10 Science Fiction And Fantasy Stories That Editors Are Tired Of Seeing

Yes, that. My mistake.

 

I wasn't aware that Mermaid Stories and Pregnancy Horror were a thing. I'm so glad none of my works fall under those. Keep it fresh.

 

Funnily enough, I'm working on a Merman story - a young girl on land and a young fish boy lol. And yes, I'm struggling with how to make it interesting.... Any ideas?

Mind you, I'm not too worried because I started this one for fun. I was just tired of editing and wanted something I don't have to worry about in terms of plot and quality and I just wanted something simple. This was indeed simple. And I'm loving writing it!

Now I'm just torn between leaving it at its fairytale cliche, slash, a shameless copying of the movie Splash with the genders reversed, or to develop it into something more complex. The aim for this one was meant to be something simple of good quality that won't pain me to push out on the self-publishing platform, probably for free.

 

Do whatever sparks your interest and run with it. It can be difficult enough to write with an idea you love let alone one you're struggling to make different. Usually when I want to rip something off I start gently tweaking things - when I did my mermaid story I decided to make the mermaid homely and hostile and the land guy distracted by wealth but in love with the underwater world. But even if I wanted to play it straight, I'd focus on setting and character goals to make it somewhat different. But it all depends - if you're doing a romance readers expect a romance to play out a certain way and if you alter it too much you could lose your audience.

You could try altering the goals of the characters - in the little mermaid and splash the goals were merely to get the mermaids on land out of love for the main character, they really don't have any other goals. You could have the merboy uninterested in the world above - maybe he's curious but his goals could be to help whales get out of nets or something. If you give him a goal outside of just meeting the land girl that could give him a history and make him more interesting. Maybe he needs a tool a better knife to cut through the nylon, pressuring him to make contact with someone on land.

Or you could toy with setting - Maybe the girl's father has one of those cool houses that have a pool that winds through the house allowing the merboy to sneak in. Perhaps he's fascinated with their things and starts stealing. Or maybe the girl lives on a houseboat and is an avid diver and that's how they interact. Maybe he's lost down an aqueduct and she offers to help him find his way back to the sea.

 

As someone who used to beta read for amateurs and published authors, I can easily say I came across similar tropes all the time and a lot of them were due to what is popular right now or what was considered genre but ended up being generic and unimaginative.

It's hard to beta read seriously when by the first two pages all you're thinking is that this piece is terrible and going nowhere. Of course, there is some well written ones but what I really enjoy is something that is original and familiar at the same time without relying on cliches or seem to be ripping off what's popular.

Currently, zombies, vampires, and GoT style stories are everywhere. Superheroes and urban stories only a step behind.

 

How about this: The girl complains to him that he smells of fish, and tells him to shower, but when he does. . . Unable to wash properly without falling over and acquiring a fresh fishy odour, he embarks on an epic quest for an alternative solution to his problem.

 

Hahaha that would be a hilarious story! Not the kind of stuff I write, unfortunately, but I would have fun reading it!

I usually go for more serious stuff myself Reading silly stuff is good; I enjoy it thoroughly, but I've never really written silly stuff. Just doesn't interest me so much.

However, this reminds me of a story premise my friend came up with once. About a lowly, untalented wizard whom everyone mistakenly believes is evil and all-powerful. The wizard manages that by trying to do good and failing - for example, the farmers are suffering because of drought, so the wizard tries to do good by sending rain and because he's so crap at it, he ends up sending a flood and killing almost everyone. And as people's opinion of him shifts to thinking "He's an evil wizard", the wizard finds his own physical appearance and humble abode changing to match that against his will, until at the end he submits to his fate in a very grumpy fashion

Now if someone would write that, I'd read it for sure lol.