One Hundred Fantasy Clichés That Really Need To Rest In Peace

#87: Be Afraid of Risks

  Say there is this fantasy storyline about a crew of knights who defend the world from twisted demons.  They are united by the ideals of a seemingly flawless deceased general, who left the demon realm they used to serve in order to prevent the Earth from being destroyed by chaos released daily by this other world.  One of the general's strongest is their son, who they gave their life for in order to bring into the world.  He for many years fights this battle with the general's strong army, spreading a message of peace across the land.  The audience for this series adores the rare message of love being spread in fiction and soon this series becomes an international hit.
 
Then one day, the son unravels secret information hidden by the general's second in command.  It turns out the general was never a repressed being from the demon realm.  Instead, they were one of the demon realm's four leaders, who had taken pity on the Earth for its beauty.  They could not stand the evil their fellow colleges were throwing upon the Earth, so they took a stand.  This leader took on the form of a common foot soldier from the demon world and started a revolution that would set the world free.  To separate themselves fully from the demon realm forever, they had their second in command help forge their demise at the hands of the fake revolutionary leader.  Finding out this information, the son realizes that everything the general stood for was a lie.  All this time the general was a runaway leader and the son was demon royalty.  The news is spread to his fellow soldiers, who are heartbroken at the news.  With this sudden change of events, the audience is dumbfounded, divided even.  The author of this series worries they may have made the wrong choice with this plot twist and have taken a risk that they will regret for the rest of their career.

  Big risks like these are a huge gamble to take.  For all you know, the audience could end up hating your sudden game changing decision and boycott the rest of the series.  Until someone reads the content you created, you will not know whether your decision was a positive one.  It is a risk all authors can relate to, especially when they are attempting to create a masterpiece of a story that will be remembered for generations to come.  Everyone wants a taste of the fame given to authors like Stephen King, Stephanie Meyers, and J.K. Rowling.  Therefore, taking a risk is a path many authors like to take in order to get their works noticed.  However doing so is like winning the lottery with your audience.  Will they receive the huge change well or spit upon the storyline they once loved?

  That is why many editorials have suggested for many inspiring authors to not make huge game changing risks in their story lines.  The reason for this is simple; many people believe that people often do not like change.  They like a simplified, standard formula of planned events that can have the standard plot twist every so often.  It is the justification as to why the manga Sailor Moon and the Twilight book series are so well received by many people, even if critics have a differing opinion.  Risk is a dirty word for these types of editorials.  Failure is not an opinion, especially in the competitive world of fictional storytelling.  If the risk is even handled in the slightest wrong way, they may have to deal with the consequences of hate mail and not getting their much needed paycheck.  Just check out the number of story lines out there that do not stray from the expected path to understand why this ideology is popular.

  However, I think otherwise.  A true story line is created with full creative potential, even if one or two ideas are the definition of a risk to the viewing audience.  If you do not try painting outside of the lines, how are you going to stand out from the other inspiring authors out there?  You will potentially just be another supernatural romance writer or another contributor to the magical girl craze in Japan.  To truly have your name remembered by the audience, you need to take these lottery-like risks in order to get their attention.  Even if you do not succeed the first time with the twist, try again in another story line.  Just keep trying until you get it right.  Your audience may have varying opinions on how to feel about these plot changing events, but in the end you went towards your full creative potential.  Is that not what fictional writers are for?

  So you may be wondering what the heck was that story I was describing up there.  Well, if you replace all of the demons with humanoid gemstone aliens and the general/ demon leader being a gem known as Pink Diamond, then you get the most recent episode of Steven Universe.  A game-changing risk occurred in a recent episode known as "A Single Pale Rose", which has audiences currently divided.  Some hate this certain new revelation, while others like myself love it.  The divide inspired me to write this part of the editorial, which I felt was a great time to explain potential positive risks like those in the episode.  It is a true creative feat when you take these kinds of risks for your own feats of fiction, which I feel is not expressed very much by many sources.  You truly are not reaching the full creative potential you have as an author without a few risky highways during your writing journey.  Instances like the one hinted at above are what reinforce my own belief in the practice of risking taking.  Even if you fail, you still are writing the story you want to tell, without any influence stopping you from doing what you love. 

  The lesson here is simple; live a little.  You never know what you can achieve when you take off the creative restraints once in a while.