesting, but it seems like authors just wanna use it as an easy out for their age-difference kink that doesnt involve the horrors of wrinkles and slightly dodgy knees.
For me, a guy that recently got back into books, I noticed pretty quickly these tropes by the covers alone lol. I was mesmerized at how many there were lol. I feel like a lot of genre fiction writers are simply playing it safe in a world where it's extremely hard to earn money from writing. It's annoying but imagine where their minds are at, y'know?
Ok. Ok. But in my opinion, by far and away the worst trend in the modern fantasy genre is the fact that so many published authors can’t write for toffee. It’s kind of a big deal. Or am I alone in loathing poor writing? The quality of literature has nosedived significantly and I am not happy about it.
Yeah. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files is the only series I've read that has a take on fae that I actually like. He addresses their longevity and the effects of their harsh environment on their personalities (Mab in Battle Ground in particular) in a realistic way.
When she was talking about the fae done badly I immediately thought of how well they were done in Dresden. They were also done well in the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series by Tad Williams
I'm fond of how they're done by Seannan McGuire. The fae are terrifying and powerful and interesting. The only downside with the series is that there are some repeating phrases that I'm not sure whether they're related to the main character's mental state or a quality of a newer writer that slowly fades as the series goes on.
Little recommendation for everyone who is looking for a wholsome little fantasy novel with fun characters and quirky animal companions: Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. I'm currently reading and enjoying it (havn't finished it yet, so I don't know how I'll like the ending). It's about a princess on her quest to kill a cruel prince who has been abusing both of her older sisters that have been married of to him to secure political relations between their two kingdoms. Marra is already 30 years old and has spent the last 15 years in a convent, she likes her quite life and embroidery. She isn't particularly beautiful or smart or anything, she is just a simple woman with a little social anxiety. But when she realizes that she might be the only person who actually gives a shit about her sisters wellbeing and the only one who is willing to fight for justice she decides to gather all of her courage and do the impossible. T. Kingfishers writing is witty and playfull and honestly beatiful to read (I also liked her novel The Hollow Places, this is why I also chose this one), the story has a lot of humor and comic relieves but it also deals with more serious issues like power imbalances, abuse, social injustice, sexism, death etc. I like that Marra is not the typical YA fantasy character who is supposed to be shy and clumsy and "not like the other girls" but then is also almost ridiculously perfect, but just some slightly awkward adult woman. Her thoughts and feelings and fears feel real and relatable and as the reader I really root for her. So, yeah... if that sounds good to you just try it :)
I find the fae argument so interesting cuz like, as an author, it's so hard to get people to even LOOK at your book if it doesn't have fae. So it's just crazy to hear ppl are sick of it when the market doesn't really reflect that. If readers want something different, they gotta support books that are different.
Is Naomi Novik's "Spinning Silver" a "fae romance"? It has fae in it, and romance, but I'd hardly call it a Romance Novel. Just wondering, since I don't read Sarah J. Mass.
Idk if it's because I'm a child of d&d, but the "sexy rich fae" are just high elves? The faewild is a nightmare, I've had more tpks in the faewild than in ravenloft. A bard will romance a chromatic dragon but not a fae
Nah, the sjm "sexy alpha fae men" we have now are direct descendents from those chiseled, muscular men from bodice rippers. There is truly little difference between them, hence why they are so popular with the mainstream readership.
I’m so tired of seeing Fae depicted the same way in books. I’m writing my own fantasy romance and it has elves, angels, etc. I have fae but they’re seen as evil, the kingdom being run by a corrupt fae King. I didn’t want to add a fae as a romantic interest but had an idea and decided to do it anyway. I then made one of my favourite characters of all time. He deals with Chronic pain caused by the same condition my brother has, Chiari Malformation, a brain condition that can cause a host of pain and problems. My fae prince uses at times a wheelchair to get around when the dizziness and pain is too much (similar to my brother when he has to walk for long periods of time). I love Prince Corvus as a character so much. I can’t wait to finish my story and see a different kind of fae character represented and maybe have people learn about this condition along the way ❤
I'm quite interested in your reasoning for him to continue being in that state, considering the magic Fae traditionally have access to, as well as how he ended up in that condition in the first place. Could be quite interesting to see the limits of Fae power explored, as well as the contrast between their glamour and actual being.
this book sounds so interesting i would love to read it when it is published 💜 wishing you the best in releasing and i would love to buy it when it gets released
"Fae" are typically more of a group of creature and some don't even have wings... They have been in stories longer then some people may realize. One of the most iconic fantasy cliche races is usually included within the group of Fae... Tolkien even used this race in his books. c;
The best title theme is without a doubt The Dresden Files. Other than the 12th book Changes every book in the Series has a 2 word Title where both words have the same number of letters. Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Summer Knight etc…
Biggest killer for me in general are those "everybody is nice to the protagonist because its a magical fairy world" type stories, like cmon that just sounds like a self insert bound to be boring
The Fae "romance" in the DnD campaign I was in involved the main antagonist of our barbarian going into the Fae Wilds for five years (days in our plane) to make a grand deal where he would get a magically adept Fae wife to protect him, in addition if he dies then all of that barbarian's family on the same plane as him also die, and he had his arm exchanged for a hard hitting wooden prosthetic. That's how you involve Fae in your stories lol
I'm wondering if the smut in YA fantasy are books being mis-classified as YA when they're really new adult? I've seen those complaints about a few books, although, I could not think of which ones right now off the top of my head. Maybe Zodiac Academy? Although, I haven't read it so I don't know if there is any actual smut in it. I think it's all fade to black.
What if each book in the trilogy takes place in a completely different world than the previous books? Still the same storyline but certain events changed the setting.
Supernatural Romance is a thing. Why are distributors having trouble accepting Fantasy Romance is its own thing, too? We soooo need better genre identifiers from publishers. Please list all that apply. Also... the... hmmmm... glutinous use of super intense interactions that maaaay, or may not, be strictly what one would consider 'normal' is, in fact, escalating. Some of which should involve warning labels. So... yeah... I don't know if it's a trend or if it's just a trend to find them and show them off on social media.
The romance in fantasy was so on key for me because I have been so frustrated over and over thinking I have purchased fantasy, and it’s a romance. It’s happened so much that I’ve become discouraged picking any book I haven’t deeply researched which takes away much of the mystery and excitement for me.
I'm fed up of the "set up X character in a romantic relationship with Y character throughout the book (or worse, series) just for one being killed in the end before they could've been happy together" trope. It's sooo predictable and annoying.
Animal companions, yay!!! Plenty in my books. Just sayin'. 😜 - Haven't heard anyone mention they want them in such a long time! So good to hear. And I agree about the fae. Just discovered your channel. Love it!
I hoped to see someone already mentioning a gold-standard of fae stories: Seanan McGuire and her October Daye series. I read a lot of books to have a good time. I read Seanan McGuire (Mira Grant) when I want great writing, characters I really enjoy, and a story that makes me think about it long after I finish it. I'll wait for a couple books to come out (she is so prolific that there's a lot new from her all the time!) before I revisit the series simply because one book won't be enough; once I'm back in that world, I want to stay. I invite EVERYONE to discover why she is one of the greatest writers of our time with any of her several series.
Yep I really enjoy her October Date books! Except the cliffhanger on the most recent one. That was almost painful. I love that the fae are sometimes scary, usually powerful, but always interesting. And it tackles some pretty interesting themes as well. Sorry, I'm trying not to give anything away.
One of my least favorite fantasy trends is when the protagonist goes to a special academy for kids with powers or supernatural kids, and the trope where a mysterious new girl/new guy appears at the protagonist's high school and ends up being this immortal fantasy creature and they fall in love. These tropes have been done over and over and over again. It's so boring and unoriginal.
Under the Earth, Over the Sky is a great book involving Fae (essentially it is about a parent-child relationship). But also has fantasy/mythic elements to it. A good read.
I once saw someone say that “a bowl of Mac and cheese” fits the ‘a BLANK of BLANK and BLANK’ pattern and now that’s all I can think of when I hear those titles
"A Bowl of Mac and Cheese" sounds like a lovely cozy fantasy that I would totally read.😁
Can we make this a writing prompt? I need to see what amateur writers do with this.
The best title for fantasy smut. 💀💀💀
Also, "A plate of fish and chips"
The epic novel, “A Bowl of Mac and Cheese” Coming out never, by the famous author “Nota Rel Prson”
My least favorite trend is the "I love him even tho he's kinda shady because he's just so hot." Oh, his arms, oh his shoulders....he maybe killed my sister, but, oh, his beautifully distrusting eyes...
Yeah, that's a trope older than you or I, hell maybe even older than you AND I combined!
could say the same about romances...and i absolutely hate it
A bad boy is a bad boy, no matter how hot and attractive he looks. Guys like that should be left to the bad girls.
lmfao! :)
Especially when they have a 1,000% creep factor going on. I wouldn't touch those men with a ten foot pole lol
We need to separate the Fantasy-Romance subgenre as its own thing. Call that _Romantasy._
Brilliant, yes.
Or even the _Bildungsromantasy_
Dude, coin that phrase and do something with it!! 😮
The issue is, there are several editors that complain if you have zero romance in a long story. So people try to insert one always.
@@tiagodagostini I hope these editors take a good look at the success of One Piece, haha.
The cruel Prince is the only fae book I like because how they are actually fae-like and not just extra horny immortal people with wings.
Which makes sense, Holly Black has been writing fae since the 00s long before they were all sexy alpha males
yupp
There are actually some cozy fantasy regency romance ones that are more like the classic folk and fairytales where they are legitimately terrifying and alien but also just…sad. Half a Soul is the first one
The Dresden Files aren't focused on them but have some of my favorite depictions of them; in part because like the folklore they vary wildly. A faerie godmother that is somewhat horrifying and you wouldn't want, courts based on seasons (yet are not the only fae), interactions full of all the sorts of lying-via-truth and pleasantry traps from old stories.
Rosemary and Rue by Seannan McGuire is like that, too. Focuses on a Changeling that can't hold a decent regular job in the human world because the fae call her away for unspecified and unannounced periods of time to do lackey work. It just sounded unglamorous and all-too-real.
As a fifty four year old woman who's been reading fantasy since I was 14 I am way effin over having to SLOG through romance novels shelved with fantasy to find *actual* fantasy novels to read. It p!ss3s me ALLLLLLLL the way off
It's not even just fantasy, I find it a lot in thrillers too. And if it was only a side plot, I wouldn't care that much, but half the time it's legitimately their priority. The world is about to end, maybe you wanna quit staring at this guy's abs and do something about that, just a thought.
@@AllisonJones1875 OMG YES
How are you with grim dark?
As an aspiring author who's going to use ai to dramatize my works, I hear your concerns and look forward to trying to sell you my product and associated merchandise. 😅
Yes ! Ugh. If I wanted romance, then that is what I'd read!
The thing that bothers me, and has for awhile, is how trope-heavy YA is. The plot, the writing, the worldbuilding, the character-building, everything comes secondary to "enemies to lovers," "grumpy vs. sunshine," "but there was only one bed," "love triangle" etc. YA fantasy gets a bad rap, which is a shame because there's some great stuff out there. I just wish tropes weren't quite as important as they seem to be.
But don’t you think that makes sense? It’s a demographic of people who are coming out of children’s books where tropes ARE the story, and they mostly exist to teach a lesson… I feel like YA books being tropey isn’t a problem, it should be expected.
@@raquelmarcalsantos I get where you're coming from, but I think YA should put tropes secondary to other things that makes stories wonderful. You should be able to come back to a fantastic YA at any age and appreciate it. So many people reread their old books and say "oh, I loved this back then, but not now." If tropes were more secondary, than good YA would simply be a good book, for any age.
@@hazelphoenix203 well, I guess… but I think if it’s a good book, even if its tropey, it’ll be nice to come back to. I still love and reread some of my favorites from when I was a teen, and they’re pretty tropey: Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Eragon, The Golden Compass… they’re all YA and I still love to reread them, even though they all lean very heavily on some tropes.
It's also increasingly present in adult books, especially in romance and fantasy. There's nothing wrong with tropes but since they've become a convenient marketing tool I think they often take the forefront of a book instead of plot, character building or world building. Somtimes it feels like the goal of some books is to showcase beloved tropes to make it sell and not to tell a story.
@@raquelmarcalsantos where in children's books are tropes the story? All the middle grade I read is more inventive, interesting, creative and less shallow and tired than majority of the YA I had to read through. And the protagonists are often reading more mature, balanced and intelligent too. Middle grade authors seem to aim at more than just checking of a list. To me YA looses the intelligence and wisdom you can find in middle grade and replaces it with half assed concepts, tropes and insufferable, dumbed down characters more often than not. There might be some good series far and above the average but the average quality of YA seems lower than in middle grade.
One author who writes Faeries very well is Holly Black. She makes them creepy and dark tricksters who sadistically treat humans as toys and yes eat them. Mermaids/siren stories are really cool too when they are portrayed as monsters.
Yes! I grew up reading her Modern Faerie Tales series and loved them all to bits, and eventually fell off of reading fantasy for a while when I got older. Now that I'm trying to get back into the genre, it's irritating to see what the faerie trope has devolved into. It's really a shame
I guess in comparison but I really couldn't stand her books. It's just so cliche and boring.
Also Charles de Lint does wonderfully dark mythical creatures in urban fantasies.
This speaks to me from like ten years ago. I remember going into a bookstore and reading all the YA fantasy blurbs. It was like a Mad Lib.
"SPICY FEMALE TEEN PROTAGONIST" goes to "FANTASY LOCATION" and meets "HOT FANTASY GUY". Will blank be able to blank the blank?
I walked out without buying anything. I wasn't writing that kind of stuff and despaired for about ten years. Hearing everybody's tired of it is good to hear.
Same
So true 😕
😂😂😂
Honestly, the 'Will blank be able to blank the blank' seems to be the last line of every DVD backside and book blurb I've ever come across😂
Same. I haven't purchased a storybook in at least a decade because of this, and have been getting my fantasy stories through other mediums, or writing and drawing them myself.
I think that some of the “smut in YA” books come from books that aren’t really YA being called YA because they have similar pacing and tropes to YA books. Also SMJ is everywhere.
It's just authors that can't write at an adult level but still want to write smut.
There was also, at least for a while, a whole movement where some people were trying really hard to say that it isn't authors' jobs to censor what is or isn't put in books not even for younger readers-claiming it's the job of younger readers, or their parents, to manage their own reading content; since some teens can handle more things than others can, or whatever.
Nevermind that it's kind of ridiculous to blabketly expect every younger reader to be able to tolerate reading the same things, or even fully know everything that could be in stuff and/or what their own personal limits are or aren't yet, just because there are some who can/do. That's a much more realistic general expectation of adults than for younger audiences who are relatively still just starting out in the world, and still learning about things and themselves, comparatively(even though there are of course still exceptions sometimes even amongst adults). ((Nevermind the age-old debate of how young is too young for smutty-times or smutty-content, in general, anyhow. 15? 16? 17? Hence why the Age-of-Consent and all varies so widely from one place to another, even just with the USA.))
Buut, yeeaahhh, things getting labeled or shelved as YA when they legitimately really aren't is also a problem-&/or having been written originally not as YA but then being reworked to be YA before being published because someone thought that was the demographic that story would appeal to most, or being published later on in a lengthier series that started as YA but kinda ages its content up along with its original readers rather than staying at them same level for every book from the series start to finish. OR that have only been retroactively labeled as YA, in hindsight, for literally no reason other than that it featured younger protagonists(even though books can be abour younger characters and still target adult audiences rather than aiming at young audiences because of certain themes or topics they're tackling/examining or whatever).
I think it’s honestly because YA is being pushed out more. It gets more attention, it costs a bit less than adult books (at least where I’m from), and it’s easier to sell in comparison to NA, which it should be placed under. It’s really weird nonetheless
@@BooksToAshes Plus, "New Adult" is a very new genre/category/concept/whatever...which many people don't yet know-of &/or acknowledge as an actual whole/proper/distinct thing yet.
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 Which I don't understand. I remember about 5 or so years ago there being a push for New Adult and people being excited about it and then it just poofed out of existence for some reason. So, it weirds me out that people are just now discovering it because I could have sworn this wasn't a new concept.
Me: *hoping to write a dark fae story and sweating as I wonder if that’s become overdone*
1:54 : “I don’t wanna see them fall in love, I wanna see them destroy people”
Me: *sigh of relief*
In case you're serious, just write whatever you want. Fae stories have been written for centuries. If it wasn't overdone when Shakespeare did it, then you're good.
IDK why TH-cam sent me to this video while I'm watching baseball videos (I don't think the algorithm is that smart). But maybe it was to read this comment and recommend the book "Faerie Tale" by Raymond Feist. It's a great book I never hear about and it's exactly what you just described.
Honestly, same reaction, haha.
Same here I was scared for a second there
That would just be a fae story then, not a "dark fae".
I feel like Fae are the new vampires. Is Sarah J Maas written as YA or marketed as YA? Sometimes it seems like the author has one view of her audience and the marketing team has another. I'm just curious.
All of her books (minus the Throne of Glass Series) have been put into the adult fantasy section at my local bookstores, so I don't know if they're even marketed as YA anymore.
they were all (minus crescent city) originally published as YA. when acotar book 4 was published (a court of silver flames), the publisher officially moved the whole series to adult, but it's still being shelved as YA some places
You are absolutely right! SJM is marketed as ya. For her acotar series, she expressed to her publisher that it needed ti be new adult, but they pushed it in ya because they knew it would sell.
In our bookstore (except Crescent city) the German editions are in the YA section but the English editions are in the Fantasy section 😄
Technically, ACOTAR should have never been in YA. MC’a age, etc takes it out of that classification. So I honestly think it landed in YA because of Throne of Glass being legitimately YA.
I am all for a designated “fantasy romance” genre to emerge. I am one of those girlies that needs more than just a romance, but often I get tired of just fantasy. Depending on my mood, I will verge deeper into fantasy or romance sometimes, but “fantasy romance” is definitely my comfort place/home base/happy place
Try K. M. Shea. She writes a lot of light fantasy romances. She has both fairy tale retellings and urban fantasy.
This! I much prefer my romances to be mixed with another genre, like fantasy romance, paranormal romance, or lately I've started reading gothic romances. But just plain romance? Nah. A book with no romance? Also not for me. Give me more half genres!
Try Ilona Andrews - her Hidden Legacy series is more romance-centric than her normal urban fantasy. And Nalini Singh is a romance author that has amazing world-building in both her series (Psy-Changeling and Guild Hunter).
If you’re looking for a book you should read “A dance of thieves”, it’s leaning a bit more fantasy, but the romance is beautiful!
It’s my favorite so I wanted to share!
@@amalieholtennielsen7903 That one is on my TBR!! Will push it up to the top 👀☺️
I’m kind of sick of having an entirely “morally gray” cast. Believe me, books like Six Of Crows and Cruel Prince handle it wonderfully, but I’m so sick of everyone being a horrible person. That’s what I appreciated so much about Realmbreaker. Yeah you had a few morally gray character (Mainly Sorasa). But watching characters like Dom and Andrey was nice because I missed idealistic good people. We’re so obsessed with darkness and angst and I don’t entirely get the hype anymore.
I think SoC handled it well because they're not entirely morally gray. I mean, Wylan constantly being like 'what the hell am I doing here' and really not wanting to kill people, Matthias who is very religious and very sweet (for example towards Alys when they kidnapped her lmao) and literally calling them out 'You're all horrible'. I think only Kaz is almost entirely morally gray.
I agree! When i read the way of kings and _absolutely_ loved Kaladin, who is innately a good person, i was like "why do i not see more characters like this absolutely amazing person that i now devote my heart to?" I also am kind of tired of darkness and angst and also- sad endings. Shocking sad twists and endings. They can be done incredibly well and be satisfying and i do enjoy that, but i just want happy endings, or at least peaceful endings. For a character like kaladin, i want him to get everything he deserves and not lose anything else anymore for example. I want the characters to get what they want/need. Idk i just see too many people on the internet _wanting_ characters ro die and have bad endings like- why?? And then they tend to also say "this isn't disney" which is concerning if you think about it they are basically saying happiness is only for children? Idk i'm just afraid that if this gets wider i won't be able to find stories with happy endings anymore haha. Hopefully not.
@@zynpkrdg People who say happy endings are for children, are people who got old and bitter before they finished growing up--or aren't interested in making other people happy.
@@zynpkrdg The issue shouldn't be happy vs. sad endings, but manufactured vs organic. Yes, happy endings can be shoehorned in with a ridiculous fix, but you can also manufacture a ton of bleakness for the sake of it, too!
Agree! I prefer characters that are decent people. Admirable. Smart. You can root for them.
If we're going to have really long titles in fantasy, I'd much rather they follow the Japanese Light Novel format and tell you what the book's actually about instead of being just a string of pretty but meaningless nouns
True! Sometimes the words in those titles so hilariously woven together and I cannot NOT pick it up
They laughed at me because my only skill is F-Rank, but i will survive with the trash skill *[Almighy Evergrowing Power - F]*
Oh no, I loathe the light novel title trend. It makes every book sound unoriginal, half-baked, and uninspired. Those titles sound like corporate products, often listing the tropes or fetishes in the title. They undersell their own books. I’m sure there are some good stories in there somewhere, but I’ll never give them a chance.
I can get behind that. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! and Bofuri: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, so I’ll Max Out My Defense are amazing, and their titles are at least part of what got me interested in them to begin with.
"That Time I killed the Lord of Winterfell and Started a Massive War" does have a nice ring to it.
I'm just tired of fantasy romance being mixed into the regular fantasy/sci-fi section. It's like this at my favorite local bookstore, so it's hard to tell if you're going to get a fantasy book or a romance book with 10% fantasy lol.
Yesss 😭
I've thought for years, that incorrect marketing is one thing that does dirty to so many books, that are good and deserve to be appreciated. But if a fantasy romance is marketed as fantasy. Or fantasy is marketed as fantasy romance, you are just going to get disappointed readers! (Or whatever genre thing. Horror vs thriller etc)
@@ulla7378 Yep! Plenty of people who *want* fantasy romance, it should have it's own section so people can easily find those books imo.
Felt this- I generally stopped even _trying_ find non-romantic vampire books because it pretty much felt like every single one was a romance novel, with no easy way to make a distinction.
@@doukzu Which sucks because vampires are so cool, but it's all romance :')
It's the same thing that happened with Twilight and vampires. Once that became insanely popular, a lot of copycat authors with YA vampires appeared and the industry followed suit-until it didn't anymore and the fad faded away.
Same with dystopian faction-broken society type of series.
It fad-ed away, if you will.
That trend really came about because of Buffy and Anne Rice books. Before that, vampires were thin on the ground. I started reading werewolf books from around 2003-4 onwards and at the start of that there were hardly any and then werewolf books were everywhere. Jim Butcher, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong and Sherrilyn Kenyon were around before Twilight and they all came off the back of Buffy and Anne Rice.
Vampires? Don't forget the
-angels (Halo, Fallen, Hush Hush, Unearthly, Embrace)
-werewolves (Wolves of Mercy Falls, Nightshade, Raised by Wolves)
-mermaids (Syrena Legacy)
-Greek mythology? (Starcrossed, Goddess Test, covenant)
Yes it's exactly the same, what people are tired of is the basic sexy immortal, it's just that the new flavour of the month for that is Fae where a few years ago it was vampires.
No one had a problem then with actual horror stories using vampires and no one currently has a problem with actual celtic inspired fantasy using fairies, the problem is when it's just a very shallow paintjob used to justify your creepy horny old dude.
I also believe the problem with smut in ya is down to stores not acknowledging that new adult is now a popular genre and just lumping these books in with young adult.
New adult? What on earth is a new adult? If there's overt sexual themes or thoroughly described "physical romance" to put it lightly, then it shouldn't be categorized as "YA" to begin with. Everyone discovers that stuff over time, and young people will find and read it regardless, but it shouldn't be marketed towards that demographic if that's the focus of the work.
This! I work in a book store and when I have parents ask me about the YA genre I warn them that YA is on a bit of a sliding scale. Some books are on the Y side of YA, and others are more on the A side. Stores should/need to create a new space for the New Adults genre so kids don’t get accidentally introduced to sexual content too soon.
@@ds90seph It’s meant for folks who want adult themes with lighter, more shallow or at least younger takes. Alot of adult genres only publish books if they meet certain writing “sophistication” standards. YA is about more than if it contains adult content or not. It’s also about the reading level, and story structure/complexity. Same goes for preteen and child genres. If it were all up to whether the book contained “adult content” or not, we would only have two separations: adult and kids. Why do kids get a variety of sub-sections while adults have to settle for just one?
Y'all want change in the bookstore shelves? I assume you mean B&N or Books a Million since they are the only remaining influential brick and mortar bookstores. Companies exist to make a buck, first and foremost, and since they have to compete with the virtual showroom attached to endless warehouses that is Amazon, y'all need to move first. Once it's established as popular social media trend, then the sectioning will follow. Brick and mortar bookstores don't have the money to invest in a niche-sounding, unproven market on limited, high-rent floorspace.
Yes, you literally have to do most of the work of test marketing for them before they try.
Internet sales and portable e-books broke the hold publisher's had over authors and also destroyed the bookstore industry and put Amazon in charge of many authors. Now you get to do unpaid marketing labor for the privilege of finding books you want and the privilege of paying money for them.
@@apmanda Sorry to have missed this initially, I'll happily clarify specifically. My point was and still remains that pornographic content or overt sexual themes should not be marketed towards a demographic below 18. It's not appropriate. Reading comprehension and writing sophistication standards have nothing to do with that, and the YA classification can still exist without including overt sexual topics.
When it comes to these products, I do believe their marketing and sales should be clearly defined as adult or youth. Otherwise you end up getting childrens books with detailed depictions/descriptions of fellatio. That's an extreme example, obviously, but one which has already proven true. This is what happens when you start frivolously blurring lines. There's plenty of variety for everyone, and young adults interested in sexual topics can seek them out in adult content (as they always have).
This is coming from someone who read Berserk as a teenager, so it's not as if I want young people to all be virgins and losers who avoid these topics completely. We simply shouldn't sell sex to teenagers, the same way we don't sell them alcohol or cigarettes.
I actually like fae and I hate SJM books. I feel she ruined fae for a lot of people while wildly misrepresenting them. She thinks they are just sexy elves when they suppose to be cruel and one of my favorite thing about the fae is that they can't lie so they have to be very creative and it just doesn't exist in her books.
She does that thing that some vampire books do where she tries to reinvent them to the point where they're something else entirely. Like, fae and vampires are already great, you don't need to reinvent the wheel.
@@raven_moonshine39 exactly and removes all the things about them that make them interesting.
I agree with this
IKR? In folklore they're actually supposed to be these otherworldly beings with minds that are terrifyingly alien. I love listening to/reading old faery stories. Some of the older generation still believe the fae are real where I'm from, and their faery stories are just as scary as ghost stories.
@@Newfiecat Yes!! Like one of the things their infamous for is stealing children
You haven't seen truly long titles until you've gone down the isekai light novel rabbit hole. "I'm a Behemoth, an S-Ranked Monster, but Mistaken for a Cat, I Live as an Elf Girl's Pet" - now that's a proper long title.
Those titles are basically plot summaries!😅
That title is pretty fun though. Sounds less cringey than most of the book titles I see
Yo y'know that one where the title is literally the entire plot?
That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime came to mind when really long titles were mentioned. 😂😂😂 Amoung other mangas/anime.
@@thatrandomweeb i saw an LN where the title is literally the book's blurb and the funniest Ive seen is about the Hero's dad going on an adventure and find him for being a dick, abandoning his lovesick childhood friend and give him the lecture of a lifetime
I think Sarah J. Maas just turned Fae into a reskinned version of Fanfiction Werewolves.
Or combined them with Tolkien elves and vampires. I don’t get how she can be a Lloyd Alexander fan and supposedly looked into actual mythology referenced (Tamlin) and then write something so generic that barely incorporates the actual folk tales
She has fanfiction werewolves too
Yanno what? This is very true but as someone who was obsessed with fanfiction werewolf stories in middle school…. I like it
Wasn't acotar literally just twilight meets beauty and the beast?
Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, which recently came out, is a different take on the fae that might interest you.
Also, in terms of worst trends (which actually might be changing as we speak) is the overwhelming majority of fantasy books that are so very dark and despairing and (often) full of vile characters and violence. I don't mind that these books exist, but I'd like to see more "sunny" or whimsical fantasies as well.
There's tons of lighter fantasy out there as well. Rogues of the Republic by Patrick Weekes, The Band by Nicholas Eames, the Echoes Saga by Philip Quaintrell, Cradle by Will Wight and Codex Alera by Jim Butcher to name a few.
In my opinion, Charlie N. Holmberg has a good handle on whimsical fantasy. 🤔😊
Elliot mentioned Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries in another video on new fantasies. I haven't picked it up and read it, though. It will definitely be on my list of books to read.
I'm hoping to provide that "sunny" fairytale, about appreciating work and the satisfaction that comes with doing a job well done, if in unexpected ways.
I want something in between hahaha
For me, characterization makes or breaks books of any reading level or genre. If I enjoy spending time with the characters, I can handle anything--nonsensical plotting, derivative or shallow world-building, generic prose, an unsatisfying resolution, whatever. In terms of the modern YA I've read, bad/flat characterization is the biggest failing. A few symptoms of that:
-Instalove: Nothing says "My characters have zero depth!" like a romance that is founded solely on (and never develops beyond) mere and instantaneous physical attraction
-Protagonists who are so dumb that you are ten steps ahead of them the entire time (but how else could the plot unfold if they were actually able to figure things out?)
-Passive protagonists that you could remove from the story altogether without really affecting anything
-Characters who are only special because of "destiny" or prophecy. If you use this as CONFLICT it can be really interesting (EG a character reckoning with the burden of their duty or struggling with the fact that they don't have any worth/identity outside of this role destiny has handed them), but as a shortcut to get me to care, or as wish fulfillment, it's dull.
-Villains with no clear motivation except to get in the protagonist's way
-Overcapable (see: "badass") characters who never seem to struggle with anything and can take on hordes of attackers without getting a single scratch
-Characters who are thoughtlessly unethical. If they're operating out of a moral gray area or doing things they know are wrong for what they consider the right reasons, they can be fascinating, but it has to be dealt with thematically; otherwise it seems like the author is just unaware or careless or has no moral compass.
-Characters we're TOLD are funny but who never actually prove themselves to be funny (or their jokes are so terrible nobody in the real world would actually laugh at them, but dammit if our smitten protagonist doesn't think they're hilarious).
-Alternately, a book where everyone is deadly serious all the time and NOBODY has a sense of humor
-Mean girls (or boys) who have ZERO dimensionality and only exist to get their comeuppance
-"Cool" characters who don't care what anybody thinks and are so self-possessed they never have a single moment of doubt or self-consciousness. There's probably a scene where they confront the bullies and verbally dismantle them with such effortless grace and wit it leaves everybody with their jaws hanging open, stunned into utter speechlessness at the superiority of such an above-it-all creature.
-"I'm not like other girls" protagonists...especially when they deride other girls for being vapid and shallow and then immediately fall into Instalove with a two-dimensional hotboy (but he's a vampire instead of a jock so it's not completely superficial somehow)
TLDR: I'm overly frustrated with bad characterization in YA and should probably get a life
I'm seriously annoyed how every single book has to be a series these days. A good stand alone is very fulfilling.
In many ways that's why I prefer Science Fiction (as opposed to Science Fantasy or actual Fantasy) much of the time. Science Fiction focuses on ideas more than on plot. It explores its idea and makes its point and then ends.
Fantasy could really benefit from being more succinct.
Seriously. A book should feel like a self-contained story with some kind of conflict resolution at the end, even if it's part one in a series. Too many authors think that writing a first entry in a series means all they have to do for 400 pages is set up the world and characters, which should only be the job of the FIRST ACT of a story.
what sci-fi books do you recommend the most?
While I do love reading series, I agree. Each part should have a definitive conflict resolution or development. Doesn't have to be big, but there has to be a change at the end of the book.
That, and I tend to have issues with fourth books in six book volumes. With the Erin hunters book volumes, the first three are good, the fourth one is bland, and the rest is good.
I love standalones. I'm developing a commitment issue in books nowadays. Unless a series can hold on itself book-wise, I'm not reading it.
Me, at first: "What's wrong with the Fae? Bizarre, but terrifying magical entities who need to be maneuvered around, like Old Gods, but less guaranteed to wipe the party are great!"
Elliot Brooks: "This one author made the Fae these SEXY animal-like beings who like to be dominant and have alpha males and-"
Me, now with eyes open: "Oh. OH. Someone turned the Fae Folk into Alpha/Beta Werewolf type romance dynamics?! Yeah ok, I fully understand the hate now! :o "
I'm using the Fae as an antagonistic force in the TTRPG world I'm putting together, and I'm honestly jazzed about how spooky and dangerous many of them will be.
The fae cover a lot of different beings, from you "house elf", to forest protectors, to water drowners, to bastards than seduce and destroy mortals using they own instinctcs, to love sick beaus than you can marry with this one weird trick...
What kind of setting are you going on and sistem? I'm doing my own with Fae/titanspawn being a central part, along lots of isles for variety of palces to visit, a kind of odissey rpg.
@@yeraycatalangaspar195 I'll be running it in the Savage Worlds system.
Basically, it's a casual Extremely High Fantasy setting (everyone has access to at least SOME magic), where the story takes place on the super prosperous continent that Humanity came from.
Humans, it turns out, were originally created by the Fae, and due to Petty Fae Reasons, the Fae King eventually kicked humanity off the continent. After the humans came back, he proceeded to get genocidal about it.
A group of heroes in the past managed to just-about-kill him, and let humanity make their own kingdom in his lands. As a result, most of the lesser Fae are EXTREMELY bitter about humanity bringing about "The Great Winter" as they put it.
The campaign is largely casual fun adventuring with a maguffin hunt... But with the underlying theme of a world very slowly dying because of the impact of the old war, with the players needing to fix those side-effects if they want the world to still be around in a thousand years or so.
@@AegixDrakan Casual with a hint of sadness (the great winter thing) sounds nice.
@@yeraycatalangaspar195 I ran a one-shot in this setting for some friends and they also liked the feel of the setting. :P
It started as a fun Indiana jones style adventure where they were a team of experts who delved into an ancient ruin, finding that the royal knights that went there before them had turned hostile trying to get the treasure deep inside.
Then, they realized "oh wow, there's a Philospher's stone in here! The effect is in the water! All the water in here is healing water! Oh man, we're going to be famous/prove everyone at the academy that I was RIGHT! / Be SO rich!"
...THEN they realized that the healing effect was powerful enough to wake the dead...And not in a good way. Cue "oh NO!"s through the voice call.
Things swiftly got a LOT worse from there, although they still managed to claim the stone after a VERY intense final battle against a veritable HORDE of angry skeletons. :P
@@AegixDrakan Lmao, I love objects than have a double edge, too good to be true!
I wish more books would have a mass-market paperback edition. A lot of books seem to just have a bulky trade-paperback edition. If I'm hiking and want to sit and read by a lake or campfire I want to bring a book, and leave my electronic devices at home.
AMEN. Bring back mass-markets dammit!
I totally agree with you
Yeah, mass markets are the best
So much yes!!!!!
Mass Market paperbacks are highly underrated and need to make a strong comeback!
Yes to more animal companions! And I think many times books are put into the YA category when they really should be adult.
As a Welsh person I have such a bone to pick with how fae have been portrayed in YA fantasy/romance recently. They're just wizards with A/B/O tropes 😭
I definitely agree with your take, I'd love to see more fae inspired by actual folklore that are legitimately otherworldly and sinister.
Right? Welsh Fair Folk are generally more chill than Irish, and can even be helpful if you're polite to them, but that doesn't make them not dangerous. A character being forced to walk that tightrope of politeness plus the orange and blue morality would be fascinating but no they have to bang, apparently.
Zero research done by these authors.
@epicwalrus7183 I remember a story I used to be told as a kid about a man who lived up on a remote mountain, and one day during a harsh storm a strange old woman arrived at his door.
I forget the specific name of them but basically he figured out that it was the type of faerie woman who lived on the mountains, who were typically pretty malicious (chasing people, leading them astray, etc), so that meant he had to extend his best hospitality to her while she was staying there. He gave her the best seat by the fire and offered his best cheese (apparently Welsh fae specifically enjoy a good cheese). She was so impressed by his hospitality that she left without harming him once the storm was over, and he found that from that day on he never got lost on the mountains again.
That's just one example, but Idk I always got the impression as I was growing up that dealing with the fae was a bit like dealing with something midway between an alien and a wild animal, if that makes sense? You had to treat them with caution and courtesy if you can't find a way to keep your distance entirely. Personally I find that dynamic way more interesting than them just being uber-sexy magic immortals.
If that's the sorta thing ppl enjoy, then more power to em, but I don't see why they can't just stick to vampires at that point.
I think the issue with the fae trope being overdone is not the sexy fae romance story itself as much as it is the flood of bad writing that has accompanied it. Amazon's program for self-publishing opened the gates for many amazing and talented authors, but thrice as many terrible ones (and I would not be surprised to learn that the success of self-publishing has led to certain shifts in the professional publishing world as well). The majority of post-ACOTAR fae titles tend to read like fanfiction and we as readers are exhausted and confused because these are published books we've picked up and yet they are so BAD. And we feel like it's a problem with the trope because we see it the most and it feels so poorly done, but I don't think anyone would truly mind a sexy fae story if it was actually a well-written story with well-developed characters and an engaging plot. Our problem is that we don't have any of these things, and we're tired of it. Cover art does not tell a good story, and that's essentially all we're getting these days. Because ultimately it's not fae that are the problem. If you swap fae out with elves or vampires or wizards or CEO billionaires or lumberjacks, the books would still be cringy and awful and boring because the problem is the story itself is bad and the characters are flat, shallow caricatures of the characters they were inspired by. Wishing away the sexy fae trope will not actually save you, because the people writing those annoying sexy fae stories will eventually move on to the next trend and ruin that for you, too.
Granted, the group of people who don't like the shift of classical faeries to SJM-styled fae and prefer to go back to the original have a different argument, and I totally understand that. Personally, I enjoy both versions when done well, but one definitely gets more attention than the other as of right now. But at least the more classically aligned faerie literature out there right now tends to be better written. At least that's been my experience.
I'd like to add that the way books are being advertised and shared on social media has done a lot to help market indie authors, but it's also doing a lot to damage the entire author-reader relationship. Books are now being officially marketed as blog posts and twitter hashtags. Enemies-to-lovers used to be just a trope within a story, but now it's become a whole subgenre, as though that's all there is to the entire book. This used to be how people would weed through fanfiction, and now its being used a part of the cover blurb. While it helps some people access exactly what they are looking for (or think they are, since sometimes those labels are a stretch), this also severely limits our focus as readers and we wind up consuming way more drivel just because it's labeled in a way that appeals to us, and we miss out on some actually well-written fiction just because it isn't branded with the right hashtags.
As an interesting aside, I heard that SJM was heavily inspired by the Tairen Soul series by CL Wilson, which is also about Fey. I recently read it and, let me tell you, a lot of what SJM did in both TOG and ACOTAR is shockingly similar to the Tairen Soul series in terms of tropes and characters (btw 3/5 of the books in the Tairen Soul series have a "Blank of Blank and Blank" title). Though it's easy to pin her name to the elements we dislike about current trends (either in blame or in comparison), we can't really fault SJM just because she got lucky with her success. She definitely is not the one who did it first, just the one who made it popular.
Anyway, sorry for rambling. :) Thanks for the interesting video! I can definitely relate to some of the exhaustion...
Just adding one thing because you mentioned fanfiction: I for one have pretty much given up on published books and only read fanfictions by now. To be honest, they are often more interesting, because they dare to explore and question things from the given canon and in many cases they are even better (or at least just as well) written. Sure, there is also a LOT of bullshit among them, because anyone can post just anything they want. But then again: the writers can post just ANYTHING THEY WANT. They are not forced to write the story to please the market or people who want to make money with their stories. So if you just dig deep enough and know where to look, you can find real treasures. :)
Bonus point: If a story turns out to be disappointing, you didn't waste a bunch of money for it.
@@MissEynah That's absolutely true and I completely agree with you. There are some really amazing fanfiction authors out there whose fics read as good as or better than published books. I think the stigma of fanfiction being bad comes from the days when publishing was more selective and self-publishing wasn't nearly as accessible. And because, when it comes to setting the bar, comparing a badly written book with a badly written fanfiction, the fanfiction is always much, much worse. However, and this is where fanfiction never gets the credit it's due, comparing a well-written book with a well-written fanfiction honestly puts them in the same place in terms of quality.
You're absolutely right: a bad fanfiction will waste your time, a bad book will waste your money (and time). So I don't blame you or anyone who feels like published books aren't worth the financial risk. I do think it's a good thing that publishing companies no longer exclusively hold the keys to the kingdom as it has allowed some very talented indie authors to finally have a voice, but finding them can be be difficult because with the good also comes the bad. This power shift has also opened up the variety of works we have access to, which is always good. Some of it is terrible and overdone, yes, but some of it is original and refreshing and wonderful. But that just leads us right back to the problem of sifting through sand for pearls and how much money one is willing to lose on the endeavor.
The most annoying thing for me is the epic! huge! fight scenes in the last book. I like reading action scenes, I do, but it's exceedingly boring to read a continuous epic battle scene that becomes another epic battle scene in a 600+ pages book.
Me too!
Exactly, and for me it takes away the grandeur of it too
To me that's another example of "Is the author including this because it's organic to the story or because it's popular?" A lot of authors seem to have this template for how things are SUPPOSED to go for the genre they're attempting, and they stick to it even if it doesn't work for the story they've been building. Sometimes it would be way more interesting and organic to resolve the plot with a small, intimate, character-based interaction, but then the author gets insecure because how can you even call this fantasy if it doesn't conclude with an EPIC BATTLE???? So they force the story in that direction to be able to check off the box.
Couldn't disagree more. Give me that big epic battle scene please, with extra sauce!
I always considered dark academia a genre or subgenre in its own right, not so much a trend. It's something you can easily avoid by just picking up a different genre. But some of the other things you mentioned, like fae or duologies, are things that are taking over certain genres like fantasy and may be harder to avoid.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think books with sex should be shelved in YA at all. A fade to black situation, or one that implies something happened, fine. But if you think about it, explicit sexual content in movie form is considered rated R or 18+ years. As a video game it would be rated M and kids would not be allowed to purchase it without the consent of their parent or guardian. Why should books be any different? I’m not saying to ban books, or anything like that. Just shelve them where they belong… in the adult section.
I’m a librarian and I also feel the same thing about violence , specifically in manga/graphic novels. I’ve had so many frustrating conversations with my supervisor about how just because it’s popular with teenagers doesn’t mean it’s FOR teenagers.
This always boggles my mind! Why make such a difference between the mediums? Books are just as influential on the reader as movies or games can be. But clearly whoever is behind those categories has a different opinion and must for whatever reason assume that reading something is far less likely to make an impression or influence you than watching something. This is very wrong though?! You need to actively engage to be able to "read"... But you can totally space out at a movie and have it run past you
I think a lot of this has to do with money. Pubishers/Production companies know that if they include graphic sex or violence in games and movies they will experience push back and negative publicity that will effect their bottom line. With books they know they can market books that contain adult scenes to YAs (a huge part of the book buying public) with a manageable level of push back and almost no negative publicity.
I still don't understand this. YA is Young Adult, with Adult being the operative word. Young adults. To me that implies 18+, since 18, 19, 20, 21 etc. is literally a young adult. ????
@@bellanacht I had the same thought recently, but apparently nowadays YA is read mostly by minors, and the new term for « young adults » is new adult?? Saw this on Instagram and was a bit confused, do words even have a meaning anymore?? 😭
My beef with fae consists of the following:
1.- The heteronormativity imposed into the mythical creatures most popular for being always a bit queer, for they exist outside concepts made by humans and can't and will not care for limiting who they are just to be more digestible to the minds of pewny humans.
2.- Sex with them tends to be approached with the most childish demeanor. Always hard, always for hours, always amazing. They don't really delve into the myriad of emotions one can go through when in presence of a beautiful eldtrich creature. And it will probably still only last a few paragraphs, some of them mirror versions from a different POV.
3.- Authors that copy SJM's _approach_ to storytelling don't tend to mind her flaws, which, let's be honest, are many. But the one that exasperates me the most is the use and abuse of "fae magic" innorder to create a soft magic system without actually needing to develop one. There's always this new ultra powerful thing that totally changes everything, there's always an escalation in power, there can always be a way out and there's always a vage, visualy pleasant justification for what should be considered a deus ex machina (for example, Rhysand just telling Amren's soul to not die and it actually working, because Sarah can't ever kill her darlings. She may assasinate them, but never kill them).
So you have fairies that aren't fae
A romance that doesn't allow itself to feel
A roller coaster plot that never goes down
And worldbuilding that takes a backseat to all three of them.
The way the traditional publishing industry keeps pumping these up without care, just to profit from a popular niche they don't really care about, seems just so cynical. They've managed to create an environment when kisses have just as much importance as the final battle, but don't really see how precious that can be. They can help start a new genre for literature, one where love is not expected to behave as it does in the real world,
yet they can't be bothered to pay for enough editing hours. I mean, it's just their job!
Queer is a slur
I write fantasy, and I feel like a lot of people's gripes with overused tropes is that they aren't done in a refreshing manner. Ideas more or less circle around each other, and even in my own work you can still find what has inspired me over the years. However with that in mind I try not to make my stories or characters boring. I also feel like some writers end up forgetting their audience when writing, and while writers should write what they want. They should also keep in mind that people will be reading this, and to write things they might want to read. (It's why I like watching these kinds of videos)
Juliet Marillier always does a traditional take on fae and fairies. In the way of Irish and Scottish folk tales. Like these were not beings that humans wanted to interact with as they are tricky and aloof. So the romance in her book is never really with the fae. It’s with other humans. They aren’t these sexy beings 😂 they are terrifying.
Yes! This is how fairies are supposed to be! It's so weird to read about sexy fairies when I had a very real fear of fairies as a child. The older generation told scary stories about them in hushed voices. My nan always told me to carry bread in my pocket so I wouldn't get abducted by them.
I love Wildwood Dancing
adding on to the fae trope: I have read actual fairy tales from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales that properly reflect what these fae stories try to represent. Fairies in actual folklore can be nasty but some of them are just plain silly goofy. Then are the stories where the fairies actually only mess with people who overstep their boundaries first, or they punish humans who make deals with them but then break them. It's sad that the fairy banging romance literature has distorted people's perception of Gaelic culture 😥
TL;DR: fairies aren't that evil or horny
I'm not from Scotland or Ireland but please recommend me some fairy tales and stories of that region because I'm a fantasy writer
Yes, I 100% agree that we need more animal companions! Better yet, just give me an entire series told from all of the animal companions POVs. 😂
theres a book called "The Familiars" by Adam Jay Epstien & Andrew Jacobson with that exact premise ^w^
Robin d. Owens, her HeartMate series
👎
In fantasy novels, animal companions used to be called Familiars
Fae, for the exact reasons you mentioned, is basically an anti-buzzword for me. I’ve been burned so often that I genuinely will not risk it anymore: a mention of fae is an instant “will not read” for me, even though that might not be fair.
4:51 my biggest issue with duologies is that a lot of times, publishers won’t properly advertise books as being book 1 in duology. Gilded by Marissa Meyer is the example that comes to mind; I got to the end of the book and I literally flipped back a few pages but I could not believe it ended the way it did. I had been looking forward to this book but I was so caught off guard by the fact that it wasn’t a stand alone.
My favorite books involving Fae remain Robin McKinley's "Spindle's End" and Terry Pratchett's "Lords and Ladies" and the underrated work of Juliet Marillier.
Let's see some female animal companions!
With regard to "A Court of Thorns and Roses": I was considering giving it a read, until I started hearing stories about the protagonist's, er, character "development" in subsequent books. This is one of my own personal pet-peeve tropes: CHICKIFICATION -- taking a once-badass heroine and turning her into a weak noodle who either needs a lot of rescuing or is content to be a passive observer rather than an active participant.
About the fae, I do have certain creatures known as the Númenes (a name borrowed from latin Numen), and while these are spirits of woods, burial mounds, rivers and barrows, they have this exquisite aura that can manifest in different colors: blue, cyan, red, golden, and they always cover their faces with masks. They can be friendly and also aggressive. Similar to the Irish Aos Sí.
that's actually a cool concept, your descriptions sounds like something out of real-life animist cultures
What's your book called? Is it published or a work in progress?
@@mon_moi
Oh, i'm working in the first draft, and the name is:
The Fantasy of Hanael.
And yes, their description it is inspired by animist cultures. The story has a christian background mixed with paganism.
The world is very inspired by spanish folklore, irish mythology and roman myths. I decided not to draw inspiration from out traditional germanic background.
So, you will find Ojáncanos, cantabrian cyclops, with a twist there as these creatures who are insanely thin, quite taller, high pitched voices, yet retaining the classical one eye in their heads.
@@mercianthane2503 Spanish and Irish folklore, eh? I have a story project/OC backstory that incorporates Spanish and older Celtic beliefs in fairy creatures (mostly duendes) with Islamic beliefs in jinns; the story setting vaguely resembles Spain and Portugal during the Islamic era.
That's a cool project you got going and I like that you're not mashing cultures too much like how many fantasy authors do (putting valkyries and fairies and Greek monsters all in the same setting, I never really that stuff as a folklore nerd) Good luck writing it out 👍
@@mon_moi
I agree. I too dislike mixing all kinds of creatures and beings from all over the place. C.S Lewis did exactly that in his books of Narnia.
@@mercianthane2503 Man that's very cool, cantabrian (or Spanish as a whole) myths are severely underutulized, its very cool to see them being used more. I specially love the Basajaun, Busgoso and Treanties.
Fairies can be done really well, but it's mostly terrible :C
I love Fae based on the actual fairies of myth, where they aren't good or bad but can fuck you up. Frances Hardinge has a great book called Cuckoo Song.
I haven't really come across smut in YA, though I've come across way too many books listed as YA that are absolutely not YA. A lot of female authors get shunted into YA despite writing NA or Adult (or just books that technically could be read by YA people).
Sanderson is playing around with Stormlight 5's title and he gave us a potential title that was "A Blank of Blank and Blank" and man the cringe was real 😬
*Dies from cringe*
Hasn’t he pretty much committed to Knights of Wind and Truth? I’ll give him a pass this once because it’s hard to work with the whole palindrome thing.
@Chris H he's not 100% passed that but that's what it's sounding like he'll land on.
Snap. That’s comical. But he’s Brandon Sanderson, doesn’t that in and of itself give him a pass. 3/4 have “of”, he just wanted to add an “and”. No biggy 😂
but at least in his case it is because he wants to have symetry in the abbreviations of his books - TWoK WoR O RoW (KoWT)
Fae in folklore and mythology were usually antagonistic, tricksters or playful.
In general I feel most of fantasy is too derivative of other fantasy, and not off the things that early fantasy was inspired by: The actual folklore.
I LOVE duologies and want more of them! I can’t seem to find them so if anyone has good recs for them please let me know lol
I thought The Never Tilting World and The Ever Cruel Kingdom were really good, if that interests you. I'm pretty sure she's the same author that also wrote the Bone Witch trilogy, which I also thought was great.
I'm currently writing a book series, and one of the main characters is Faerie, but he's not really dark and angsty. He's good-looking, and he is a prince, but honestly, most of his charm is because he is such an absolute nerd about magic. I am tired of how fae's are always displayed the same way now, granted I still find them hot and a bit of a guilty pleasure✋️😔
Dark Academia encompasses a wide variety of books, and I don't think there are that many DA fantasy books (especially super well known ones). Many commonly mentioned DA novels aren't fantasy like The Secret History, If We Were Villains, These Violent Delights, Bunny, My Dark Vanessa, many classics. And even DA classics with supernatural elements like Frankenstein or Dorian Gray aren't fantasy in the modern sense.
Obviously Ninth House, Babel and The Atlas Six are very popular and probably inspire(d) more DA fantasy stories to be written. Still, there aren't as many of them as there are of, say medieval inspired fantasy or just epic fantasy in general. Even most urban fantasies, which many DA books tend to fall under, have nothing to do with Dark Academia.
Definitely agree. I feel like most DA books actually fall under mystery/gothic horror more than they do fantasy.
I feel like in a year or two there will be a big surge of fantasy DA
My favourite representation of fae is from Terry Pratchett: beautiful, cruel otherworldly creatures that are NOT humans. I LOVE "Lords ans Ladies" (and all the Discword saga, honestly). It's one of my favourite books of all time.
😁👍👏👏👏👏👏
I liked the fae in the Dresden Files, Mercy Thompson and The Hollows series.
Yes, urban fantasy, especially the older series do gritty fae well but they are all establish worlds pre smutty fairy trend
The Call by Peadar O'Guillian is a good fae/body horror duology. Also the main character is disabled which was really well done. There is a scene where an "elephant" does something that lives in my mind when I think of horror in general now.
An "elephant" does something... That is so fucking ominous. I guess I got to read the book now, but I'm very scared
I think you're right about the title thing because the series is called Asoiaf but the individual books are all "A Thing of/for thing" with no "and". Acotar style titles really picked up after that series and SJM got popular and the most noticeable area where this happened is YA fantasy. I don't see publishers would see Asoiaf resemblance as a thing to sell YA books, it's more likely to be Acotar, which might no longer be published as YA but it's very popular with YA readers.
Fae now are like vampires in the Twilight era...
I’m currently writing a fantasy animal companion book so I’m glad someone else wants more of that lol
I can’t really say that Song of Ice and Fire started the “blank of blank and blank” trend because the books in the series have their own names. The first one is Game of Thrones (of course), the second one is called Clash of Kings, the third one is called Storm of Swords, etc. The books themselves didn’t become hugely renowned until the show came out, so it’s safe to say that Maas started the “blank of blank and blank” name trend.
In regards to duologies, I feel like there is too much pressure to conform to the latest success. Series need to be as long as it takes to properly tell the story, and if they try to conform to something they’re not meant to be, then ultimately the story will fail. Spin the Dawn was phenomenal, but Unravel the Dusk was trying to do far too much in a limited amount of space and failed to properly capture what it needed to.
I also think there is pressure for books in a series to be relatively the same length because they look better, so if your first book is 300 pages it’s expected for the second book to be approximately the same, even if the story would benefit from 500, but there isn’t enough of an arc to justify a full middle novel.
I disagree with folks claiming ASOIAF started the ‘A Blank of Blank and Blank’ trend. Yes, it was the first, but none of the books following this trend have anything in common with that series. It’s all copy-paste SJM-wannabes capitalising on the popularity of the ACOTAR books - it’s honestly insulting to think they took inspiration from GRRM when literally 99% of those clone books are about sexy, smutty fae in generic fantasy worlds.
I'm also personally all for Fantasy Romance as a genre. I play a lot of d&d and a few of my characters have fallen in love within the world, and its this really cool thing to watch. Especially since love might mean something different based on the culture and lore the character is a part of.
One of the things that annoys me with romances in books (and movies) is the 'last minute hookup' with little to no buildup. Like this guy/gal has been ignoring you or simply tagged along for most of the story, and now that the final confrontation is over they suddenly profess love? That's not love, that's just post traumatic horniness.
I'm glad my depiction of Fae are terrifying instead of romantic, I worried the dislike was Fae in general.
I feel like fae have moved into the place where vampires and werewolves occupied a few years ago, haha. It only just recently occurred to me that with a few notable exceptions, I don't care about fae stories at all. At least in the current trend. Of all things, I actually really like the fae in Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter world, but they aren't the focus in those books.
Also, Strange the Dreamer was originally intended at one book, but they decided to split it because it became too much, and I think I agree in that case. In general, I think I am fine with duologies, but I want to know ahead of time. I hate being surprised by a series after I read a book and move on, haha.
I feel like the "sexy dominate fae" was a subversion of the traditional fae tropes. Then Sarah J Maas was so popular that it became a new trope...
Good heavens. My reading tastes must have changed a lot, because all of what you're describing sounds like it's beyond even the fringe of what I now spend my time on. These days I'm reading things like Dune, The Lord of the Rings, and historical epics.
When it comes to smut in YA, it's just actually written s*x scenes. Ya is a category written for 12-18-year-olds, so all the YA books should be able to be read by 14-year-olds. If it can't, then it's not YA. I think the category NA, or New Adult, needs to come back because it is the perfect transition for YA/Adult books. It is a category written for readers between the ages of 17 and 25-year-olds. There were issues with it, mainly parents of young adults, but it is something that is absolutely needed.
YA is 12-18? That sounds wrong to me. 12-15 years old are NOT young adults. It feels very wrong that publishers lump them in with the YA genre of books. YA to me should be 18-25
@@jupitersnoot4915 I can understand where your coming from. But I'm based in America, unsure if you are, but here Adults are considered everyone over 18. so Young Adults are "younger than adults," i.e. almost adults. Their of the age where we start to prepare them to be adults (Or at least we are supposed to). I believe the category you are thinking of would be considered New Adults. People who are in the early years of adulthood. This would be the category where you have stories covering college, first job, first long time relationship, etc. I definitely think we should have New Adult, but it sort of got a bad reputation.
YES! More animal companions!!! 🐺🦁🐰🐨🐻❄️🦊
I used to read fantasy voraciously, but have abandoned the genre. It has become so repetitive and formulaic that it's pathetic. The same plots over and over.
This is going to upset fantasy die hards... but coming of age boys journeys... we seen it for the last 30 years... we get it
I'd rather just start off with the MC grown up already like some of us are...
I saw a book on a fellow teachers class shelf. Got a copy for myself and I was so shocked that 2 chapters in teenagers are uh doing stuff in the middle of the school hallway. I mentioned it and the teacher was like oh it's fine. Ma'am you teach 8th grade. It was way too graphic for YA.
Hi Elliot,
Regarding duologues, I don't have any problem with a well crafted duology, but dangling threads, thinning plots or characters, etc. are annoying.
I have wondered if some of the weaker ones were a result of pressure on the author to continue a story that was originally intended as a standalone. This may be more predominant in traditionally published works as a publisher certainly has more forceful influence on a signed author than can be effected on a self-published author by wide spread individual readers (social media notwithstanding).
Romantasy needs to be in it's own category to make it easier for me to know what it is that I'm grabbing off of the shelf.
You're so right about the animal companions, I was reading a book recently where the character got a magic wolf that became her best friend basically and I was *about* it. More pets please.
not me clicking on one of your videos and immediately flipping out over the full FMA manga collection 😭
LOL, the only one that bothers me is the name thing - The BLANK of BLANK and BLANK. Please no more! LOL
The Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K Hamilton (from the 90’s) I believe took a turn for the worse by the extreme overuse of smut. So I think that’s definitely happened in the past but obviously that’s not a recent example.
This is so true. Some of my favorite Anita novels before I gave up on them completely were ones of her doing a case solo or had nothing to do with her narratively pushed horny aura or her love triangles. I don’t even hate smut or romance, but it was bad.
Yeah, first book was great, the second kinda repeats the first and after that Anita is constantly being manipulated and shamed for her "prudeness" and pushed to have sex, and after some time that is all she's doing, all the time, with everyone.
Agreed. She used to be my favorite author at one point.
I just wish there were more fantasy books for audiences older than teenagers. Ive been reading paranormal romance / fantasy romance / fantasy for like 15 ys and as I grew up I had the impression that theres less and less for older audiences that arent waaaay too much (like laurell hamilton...) on the weird side. lmk if anyone has recommendations.
I'm ok with fae in theory, but i hate how authors have stripped it down and sold it as "really old, but incredibly hot, people." There is a lot about fae mythology that could be interesting, but it seems like authors just wanna use it as an easy out for their age-difference kink that doesnt involve the horrors of wrinkles and slightly dodgy knees.
For me, a guy that recently got back into books, I noticed pretty quickly these tropes by the covers alone lol. I was mesmerized at how many there were lol. I feel like a lot of genre fiction writers are simply playing it safe in a world where it's extremely hard to earn money from writing. It's annoying but imagine where their minds are at, y'know?
Ok. Ok. But in my opinion, by far and away the worst trend in the modern fantasy genre is the fact that so many published authors can’t write for toffee. It’s kind of a big deal. Or am I alone in loathing poor writing? The quality of literature has nosedived significantly and I am not happy about it.
Yeah. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files is the only series I've read that has a take on fae that I actually like. He addresses their longevity and the effects of their harsh environment on their personalities (Mab in Battle Ground in particular) in a realistic way.
Check out Terry Pratchet’s “Lords and Ladies”. That’s definitely my favorite. Dresden Files definitely also does fae really wel.
@@johnathanrhoades7751 Already read it. Honestly, I didn't like Pratchett's style of storytelling that much.
@@historymax5479 He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, for sure! Dresden files had amazing fae as well.
When she was talking about the fae done badly I immediately thought of how well they were done in Dresden. They were also done well in the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series by Tad Williams
I'm fond of how they're done by Seannan McGuire. The fae are terrifying and powerful and interesting. The only downside with the series is that there are some repeating phrases that I'm not sure whether they're related to the main character's mental state or a quality of a newer writer that slowly fades as the series goes on.
I think the public means sjm faes because OG terrifying creepy fae are fucking awesome
100%
Little recommendation for everyone who is looking for a wholsome little fantasy novel with fun characters and quirky animal companions: Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher. I'm currently reading and enjoying it (havn't finished it yet, so I don't know how I'll like the ending). It's about a princess on her quest to kill a cruel prince who has been abusing both of her older sisters that have been married of to him to secure political relations between their two kingdoms. Marra is already 30 years old and has spent the last 15 years in a convent, she likes her quite life and embroidery. She isn't particularly beautiful or smart or anything, she is just a simple woman with a little social anxiety. But when she realizes that she might be the only person who actually gives a shit about her sisters wellbeing and the only one who is willing to fight for justice she decides to gather all of her courage and do the impossible.
T. Kingfishers writing is witty and playfull and honestly beatiful to read (I also liked her novel The Hollow Places, this is why I also chose this one), the story has a lot of humor and comic relieves but it also deals with more serious issues like power imbalances, abuse, social injustice, sexism, death etc. I like that Marra is not the typical YA fantasy character who is supposed to be shy and clumsy and "not like the other girls" but then is also almost ridiculously perfect, but just some slightly awkward adult woman. Her thoughts and feelings and fears feel real and relatable and as the reader I really root for her.
So, yeah... if that sounds good to you just try it :)
I find the fae argument so interesting cuz like, as an author, it's so hard to get people to even LOOK at your book if it doesn't have fae. So it's just crazy to hear ppl are sick of it when the market doesn't really reflect that. If readers want something different, they gotta support books that are different.
Is Naomi Novik's "Spinning Silver" a "fae romance"? It has fae in it, and romance, but I'd hardly call it a Romance Novel. Just wondering, since I don't read Sarah J. Mass.
I don’t feel like it is, no.
Idk if it's because I'm a child of d&d, but the "sexy rich fae" are just high elves? The faewild is a nightmare, I've had more tpks in the faewild than in ravenloft. A bard will romance a chromatic dragon but not a fae
Nah, the sjm "sexy alpha fae men" we have now are direct descendents from those chiseled, muscular men from bodice rippers. There is truly little difference between them, hence why they are so popular with the mainstream readership.
I’m so tired of seeing Fae depicted the same way in books. I’m writing my own fantasy romance and it has elves, angels, etc. I have fae but they’re seen as evil, the kingdom being run by a corrupt fae King. I didn’t want to add a fae as a romantic interest but had an idea and decided to do it anyway.
I then made one of my favourite characters of all time. He deals with Chronic pain caused by the same condition my brother has, Chiari Malformation, a brain condition that can cause a host of pain and problems. My fae prince uses at times a wheelchair to get around when the dizziness and pain is too much (similar to my brother when he has to walk for long periods of time).
I love Prince Corvus as a character so much. I can’t wait to finish my story and see a different kind of fae character represented and maybe have people learn about this condition along the way ❤
I hope you will be able to publish one day. There need to be more different characters
Commenting here so I know the title when it's published
I'm quite interested in your reasoning for him to continue being in that state, considering the magic Fae traditionally have access to, as well as how he ended up in that condition in the first place. Could be quite interesting to see the limits of Fae power explored, as well as the contrast between their glamour and actual being.
this book sounds so interesting i would love to read it when it is published 💜 wishing you the best in releasing and i would love to buy it when it gets released
"Fae" are typically more of a group of creature and some don't even have wings... They have been in stories longer then some people may realize. One of the most iconic fantasy cliche races is usually included within the group of Fae... Tolkien even used this race in his books. c;
I kinda like the longer titles for books. And I think it's maybe almost necessary these days. All the short/one word titles are already used by now 😂🙈
1:48 I feel like a good example of this is lords and ladies by terry pratchett. Really kind of amps up the scaryness associated with elves.
The best title theme is without a doubt The Dresden Files. Other than the 12th book Changes every book in the Series has a 2 word Title where both words have the same number of letters. Storm Front, Fool Moon, Grave Peril, Summer Knight etc…
Biggest killer for me in general are those "everybody is nice to the protagonist because its a magical fairy world" type stories, like cmon that just sounds like a self insert bound to be boring
Dark academia is a genre I always think I like but never do! It they are super easy to avoid as they are so heavily pushed as that trope/genre
The Fae "romance" in the DnD campaign I was in involved the main antagonist of our barbarian going into the Fae Wilds for five years (days in our plane) to make a grand deal where he would get a magically adept Fae wife to protect him, in addition if he dies then all of that barbarian's family on the same plane as him also die, and he had his arm exchanged for a hard hitting wooden prosthetic. That's how you involve Fae in your stories lol
I'm wondering if the smut in YA fantasy are books being mis-classified as YA when they're really new adult? I've seen those complaints about a few books, although, I could not think of which ones right now off the top of my head. Maybe Zodiac Academy? Although, I haven't read it so I don't know if there is any actual smut in it. I think it's all fade to black.
Fae mythology is very dark. At least some European fae are extremely sinister (the ones I read).
Trilogies that spend a lot of time re setting up characters and world in each subsequent book, I find it very Jarring.
What if each book in the trilogy takes place in a completely different world than the previous books? Still the same storyline but certain events changed the setting.
Supernatural Romance is a thing. Why are distributors having trouble accepting Fantasy Romance is its own thing, too? We soooo need better genre identifiers from publishers. Please list all that apply.
Also... the... hmmmm... glutinous use of super intense interactions that maaaay, or may not, be strictly what one would consider 'normal' is, in fact, escalating. Some of which should involve warning labels. So... yeah... I don't know if it's a trend or if it's just a trend to find them and show them off on social media.
The romance in fantasy was so on key for me because I have been so frustrated over and over thinking I have purchased fantasy, and it’s a romance. It’s happened so much that I’ve become discouraged picking any book I haven’t deeply researched which takes away much of the mystery and excitement for me.
I'm fed up of the "set up X character in a romantic relationship with Y character throughout the book (or worse, series) just for one being killed in the end before they could've been happy together" trope. It's sooo predictable and annoying.
Animal companions, yay!!! Plenty in my books. Just sayin'. 😜 - Haven't heard anyone mention they want them in such a long time! So good to hear. And I agree about the fae. Just discovered your channel. Love it!
I hoped to see someone already mentioning a gold-standard of fae stories: Seanan McGuire and her October Daye series. I read a lot of books to have a good time. I read Seanan McGuire (Mira Grant) when I want great writing, characters I really enjoy, and a story that makes me think about it long after I finish it. I'll wait for a couple books to come out (she is so prolific that there's a lot new from her all the time!) before I revisit the series simply because one book won't be enough; once I'm back in that world, I want to stay. I invite EVERYONE to discover why she is one of the greatest writers of our time with any of her several series.
Yep I really enjoy her October Date books! Except the cliffhanger on the most recent one. That was almost painful. I love that the fae are sometimes scary, usually powerful, but always interesting. And it tackles some pretty interesting themes as well. Sorry, I'm trying not to give anything away.
How every third book has the words: 'Thorn', 'Shadow' or 'Bone' in the title.
One of my least favorite fantasy trends is when the protagonist goes to a special academy for kids with powers or supernatural kids, and the trope where a mysterious new girl/new guy appears at the protagonist's high school and ends up being this immortal fantasy creature and they fall in love. These tropes have been done over and over and over again. It's so boring and unoriginal.
Under the Earth, Over the Sky is a great book involving Fae (essentially it is about a parent-child relationship). But also has fantasy/mythic elements to it. A good read.