Hey, modern fantasy authors!
Dec. 30th, 2007 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dsrtaoIf your lead character is living in the modern world or an analog thereof, they need a day job. Detective, bounty hunter, mercenary, cop, fixer, minor mafioso, vampire executioner and professional reanimator -- these are all good choices, as they keep the character busy and naturally lead into situations that are interesting for the reader and provide plot hooks.
When your protagonist blows off the day job to become The Special Snowflake, that's pretty much the end of the story unless you are writing a political thriller. Are you?
Jim Butcher is doing well with Harry Dresden, who is still gaining power 9 books in, and is still not Special Snowflake, or even well-respected. Rachel Caine did an OK job with the Weather Wardens, where Joanne Baldwin has been three kinds of Special Snowflake in four books, but keeps losing it. Laurell Hamilton went berzerk with Anita Blake after book 5, and in the very first book of the Meredith Gentry, Special Faerie Snowflake Princess story. John Ringo writes male versions of Special Snowflake, who really need a preternatural explanation for the endurance, dexterity, combat prowess and resistance to STDs that they all display.
Has anyone written a book in which the hero what gains The Power is present but not the primary character? I'm not interested in Watsons.
When your protagonist blows off the day job to become The Special Snowflake, that's pretty much the end of the story unless you are writing a political thriller. Are you?
Jim Butcher is doing well with Harry Dresden, who is still gaining power 9 books in, and is still not Special Snowflake, or even well-respected. Rachel Caine did an OK job with the Weather Wardens, where Joanne Baldwin has been three kinds of Special Snowflake in four books, but keeps losing it. Laurell Hamilton went berzerk with Anita Blake after book 5, and in the very first book of the Meredith Gentry, Special Faerie Snowflake Princess story. John Ringo writes male versions of Special Snowflake, who really need a preternatural explanation for the endurance, dexterity, combat prowess and resistance to STDs that they all display.
Has anyone written a book in which the hero what gains The Power is present but not the primary character? I'm not interested in Watsons.
