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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25205
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25205
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

The amount of realism in your book is set up by you as the writer. It's up to the individual reader to decide if this is the reader's particular cup of tea.

Some fantasy books are so stiff with clichés (valiant knights, pretty princesses, etc.) that they'll fall over in a brisk wind; some like to subvert them.

Mercedes Lackey does a lot of both in her Velgarth/Valedmar series — there are pretty princesses, but most of them are also damned handy with a sword, powerful mages, or both. There are valiant knights and jerk knights, good and bad kings, and justice for peasants and lords alike. David & Leigh Eddings explored these tropes in the Belgariad and Malloreon by going past them: for example, Mandorallen, the typical Myghtyest Knyght on Lyfe, is also a well-rounded and flawed character with a backstory and a love life and personality beyond that.

Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams wrote merry absurdities; you don't go in expecting realism. Tolkien deliberately was as serious as he could be in writing fantasy because he was trying to create a kind of "modern mythology" for Britain.

If you're worried that life in the real setting of High Fantasy (the English Middle Ages) was nasty, brutish, and short for most people and you think your audience would object to that truth, I should point out that there's an audience for that kind of story too — Bernard Cornwell did [a set of historical novels on the real King Arthur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Warlord_Chronicles), plus [others set around that time period](https://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Cornwell/e/B000APAB68/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1478898863&sr=8-2-ent), so _somebody_ is reading this stuff.

The upshot is this: write the story the way you think it should be written. Let your potential reader know how realistic you're planning to be in the blurb on the back or in the first few pages, and then your readers can decide if they want to go on the journey with you. There's no "correct" amount of realism for any story, no matter what the setting.

Original score: 3