Okay Veeky Forums as cliche and retarded as this is going to sound...

Okay Veeky Forums as cliche and retarded as this is going to sound, my girlfriend and I are considering writing a fantasy novel. We aren't amateurs as far as writing and researching goes, as both of us have degrees (her psychology, me history). We want to write something fairly grounded in reality, but with cool fantasy elements that help the story stand out (I mean, that's kind of how most fantasy settings go anyway) and I'm looking for good suggestions of other fantasy novels and such that we can look to for general inspiration for how things should work as far as the story structure goes. No, I'm not asking you guys to write our book for us or give us material to steal from, just looking for inspiration.

Also TL;DR: Give me good medieval fantasy books to read

Your girlfriend is an idiot.

For getting the psychology degree? Oh yeah, she reminds herself and I of that every day, but at the very least the skills she learned and the philosophies she studied are gonna come in handy in the workplace and when writing this book.

Why is psychology considered a meme? Here in New Zealand psychologists have good salaries and there's a good chance of getting a job

Lord of the Rings is a very obvious start, but if you want something easy try those Japanese light novels. But I really don't recommend light novels.

Paulo Coehlo is also a good start but he ain't medieval.

If you're into manga and that shit try Berserk, for the good edge!

Idunno. Here in America at least the field of psychology has been infiltrated by a bunch of SJWs who preach fads like "mindfulness" and other vacuous bullshit so laypeople just treat psychology like it's a pseudoscience because really that's what it's becoming. It's no longer about how humans actually function it's all about fighting that patriarchy yo.

We're seeing a little bit of that in the history field as well, although not as bad. It's just there's a lot more focus on issues of race and gender in history than there used to be, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing as it's a field that has gone largely uncovered for a while but at the same time it's a little tedious when every other professor is like "omg muh patriarchal society"

you should go to reddit, they would give you better recommendations for what you're looking for than this place.

Oh yeah, also A Song of Ice and Fire is a good start.

If you want to read something to know what you SHOULD NOT do, try the Red Queen series. Whatever Aveyard wrote, don't do it.

I've seen enough of Berserk to know it's not necessarily the style we want to go for, but it would definitely be good for general reference as I do love the setting. She is a big fan of the LOTR books and did a big, semester-long thing in college about the existentialism aspect of the films and such, so that's definitely on the table.

I came to Veeky Forums first because I'm a 4channer at heart and I've learned to hate redditors overall, even though some of the subreddits are alright these days.

I'll be honest with you I've never read ASOIF or watched GoT. Girlfriend's obsessed with it but I just can't get into it. I love the setting and the real depth of everything that went into the worldbuilding but I just haven't heard anything about it that really gets me pumped to get into it.

Specifically, what type of fantasy are you trying to make anyway?

Are you going to write fantasy for fantasy's sake or are you going to add some more of your beliefs making it something like Silmarilion.

Or are you just writing it for fun? Because in that case I hope you won't be like Rowling or Aveyard.

Marie Lu's books are a nice start. ITs kind of fresh, its easy to read, BUT!

BUT!

BUT!

IT'S YA!

Its cool senpai, a lot of people are not really liking it but as a personal preference I like ASOIF. It defines the very core of what fantasy is and giving it some sort of a edgy in a right way treatment.

Well she wants to do something similar to what Tolkien did and have a really deep, fleshed out world that you can then draw a good fantasy story from, but I personally just want to tell a good story and flesh things out as they need fleshing out, but that's generally my writing style anyway.

So basically what you two sweet little thangs wanna do is let Tolkien's world and Gaiman's storytelling to fuck Jane Austen's idea simultaneously hoping to achieve something with it medieval style?

That sounds hella like ASOIF to me desu. No offense, but more than trying to find a source to beging with, you need to be attached to your storyline first then you read something.

That's fair. Again, we're really just in the concept phase but we decided we're gonna put work into this and get a basic plot outline going at the very least. My only concern, as ever, is that we'll either come up with an idea already in use by someone else or be derivative as fuck, or it'll be too boring, but that's just me being overly self-critical.

>Paulo Coehlo is also a good start

Please for the love of god be memeing.

>tfw no qt gf to write a fantasy book with...

This is an obvious bait, please don't bite it.
Meh, nothing is an original concept! Do what you think is good, if you think it's good enough great! In a world full of Charles Dickens, be Voltaire! No need to kill yourselves just because of an idea.

>This is an obvious bait

Speak for yourself. I have no idea what you see in him or why you'd recommend him to someone who wants to write fantasy.

Yeah, I mean we've come up with some pretty decent ideas for like, fantasy races and unique spins on dragons and stuff, but it all has to draw inspiration from somewhere right?
Yeah, I'm feeling pretty blessed desu. We got talking about fantasy settings after watching some WoW stuff together and she told me that she had all these ideas for a fantasy book but never put them to paper and I was like no way me too.

>Veeky Forums in a nutshell

No, I mean recommending Paulo Coehlo and even mentioning the name of Neil Gaiman is a bait to make the thread longer!

Ah! It all sounds too tedious to explain.

Malazan series, LotR, and Song of Ice and Fire