TL;DR
5/10. A categorized bank of fantasy-flavored words and phrases, a modest brainstorming tool for widening a writer’s palette or escaping stock phrasing. It rates low because its core approach, supplying ready-made phrases, works against the original, world-specific voice good fantasy requires, and it teaches no craft. A small tool with a built-in hazard.
Fantasy Writers’ Phrase Book by Jackson Dean Chase is a reference of a very particular kind: a curated collection of words and phrases meant to help writers create authentic-feeling fantasy dialogue and description, the archaic-flavored vocabulary, the genre-appropriate expressions, the period-sounding turns of phrase that signal a fantasy world. It is part of a series of phrase-book references, and like its siblings, it is best understood as a prompt list rather than a craft guide, useful in a narrow way and easy to misuse.
The need it addresses is real if minor: writers reaching for a medieval or high-fantasy register often default to the same handful of stock archaisms, and a wider menu of options can help.
What it actually is
The book is essentially a categorized word and phrase bank, lists of evocative, genre-flavored language a fantasy writer can draw on for dialogue, description, insults, oaths, titles, and the texture of an invented or pseudo-historical world. Its honest use is as a brainstorming aid: a writer stuck for the right archaic-sounding phrase, or wanting to avoid repeating the same dozen fantasy stock expressions, can browse for fresher options. As a tool to jog the imagination and widen a writer’s palette of genre-appropriate language, it has a modest, real utility, much like a specialized thesaurus.
Keep reading
Writing fantasy: building a world readers believe in — a phrase list is a small piece; here is the fuller craft of convincing fantasy.
The danger of the phrase-list approach
The trap is the same one every phrase book sets. Lists of ready-made expressions invite a writer to assemble dialogue and description from prefabricated parts, and that produces exactly the generic, interchangeable fantasy prose the book ostensibly helps avoid, language that sounds like fantasy in general rather than like this specific world and these specific characters. Authentic fantasy voice comes from a writer’s own ear and from the internal logic of their world, not from a shared bank of phrases that every other reader of the same book is also drawing on. Used as a crutch, it homogenizes; used sparingly as a prompt, it can occasionally help. The discipline is the user’s, and the book cannot supply it.
Keep reading
Finding your voice: why borrowed phrasing flattens prose — the case for developing your own ear rather than assembling from a phrase bank.
Phrase book versus thesaurus
It is worth distinguishing this kind of book from the more defensible reference it resembles, because the difference explains the rating. A good writer’s thesaurus, including the emotion- and setting-focused ones, supplies raw material, single words, sensory possibilities, options the writer then shapes into their own sentences. A phrase book goes a step further and supplies the assembled phrase, the finished unit of expression, which leaves the writer less to do and correspondingly less room to make the language their own. The closer a reference moves from raw ingredients toward finished product, the more it risks doing the writer’s actual work for them, and the more uniform the results across everyone who uses it. This phrase book sits near the finished-product end of that spectrum, which is precisely why it is more hazard than help for a writer trying to develop a distinctive voice. The tool is not neutral; its form encourages the kind of borrowing that flattens prose.
Verdict
It is a narrow, modestly useful brainstorming tool, a categorized bank of fantasy-flavored language that can help a writer widen their palette or break out of stock phrasing, sitting alongside the other phrase books as a minor reference. It earns a low place on the scale because its core approach, supplying ready-made phrases, works against the original, world-specific voice that good fantasy actually requires, and it offers nothing in the way of craft instruction. For a writer who uses it lightly as a prompt it can occasionally spark something; for one who leans on it, it will flatten their prose toward generic fantasy. A small tool with a built-in hazard, fairly judged as minor.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Fantasy Writers’ Phrase Book?
Jackson Dean Chase’s reference offering a categorized collection of words and phrases, archaic-flavored vocabulary, oaths, titles, genre expressions, to help writers create authentic-feeling fantasy dialogue and description. It is a phrase bank, not a craft guide.
How is it meant to be used?
As a brainstorming aid: a writer stuck for the right archaic-sounding phrase, or wanting to avoid repeating stock fantasy expressions, can browse for fresher options, much like using a specialized thesaurus to widen their palette.
What is the risk in using it?
That assembling dialogue and description from prefabricated phrases produces generic, interchangeable fantasy prose, language that sounds like fantasy in general rather than like a specific world and characters. Leaned on as a crutch, it homogenizes prose.
Does it teach fantasy writing?
No. It offers no craft instruction, only a bank of phrases. Authentic fantasy voice comes from a writer’s own ear and the internal logic of their world, which a shared phrase list cannot provide.
Who might find it useful?
A fantasy writer who uses it lightly as an occasional prompt to break out of stock phrasing, with the discipline to develop their own voice rather than leaning on the list. Used heavily, it flattens prose toward generic fantasy.
Other Books in the Writers' Phrase Books Series
Other Books From – Language Arts & Disciplines
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