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A friend told me my fantasy story had 'too many elves' and it made me laugh and think
I was working on a short story for a local contest, a classic fantasy quest with knights and magic. I let my friend read a draft, and after a quiet minute, he looked up and said, 'Finley, this is good, but I've counted seven different elf characters in twenty pages. It's like a woodland convention in here.' We both cracked up, but he had a point. I realized I was just using elves as a default for any wise or ancient race without giving them real depth. So, I cut it down to two elf characters and made one of them a grumpy stonekin mason who hates trees. That small change forced me to be more creative with the other non-human cultures in the world. It was a silly note that really improved the piece. Has a piece of odd or funny feedback ever pushed your writing in a better direction?
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anthonyrivera17d ago
Honestly, I'm gonna hard disagree. If you're writing a fantasy world, you get to decide what's in it. If you want seven elves, write seven elves. The whole point of the genre is building the world you imagine, not following some rule about racial quotas. Your friend's note just made you second guess your own vision. That grumpy stonekin sounds like you changed a core idea just to please someone else's taste. Feedback that makes you laugh is one thing, but letting it cut out things you like is how stories get bland.
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the_amy17d ago
My buddy got told his space pirates talked too much like 18th century sailors, which was fair. He swapped their slang for garbled radio static and corporate jargon, which actually made them way creepier.
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