McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?
Moritz:
- I don't like that wholke PI & romance area of Urban Fantasy which is so popular at the moment. Actually, while I love Dresden Files, that's about as far as I'll go in that direction. I'd like more evocative magical worlds, like the stuff by Gaiman.
- I'd like more UF set in Europe (I have to admit that I am a bit eurocentric anyway)
- I agree on including more average people.
- what I'd like with a shared world for UF would be if you had writers from real different cultures who contributed "their parts of the world" for something set on earth.
short story on problems with "average people": I was working on the setting and characters of a graphic novel set in an urban fantasy version of my hometown and wanted to include a teenage girl with no special powers or skills whatsoever. the idea was that she could be the one the readers could relate to most. I talked about it with my illustrator and he said that it was a stupid idea. I am now considering putting her "accidentally" near major events and that there is some kind of hidden reason for that. not sure about it though. [btw, the setting of this is a bit more far out than typical UF, set in Europe, and the supernaturals start out rather average ;D ]
Franzeska:
--- Quote from: Battery Operated Boyfriend on February 06, 2008, 07:33:31 AM ---Wish someone would peruse through the thread and careful and concisley put togther the most comman issues in a bull it point list
--- End quote ---
That's bullet point. I've just read this whole thing for the first time, and while I'm not going to go back and assign numerical rankings, these are the issues people have mentioned a bunch:
1. More diversity! -- We want different settings (Europe, other US cities, other parts of the world). We want authors who sound like they actually know about non-US cultures. We want US authors who make use of the actual diversity of the US.
You've all read the Watch books, right? The Russian urban fantasy series by Sergei Lukyanenko? The solution to everything being too US-centric is to read more foreign books.
2. More magical diversity! -- We want less of the trendy mythologies and critters and more of the weird ones. (Though we don't all agree on which should stay and which should go. Personally, I could do without any more "celtic" anything ever, and East Asian stuff often sounds like an anime ripoff.) We want real folklore monsters instead of movie Dracula. We want folklore we haven't heard of before and monsters that aren't in every single other UF book.
3. More magical diversity! -- Some of us like science-y magic, others don't. All of us agree that authors should be more creative about their magical systems. They need to be internally consistent and not the same as White Wolf or every other UF book.
4. More diversity of heroes! -- Ok, ok, no hero is going to be ordinary ordinary, but could we at least have some short, fat people in with our Xenas? Or someone who's not a PI, half vampire, or changeling? Or at least some plausible adults? These stories are set in the real world; let's have some heroes from there too.
5. No more sex! -- We're fantasy fans, not softcore porn vampire romance novel fans. More plot and less nookie, please! Pointless canoodling is what fanfiction is for.
6. No more series-itus! -- Many of us are sick of long series (not me!), but we're all sick of series that go on and on for no reason. Trilogies and stand-alone books, please! Overall series plot, please! No more jumping the shark Anita Blake style, for the love of god!
7. Good prose! -- Just because we like genre fiction doesn't mean we don't like good writing. Publishers need to stop pushing out crapfests just because they're in a trendy subgenre. We want good books!
So, basically, we want fresh, interesting books by actually talented authors instead of Extruded Urban Fantasy Product.
hamiltond:
--- Quote from: Franzeska on April 24, 2008, 09:42:35 PM ---That's bullet point. I've just read this whole thing for the first time, and while I'm not going to go back and assign numerical rankings, these are the issues people have mentioned a bunch:
1. More diversity! -- We want different settings (Europe, other US cities, other parts of the world). We want authors who sound like they actually know about non-US cultures. We want US authors who make use of the actual diversity of the US.
You've all read the Watch books, right? The Russian urban fantasy series by Sergei Lukyanenko? The solution to everything being too US-centric is to read more foreign books.
2. More magical diversity! -- We want less of the trendy mythologies and critters and more of the weird ones. (Though we don't all agree on which should stay and which should go. Personally, I could do without any more "celtic" anything ever, and East Asian stuff often sounds like an anime ripoff.) We want real folklore monsters instead of movie Dracula. We want folklore we haven't heard of before and monsters that aren't in every single other UF book.
3. More magical diversity! -- Some of us like science-y magic, others don't. All of us agree that authors should be more creative about their magical systems. They need to be internally consistent and not the same as White Wolf or every other UF book.
4. More diversity of heroes! -- Ok, ok, no hero is going to be ordinary ordinary, but could we at least have some short, fat people in with our Xenas? Or someone who's not a PI, half vampire, or changeling? Or at least some plausible adults? These stories are set in the real world; let's have some heroes from there too.
5. No more sex! -- We're fantasy fans, not softcore porn vampire romance novel fans. More plot and less nookie, please! Pointless canoodling is what fanfiction is for.
6. No more series-itus! -- Many of us are sick of long series (not me!), but we're all sick of series that go on and on for no reason. Trilogies and stand-alone books, please! Overall series plot, please! No more jumping the shark Anita Blake style, for the love of god!
7. Good prose! -- Just because we like genre fiction doesn't mean we don't like good writing. Publishers need to stop pushing out crapfests just because they're in a trendy subgenre. We want good books!
So, basically, we want fresh, interesting books by actually talented authors instead of Extruded Urban Fantasy Product.
--- End quote ---
Well said.
Moritz:
--- Quote from: Franzeska on April 24, 2008, 09:42:35 PM ---You've all read the Watch books, right? The Russian urban fantasy series by Sergei Lukyanenko? The solution to everything being too US-centric is to read more foreign books.
--- End quote ---
well, there just aren't that many, not only because of few translations but also because the markets in other countries are much smaller. I recently read a German vampire novel which is in the general urban fantasy direction and it was rather stupid* (there are also 2 werewolf books by the same author, but I didn't bother checking them out).
*the style, the story, the setting, the characters, the (lack of) motivations - everything annoyed me.
comprex:
--- Quote from: hamiltond on April 24, 2008, 10:49:56 PM ---
Well said.
--- End quote ---
I like her.
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