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A big headache for genre writing is that nearly every reader has their own set of rules about how that genre should work.  They have their favorite authors and all others get compared to those ‘elite’.  Any deviation is met with disagreement or outright rage because god forbid you have two fantasy authors who take different approaches to the genre.  So I’m going to have a little fun here and go over a few rules that have been hurled my way over the years:

1. YOU HAVE TO KILL CHARACTERS–  No I don’t.  Just because you have a disturbing blood lust doesn’t mean I have to give you a body count.  We can’t all write ‘Game of Thrones’, which is actually a rarity in terms of death.  8 of the 9 Fellowship members survived Lord of the Rings.  Drizzt is still kicking around since the 1980’s.  Conan…