fiction - Common mistakes made by first time fantasy novelists?

I'm in a writing group. I see repeating word-choice patterns among the fantasy writers. Example: frequent use of certain words (like 'utter,' everyone seems to use that word... ), or certain symptoms manifesting with magic (for example, illness, usually headache, always accompanies emerging psychic ability).

Maybe there are tons of irritating 'beginner habits'.

These aren't really tropes that I am talking about. I simply want to avoid rookie errors. I'm asking if there are blind spots that beginning writers have, especially in fantasy, and what those might include?

My question is broad because I don't mind a range of answers (I'm trying to get up to speed quickly, but blogs/etc give general advice like 'show-not-tell,' or 'edit edit edit," etc. ... Great advice but not really pertinent to the question).

Specifically, as a few focused thoughts.

1. 
   

   Are there any words or types of words that have been overplayed? Or are considered juvenile-esque? I have heard many people say to avoid adverbs. Really?

   
   


2. 
   

   This fad of 'talking like real life' seems to be used by some beginning writers, to me, as an excuse for sloppy writing. Am I off base? Is 'talking like real life' good, or a fad? I realize anything can be done poorly, but I see very little real life dialogue that stands on its own in the absence of competent framing.

   
   


3. 
   
   

   I'm annoyed by tons of made up words, which may be a problem in fantasy. Is this a common annoyance among other fantasy readers? A few made up words I can handle, though I wish they'd be grounded it recognizable etymology.

   
   

Answer

They aren't tropes, but both examples are indicative of common mistakes for beginners.

"Utter" is an extremum word, like "absolutely", "completely", "devoid", "unbelievably", etc. These are shortcuts that shouldn't be used. An utter lack of social skills for nerds, for example, is a cop out and unrealistic: Even on The Big Bang that deals in fairly cartoonish nerds, the characters manage to get dates, get laid, get married and have kids, and portray feelings and evoke sympathy.

To me, "Getting ill" is a cop-out for a transformational experience. Yes, spider man got ill after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Other superheroes were exposed to radiation. Can't we use some imagination? How about falling in love, could that be a transformational experience?

Let's have Charlene fall in love with Doug. She's a normal girl, a sophomore in high school, a virgin, and she's been on two dates with Doug. She's kissed him. He's all she can think about. One morning she wakes up, goes to turn the door handle in her room --- and crushes it, then in surprise she pulls the door off its hinges. She has no idea what happened. Is her brother playing a joke? No, she really does have sudden super strength.

How about a twist on "ill?" Like, mentally ill. Or a minor ability that frightens the person: Everybody is dreading the advanced calculus test by the truly incompetent teacher that nevertheless gives the hardest tests of all: Including our hero that failed to study. But he finishes the test as fast as he can write it -- which also turns out to be about five seconds; and his plastic mechanical pencil got so hot it formed to his grip. He's not thrilled by this, he's afraid because he doesn't understand what happened.

Two of the MOST common mistakes to avoid are making things too easy for the characters or the author, and using clichés.

Although some extremum traits can be the whole story (think Sherlockian detectives, the Hulk, William Tell / Robin Hood, Spider Man), they should never be used to make things EASY for the character or the writer, and that is often how beginning writers try to use them. When they do, they end up writing wish-fulfillment fiction and it is just boring. Characters must struggle to the point of despair, they must be a fingertip away from failing, defeat, losing the love of their life, even death. Despite their extremum trait.

To avoid the clichés, develop a practice I call Zoom Out, Zoom In. For anything you write, try to generalize what you wrote. Above, an emergent psychic ability is, in general, a transformative experience. What other transformative experiences can I think of? Death of a parent/child/sibling/lover. Falling in Love. Puberty. Being raped. Losing your virginity. Graduating college. Being fired for the first time. Nearly dying. Actually dying and being resuscitated. And on and on... Surely something must be better than "not feeling well."

That's the Zoom In (somewhere else in the list): Generalize, think of things in the same vein, then pick one that strikes your imagination and seems original. You can do the same thing with descriptions; the world doesn't need another sunset that was beautiful and awe-inspiring. By generalize I don't mean break out the Thesaurus, I mean find the metaphors. What else is beautiful in the way a sunset is beautiful?

I tend to assume if it comes easily, I should probably work harder on it; and for me that usually results in something better.

Beginner mistakes is a book length topic, so I won't go on: I just wanted to generalize to two frequent ones, based on what you mentioned.