Hardest Fantasy Themes to Write

[RetroFan]

Like many authors on the site, I've dabbled in fantasy themes, which is applicable now given people are writing and submitting Halloween stories. I've written stories including monsters, ghosts and UFOs, although these stories are otherwise set in the 'real' world. I've written a body swap story and more recently an alternate dimension story (again with 'real world' settings) where among other things the male narrator's annoying male cousin is a hot female cousin in the other reality, but the incest taboo fans didn't like the alternate dimension story, and they absolutely hated the body swap one. I've also had a story written from the perspective of a ghost from beyond the grave, and stories set in eerie surroundings.

One subject I've never tackled is time travel, despite it interesting me. I have had time slips in several of my stories, but one involved aliens that had the ability to reset small passages of time and in the other what happened was ambiguous. I wouldn't say no to writing a time travel story, but haven't had a good enough idea yet to make it work.

Fantasy and sci-fi world building - setting stories in other worlds or on other planets - is very hard, and I have respect for authors who write these type of stories. But it is notoriously difficult to engage readers/viewers with these type of stories and to make them work.

Hardest though I would say is a time-loop story, like Groundhog Day, Palm Springs and Happy Death Day among others. Writing such a story would be a huge challenge, especially with erotic themes. While I like time loops stories, I don't think I could ever write one myself.

What are your thoughts/experiences?

 

[LFM90]

I’m no writer just a reader on this site but I’m gonna have to say the taboo incest theme

 

[EmilyMiller]

What are your thoughts/experiences?

I have written two stories involving time travel:

Shining Valley High

By The Horns

In both cases, the time shifts were integral plot points.

Aside from a wholly intentional nod to the “I shot my father” paradox, I think I managed to avoid inconsistencies.

 

[TheRedChamber]

If your time travel stories are any more complicated than 'I got to have sex with Cleopatra/Marie Antoinette/Marilyn Monroe' then I think you are on the wrong site.

(That's a joke btw, I love overthinking things too)

 

[AwkwardMD]

For my money, its much harder to write a god/alien/deity/ghost/AI. Something that has a fundamentally different experience in the world than our own. Too often I see others writing them as essentially human.

 

[RetroFan]

I’m no writer just a reader on this site but I’m gonna have to say the taboo incest theme

One of the biggest paradoxes on Literotica is that the Taboo-Incest fans, at least from my encounters with them, are the least imaginative and less willing to accept fantasy and supernatural themes in their stories.

Like I said the reaction to a story series I wrote where a nerd swaps bodies with his bossy twin sister's dumb jock boyfriend was brutal; they for the most part haven't liked a story series I've been writing about a young guy who slips into an alternate dimension; and a Geek Pride story I wrote about two square cousins Glen and Betsy who are respectively pre-law and pre-med students and who encounter Bigfoot in a story set in Vermont in the early 1970s sank without trace.

Mind you, they don't seem to appreciate attempts to make them laugh either, nor do they want to go on holidays to interesting places.

 

[dirk2024]

Hardest though I would say is a time-loop story, like Groundhog Day, Palm Springs and Happy Death Day among others. Writing such a story would be a huge challenge, especially with erotic themes. While I like time loops stories, I don't think I could ever write one myself.

I'm not sure how interesting it would be to write the same sex scene over and over and over again. Even if it were to be tweaked, just a little each time, would get tedious to write, much less read.

 

[Erozetta]

Magic is hardest for me.

It has to function in a way that's plausible without being overpowering. It becomes too easy to rely on it to fix plot holes, which is just lazy writing.

I love magic. I love writing magic. It's fun to play with, but when I write magic, I get sucked into that world for a long, long time because I need the magic to work yet be tempered in a way that serves believability, function, and plot without overtaking any of it.

I tend to lean on Wiccan and Pagan beliefs about magic when I write it.

Nothing annoys me more than a story that "saves itself" by pulling magic in a way that makes you question why it took two hundred pages to do the thing they could've done on page one.

It's the easiest to fuck up, in my opinion.

 

[Statius]

In defense of writing about gods, the Greek and Roman gods are just extreme versions of humanity, highlighting the best/ worst (usually worst) instincts, habits, emotions and ways of humans with supernatural power- which is more of a side show in the literature rather than the point. Of course this is a generalized statement, not taking all aspects of every piece of the lit. in question I to account.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

Cosmic Horror. Is not that fear isn't difficult to write, it's just that, like most high fantasy leads all the way back to Mt. Tolkien, almost everything that I've read from cosmic horror always leads all the way back to H. P. Lovecraft. Now I like H. P. Lovecraft, but it's hard to learn writing cosmic horror without feeling like a knockoff from the dude, so don't even get me started on how I feel when I try to write it.

 

[lovecraft68]

I’m no writer just a reader on this site but I’m gonna have to say the taboo incest theme

It depends and what it depends on can apply to other categories as well. If you're going for a one handed read "Son sees mom's boobs, wants them, she says hop on" its not difficult.

Now to try to come up with a scenario that is plausible enough to have the reader thinking "You know, that could happen" is not the easiest trick and being where any other sexual fantasy here could happen with people, this is the one that is the hardest to get folks to buy into a real story.

 

[AwkwardMD]

In defense of writing about gods, the Greek and Roman gods are just extreme versions of humanity, highlighting the best/ worst (usually worst) instincts, habits, emotions and ways of humans with supernatural power- which is more of a side show in the literature rather than the point. Of course this is a generalized statement, not taking all aspects of every piece of the lit. in question I to account.

All due respect, but pointing out that myths, legends, and folk tales are traditionally bad at envisioning what an extra-or-non human experience would be like is not a defense. For me, that's further proof of how difficult it is.

Real, tangible power does things to people, a concept we all understand in theory, but more often we prefer to flatter ourselves with the idea that power wouldn't change me. And so our characters remain essentially human, essentially unchanged.

 

[SimonDoom]

I think setting a story in the future is inherently difficult, because none of us knows what the future really will be like. You have to give it some thought and pay some attention to the world-building to make it seem realistic enough.

The less "hard" and more "fantasy" the science, the easier it is to write, I think.

For instance, with respect to time travel, especially backwards time travel, stories tend to gloss over the "how," because, well, as far as we can tell it's impossible, so there's no point in trying to contrive something "plausible" to make it happen. The reader or moviegoer is accustomed to accepting magic (e.g., the flux capacitor in Back to the Future). But if it's hard science fiction, like, say, The Martian, then it's really important to work out the details.

 

[happyyy_]

Reading a lot of well done world building and fleshed out series has been a big help to my understanding. There are more experienced writers on here who can offer more valuable perspectives. But I think the biggest issue I have faced as a new writer is not understanding my stories themes and how they connect to my story world. Making a new world isn’t as hard as it looks. It’s fun to make planets with new moons and solar systems and fast travel, and medieval worlds with demons and dragons and complex magical and political systems. But if you cannot come up with themes and challenges in the world itself that give the readers something to chew on while reading, then it falls flat.

I really don’t think my world building is there yet, but there are a lot of really interesting examples out there. And depending on your writing style, it may not be something you consider until draft 2 or 3, which is perfectly fine. The story world, characters, plot and themes are all interconnected. I find it’s easier to understand one part more completely than the rest before I can begin to build story scaffolding that makes sense.

And then there is the whole other challenge of writing worldbuilding that is fascinating and pulls readers in without being boring or too heavy. It’s very hard once you’ve created a whole world (or part of one) to not word vomit about it constantly when story writing

 

[DEFCOM5]

In my humble opinion, writing a very funny or very scary story is the most difficult.

I have yet to find a story here that scared the hell out of me or made me laugh my heart out.

I think that style like T/I, R/NC have trouble being creative, are usually the less imaginative as @Lovecraft88 mention.

Time travel major pitfall is the "I kill my father" trap. @EmilyMiller, your two time travel stories are next on my reading list to see how you handle them. Looking forward to be impress.

Sci/fi is hard because the world building is critical and time consuming which is the antithesis of this site. Usually the reader will want the action fast

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sci/fi is hard because the world building is critical and time consuming which is the antithesis of this site. Usually the reader will want the action fast

The sci-fi and fantasy category is well known for its long, multi-chapter stories. Those readers don't mind the wait.

 

[SimonDoom]

In my humble opinion, writing a very funny or very scary story is the most difficult.

This is a very good point. I've written a few humorous stories here, and one scary one. None did that well score-wise. People are very picky about what they find funny or scary, and they will tell you if your sense of humor or horror doesn't match theirs.

Simple erotica, on the other hand, isn't difficult once you've read and written enough stories and got the nuts and bolts down.

 

[StillStunned]

Speaking for myself, anything with political intrigue. I prefer my worldbuilding to be limited to the story's immediate surroundings, and the action to be straightforward. Politics call for slow development, tonnes of background, enough players to muddy the waters, and just generally more plot than I'm capable of putting in my stories.

 

[AwkwardMD]

[...], and just generally more plot than I'm capable of putting in my stories.

Somehow, I don’t think that's true.

 

[onehitwanda]

Like 'Roz said, magic.

Magic breaks stories. Magic creates Mary Sues. Magic twists and turns and ties you into knots that are very hard to get out of (Shush, @EmilyMiller).

I love magic, particularly the dark magic of Faerie - the illusions, mysticism and enchantments that make things what they are not. But it's very hard to write magic in a way that isn't overpowering - Kvothe springs to mind. To counterbalance that is Ged from Earthsea; Ursula le Guin wrote magic as magic should be written, and I aspire to be like her.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Magic twists and turns and ties you into knots that are very hard to get out of

But I… OK

 

[EdwardsOtherSide]

Cosmic Horror. Is not that fear isn't difficult to write, it's just that, like most high fantasy leads all the way back to Mt. Tolkien, almost everything that I've read from cosmic horror always leads all the way back to H. P. Lovecraft. Now I like H. P. Lovecraft, but it's hard to learn writing cosmic horror without feeling like a knockoff from the dude, so don't even get me started on how I feel when I try to write it.

Counterpoint; if you acknowledge Lovecraft’s impact, lean into it. My "Confession" series is shamelessly shaped by Lovecraft. The third story is where I stop even trying to be subtle about it.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Hardest Fantasy Themes to Write​

Obv more SciFi than Fantasy, but when the ‘good’ citizens of AH set me the challenge of writing a tentacle porn story, I decided my tentacle monster would be an alien. I then spent quite some time trying to come up with a quasi-scientific rationale for his telepathic, telekinetic, shape-shifting powers. I think it kinda hung together in the end.

 

[onehitwanda]

Obv more SciFi than Fantasy, but when the ‘good’ citizens of AH set me the challenge of writing a tentacle porn story, I decided my tentacle monster would be an alien. I then spent quite some time trying to come up with a quasi-scientific rationale for his telepathic, telekinetic, shape-shifting powers. I think it kinda hung together in the end.

You certainly filled all the obvious holes...

 

[EdwardsOtherSide]

All due respect, but pointing out that myths, legends, and folk tales are traditionally bad at envisioning what an extra-or-non human experience would be like is not a defense. For me, that's further proof of how difficult it is.

Real, tangible power does things to people, a concept we all understand in theory, but more often we prefer to flatter ourselves with the idea that power wouldn't change me. And so our characters remain essentially human, essentially unchanged.

Maybe the answer is to focus on human reactions and responses to ineffable and overwhelming power. But I am an avid fan of Lovecraft (yes, I am aware of how problematic is was, but damn, he has shaped horror for over a century now for a reason). Lovecraft was all about human minds trying to cope with godlike entities.

I absolutely agree about the impact of power on people (I had to teach professional classes on ethics and the corrupt stuff that people in power think they can get away with was the heart of the matter). This having been said, power is like a lot of drugs; it doesn't change a person. It shows their character. The Norse pantheon is great for that, with Tyr and Heimdall as paragons and Thor and Loki as far more "human".