Trying to avoid High-Fantasy Cliches

I'm working on book that involves a quasi-Medival European setting. I'm abstaining from so common tropes of High-fantasy based on personal preference. I just want to know if I'm dishing up any overused Fantasy tropes, or I'm excluding things that Fantasy can't do without...

• There's no 'random dashes' type names. Many are unusual, but most of them are based off actual languages (Latin, Greek etc.) or actual names of the era.
• No Planet England syndrome. Other 'countries'(quasi-Asia,etc.) are alluded to.
• No fantasy beasts. That means no dragons, unicorns, etc. (Human-like elves are in the story though)
• No Always Chaotic Evil races. There is both evil humans, evil mages, and evil elves...
• There is some Fantastic Racism existing on all sides (Some mages don't like humans, some humans don't like elves, some elves don't like mages, etc.)
• I'm not using the 'elves are archers' cliche. Sure, some elves in this actually ARE archers, but they also hold a variety of other professions as well.

edited 25th Oct '12 5:40:45 PM by TheMuse

Hmm. You've said a lot about what you aren't going to do, but I'm curious to know what you are going to do. You've removed cliched elements, but what original elements have you added to make it stand out?

Some things you mentioned are not really cliches, but tropes. Fantasy beasts, for example. I think they are kind of important in high fantasy, maybe a necessity, but I'm no expert.

I like the fact that you avoid names with random dashes. I hate - HATE - names with random dashes and apostrophes.

edited 25th Oct '12 6:35:13 PM by Teraus

I'd agree that they aren't a cliche, but I don't think they're necessary. The Mistborn books, for example (or at least the first one, I haven't read the others), don't really have any of the usual fantasy beasts, but they're still considered high fantasy.

@OP: Are you sure you aren't going for Low Fantasy, instead?

Why do you think he's talking about Low Fantasy? High Fantasy isn't in the trappings, it's in the framework:

• Setting - A world other than ours. It may have a nominal connection with present day Earth, such as being our remote past or future, but this plays no role in the plot. Mythopoeia is often put into play to define the very metaphysics of the world. Nevertheless it often resembles medieval Europe, and is often peopled by People of Hair Color.
• Scale - Epic. Power politics, wars, the death of nations, gods walking the earth, and the real threat of The End of the World as We Know It. This is what distinguishes High Fantasy from Heroic Fantasy.
• Great evil - An enemy which is near enough Evil incarnate or fundamentally abhorrent
• Methods - Victory is not achieved through force of arms, the main feature distinguishing High Fantasy from Heroic Fantasy. If Aragorn had killed Sauron in hand-to-hand combat, that would have been Heroic Fantasy. In short, a Supporting Leader or the Reluctant Hero will be offered up instead of the rough-hewn barbarian of, say, Conan or Beowulf.

edited 25th Oct '12 7:08:55 PM by Madrugada

Looking at what's not on that list really should be enough to help you avoid cliches on its own, in fact.

Yeah, what I was going for would definitely be considered high fantasy. It includes magic, the whole 'if we don't defeat the Big Bad, he'll take over the world' sort of thing, and the 'Evil Empire' that's pretty fucking evil (obviously, many of the villians' backstories will be alluded to keep it interesting) I've narrowed it to simply a three races fantasy (human, mage, elf)

edited 26th Oct '12 4:34:46 AM by TheMuse

And for original elements, I'm going to include that there is the ability to inherit empath traits, (Empathy would be done in a way that is slightly more plausible than the traditional Hollywood Mind Reading) there is a more variety in belief structures (it's not just 'elf gods' and 'human gods.' there are some polytheistic religions, some monotheistic, and one that's pretty close to pantheism)

If you're trying to avoid the cliches, make sure you understand where you get your inspiration. Tolkien's influence is so powerful that most people don't even realize it's not common sense.

Take elves. Tree whispering, pointy eared, tall folk almost completely feminine in appearance and long lifespans? No facial hair? Blonde? That's Tolkien's interpretation. Up until then, they were European folklore—tricksters who hated iron and humans equally, for the most part.

I don't know the specifics of your story (Your elves might make shoes for all I know), but at least look closely at why you decide things. My tip for avoiding the cliches.

And in fact, Tolkien doesn't even mention anything about elf hair color or beardlessness. That's probably the work of some artist.

They're only cliches if you don't do anything original with them. If you decide that your elves will be tree-hugging archers because they're always tree-hugging archers, that's cliche. Give your elves a legitimate reason to act like tree-hugging archers in your setting, and it's not so much a cliche.

edited 26th Oct '12 6:21:22 PM by DarkSoldier

More to the point, have reasons why the particular elves who are archers in your story are archers e.g. in their military, they have infantry (swords, axes etc), cavalry (swords, axes, lances), skirmishers (bows) and artillery (seige weapons) and the ones mentioned are (ex)military skirmishers or possibly hunters (though trained skirmishers are more likely to have other combat skills that may be handy as well as having the whole hit-hard-and-fast-with-ranged-weapons-then-pull-back-and-strike-elsewhere thing going.)

Actually, I don't think Tolkien spent much time describing his elves at all, at least not in-text. Unless I misremember, I don't think he ever even said they had the iconic pointy ears. And some of his elves weren't even haughty...

I think I remember reading that Tolkien's elves had ears shaped like leaves, if that helps.

Tolkien did describe what his elves looked like, but only in the supplementary literature, of which admittedly there is a lot of. And Tolkien actually did mention about hair color and (lack of) beards.

edited 28th Oct '12 10:41:43 AM by shiro_okami