Fantasy / Adventure is an excellent escapist genre for writers. Violence, handsome warriors, beautiful maidens, and villains, villains, villains!
As an F/A writer with three novels and a number of short stories hanging from my belt, I've found it a challenging and enjoyable genre to write in. Unlike sci-fi or horror, you don't necessarily have to have all the 'details' down because for the most part, you're just making it all up!
Of course if you go down the hard road and write 'Historic Fiction', you better get the details correct or you'll throw your story off. No problem with that in F/A. But there are 'problems' you best be aware of.
The greatest problem for those writing F/A stories come from the powerful 'Ogreish' brother-sister duo, 'Been there' and 'Done that.' Though fantastical stories have been around for thousands of years, we can all thank 'Lord Tolkien' for creating the seminal fantasy adventure trilogy, "Lord of the Rings" (yeesh!)
To say that every fantasy story written is a shadow brewed from the 'Land of Mordor' (see what I did there) is thankfully not true. Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burrows among many Pulp and adventure writers who went to press before J.R.R. dropped us in 'Hobbiton' are great examples of 'non-Tolkienesque' fantasy settings. Even later writers like 'Michael Moorcock' went to far stranger and scarier places in F/A without a hint of 'Eau du Elron' stinking the place up.
So the other half of that problem is 'Done that'. The drawback with writing F/A novels and shorts is; 'it's been done.' The genre just by virtue of being there can't help but lend itself to cliche'. Remember the 'handsome (King, Prince, Warrior, Vagabond, Rogue) and the 'beautiful (Queen, Princess, Warrior, Fallen Woman, Femme Fatale?) Well add 'the quest for the (stone, ring, sword, necklace, fountain, belt, helm, spear, bow, etc.) or the lost land of 'god knows where to (stop, start,) the great (villain, monster, god, demon) from doing whatever.
Get the point? Keep in mind so horrifically well traveled and explored a genre, the possibility of you coming up with something utterly 'original' (hey, just write something 'original'....) is highly unlikely. So in the quite likely event you will head down the road to 'Seen it Beforelandia', the things to keep in mind are to:
A) Firm up your idea. Too many of us don't have a solid idea of what our 'idea' for the story is. Yeah we get in your fantasy land there's 'this and that and that and this' which are all very cool and exciting to you. But (there's always one of those), you need to get a firm grip on why anyone would want to spend their money and time reading your book other than 'you wrote it and it's cool...'cause you wrote it.' Why is the 'land' the way it is? Who are the main characters? Why are they there at all? What are they going to do and how are they going to get it done without boring your reader(s) to death?
B) Tie all the elements together in a cohesive and compelling way. Now right off, this part is where the 'rubber-hits-the-road' and those bullshitting around just 'talking about writing a fantasy story' either get on with it or faceplant on the asphalt with nothing to show for all their talk.
Sorry kids, but getting all those 'great ideas' bouncing around in yon noggin into passable draft is hard. Taking all characters, elements and plot then blending them into something which makes sense is harder. Doing all that in a genre where everyone and their ancestors has had input long before you were ever born that readers will enjoy is hard...as...fuck! But, (there it is again) not impossible to do.
Here's an article by 'Professor Awesome' who'll painfully break down 'why your fantasy novel sucks' and shed some further light on how to keep it from doing so:
http://www.profawesome.com/?p=306
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