Fantasizing

Dear Dr. Hack:
Fantasy seems to be a hot seller, so I want to try my hand at it, but I don't want to have to read any of those god-awful books to find out what the fantasy story arc tends to be. Could you please give me a formula so I can just plug in the names?

--Clueless2007


Dear Clueless,

Many a writer looking to cash out after years of fruitless obscurity while laboring over some would-be literary classic ponder "slumming it," among various, low-brow genres in order to turn a quick buck.

What most don't realize is that it's no pipe dream. There are veritable mountains of easy money just waiting for a passable hack at the end of the gimme rainbow.

What keeps many of these would-be literary writers from cashing in on bad taste are minor inconveniences like standards and integrity. They believe they actually have to read the given genre first, but I'll be the first to tell you, this is a load of crap and only slows you down.

For not wanting to read any of the godawful books in the genre before setting out to cash in on the craze, I can't say I blame you. Most of it is really, truly unbearable diarrhea.

I would recommend, however, giving Tolkien's "Lord of The Rings," a try, as it's more literary than fantastic, and the entire latter day fantasy movement can be directly linked back to him. No need to read the carbon copies, when you can check out the original.

Now, if even that's too much a commitment, Dr. Hack understands. I did some research after receiving your question, and here are some resources:

In this genre, it's best to start with a title for your book. It's an open secret in fantasy publishing that the plot of an entire eight tome epic fits into one or two words with a high degree of accuracy. Look no further than Serendipity: Fantasy Novel Title Generator for expert help on this score. I turned up such gems as, "Elven Circle at Foonian," "Crystal of the Dream Heart," "The Faerie Summer," and "Goddess of Vengeance," in less than five minutes.

Next of course, is the template. I actually had a hard time digging up bona-fide, full scale fantasy models. It seems that the online movement rabidly defends a facade of originality, deriving a perverse joy in pretending its work has real value. I think they may be going for the understated, dead-pan humor approach here, and I highly suspect that underground IRC groups and private bulletin boards exist wherein fantasy denizens swap a "top secret," collection of four or five templates back and forth faster than swingers trade body fluids.

Since I didn't have time to infiltrate this seedy aspect of the Internet though, I settled for an e-zine article. In this piece, the secret formula for success is cleverly hidden in an essay on how to write "courageous," and "original," fantasy:

1. Create a bunch of interesting non-human characters like orcs, dragons, elves or dwarves; of course your hero should be human or nearly human.
2. Put them in a fantastical world filled with magic and secret places.
3. Open up your novel with something exciting to get the reader hooked.
4. Keep the action moving - insert a series of small obstacles that need to be overcome.
5. Foreshadow something really big that will happen (But make sure it doesn't happen in this novel though--so you can write sequels).
6. Come up with two big things that will happen, and when they are resolved, they cancel each other out so the plot hasn't advanced at all.
7. Make a big lead up to the next novel (promise the moon).
8. Repeat steps 3-7 in the next novel.

And finally of course, what would any flight of imagination be if you couldn't print it out on your very own fantasy themed paper?

Need advice? Sure you do. E-mail Dr. Hack and he'll set you straight.