McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?
DragonFire:
--- Quote from: Kali on December 18, 2007, 11:15:17 PM ---And Jami isn't advocating ordinary circumstances, just a person who is, by all appearances, ordinary at the start of the story.
I also think everyone knows exactly what Jami means by "ordinary person", and there's some arguing for arguing's sake going on here.
--- End quote ---
Ok, that's a bit out of line. Jami is arguing about 'ordinary people' but with teh strong inference that ordinary is defined as real world ordinary. Your scenario posits an author creating an 'ordinary' where the ability to, for example, sing a werewolf to sleep isn't anything special.
Moreover, what I'm reading from Jami's posts isn't 'ordinary at the start of the story', it's stock standard, 100% vanilla human, no powers, abillities or heritage other than what an unenhanced, real world human would have.
People aren't just disagreeing with Jami for the hell of it. I'm certainly not. I disagree because I hold a different opinion.
--- Quote from: Kali on December 18, 2007, 11:15:17 PM ---"But... but singing to werewolves isn't ordinary!" Well dur. But that's part of her basic scenario (or at least one example of a possibility). So the *person* is still ordinary, even if the situation isn't.
--- End quote ---
Quite aside from being unnecessarily rude, this doesn't make sense.
You agree being able to sing to werewolves isn't ordinary, then later on, claim that the person who possesses this extraordinary ability, is, in face, still ordinary, just in an extraordinary situation.
Again, unless you re-write 'ordinary' to be 'singing can put people to sleep, especially in a high stress situation', this just doesn't fit that.
Moreover, as I said, that LEVEL of singing talent would make you an extraordianry human, rather than an stock standard one.
--- Quote from: Kali on December 18, 2007, 11:15:17 PM ---I'm finding a certain amount of amusement in the fact that this part of the discussion is taking place on the message board for a writer who's gotten a 6-book deal from an idea that started as a bet he could take two ridiculous, "unworkable" ideas and make a good story from them.
I'm with Jami. If you can write, you can make it work. If you can't make it work, maybe you need to stop blaming the idea and start blaming your writing.
--- End quote ---
Who's writing? who's tried this?
Jim could do what he did in Alera partly because he's working with concepts, which he could define.
Jami is doing the defining, and then complaining that no one has written the story that fits her definition yet.
--- Quote from: Kali on December 18, 2007, 11:15:17 PM ---
And allow me to roll my eyes at the idea that being able to sing to a werewolf well enough to soothe them is an extraordinary ability. Only if you WRITE it that way. Maybe anyone who can sing well could possibly sing a werewolf calm, but it's just never occurred to anyone. It happens, for whatever reason, to occur to the heroine.
--- End quote ---
This has been answered above already. It's not just only if it's WRITTEN that way. Unless this is a common ability in the book, it's NOT ordinary.
Yes, you can write it like that, but then it fail's Jami's definition of 'ordinary person'.
I'm with Borealis Belle. If you want to see it, write it your damn self.
Kali:
Whee!
--- Quote from: Lightsabre on December 19, 2007, 12:21:44 AM ---Ok, that's a bit out of line. Jami is arguing about 'ordinary people' but with teh strong inference that ordinary is defined as real world ordinary. Your scenario posits an author creating an 'ordinary' where the ability to, for example, sing a werewolf to sleep isn't anything special.
--- End quote ---
Maybe it isn't. Maybe the heroine of the book is simply the first to try it, for whatever reason. She's not under direct attack, is witnessing one, can't get away, and is singing to a child to try to calm it down before Certain Doom overtakes them in a large mass of fur and fangs and the song has the unintended side-effect of making the beast stop to listen, it settles down, it turns back into a human a la Hulk/Bruce Banner.
Why not?
And I swear, if you say "Because that's not the way it really works", I'm going to laugh. ;D Just because it hasn't happened in other werewolf stories doesn't mean it can't happen in a new one, with a new take on things.
--- Quote ---Moreover, what I'm reading from Jami's posts isn't 'ordinary at the start of the story', it's stock standard, 100% vanilla human, no powers, abillities or heritage other than what an unenhanced, real world human would have.
People aren't just disagreeing with Jami for the hell of it. I'm certainly not. I disagree because I hold a different opinion.
--- End quote ---
Which can still work. Unless you take the view that knowledge is itself a special ability, and once our posited ordinary human has experience with the supernatural, she automatically becomes extraordinary.
--- Quote ---Quite aside from being unnecessarily rude, this doesn't make sense.
--- End quote ---
I honestly didn't think it was rude. Flip and dismissive, perhaps, but that was just answering kind with kind.
And I wish the board allowed nested quotes...
--- Quote ---You agree being able to sing to werewolves isn't ordinary, then later on, claim that the person who possesses this extraordinary ability, is, in face, still ordinary, just in an extraordinary situation.
Again, unless you re-write 'ordinary' to be 'singing can put people to sleep, especially in a high stress situation', this just doesn't fit that.
Moreover, as I said, that LEVEL of singing talent would make you an extraordianry human, rather than an stock standard one.
--- End quote ---
Why? Why can't you write the world, write werewolves, in such a way that they are affected by live singing to a heightened degree? And maybe putting them to SLEEP is, indeed, a bit much, why can't you write a world where you can stop a werewolf from "rampaging" (to use Jami's original word) through a well-sung melody?
--- Quote ---Who's writing? who's tried this?
--- End quote ---
Well, nobody. Isn't that the point of this entire thread? What you wish was being done in Urban Fantasy that isn't currently being done, or at least not done much (with the emphatic MORE in the thread title and all)?
--- Quote ---Jim could do what he did in Alera partly because he's working with concepts, which he could define.
--- End quote ---
Er... yeah. Ok. And how is "ordinary human being with no powers/abilities/birthrights who gets involved in the paranormal" not a concept the author can define? If you're the author, you get to create the world! Sure, you're limited by urban fantasy generally taking place in the "real world" only with supernatural elements, but you get to define the elements. You get to put any spin you want on werewolves or vampires or elves or fairies or...well, ANYthing. That's the fun part!
--- Quote ---Jami is doing the defining, and then complaining that no one has written the story that fits her definition yet.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, we all are. ;D Again, that's the point of the thread, no one's writing the stories we want to read most. Or so I thought.
--- Quote ---This has been answered above already. It's not just only if it's WRITTEN that way. Unless this is a common ability in the book, it's NOT ordinary.
Yes, you can write it like that, but then it fail's Jami's definition of 'ordinary person'.
--- End quote ---
Exactly so. So MAKE it a common ability that no one's tried yet. What if it's a weakness the werewolves know about and have tried to suppress? Maybe the werewolves then target the singer and anyone who witnessed the event. Maybe there are people who want to know how she survived and they're trying to protect her, maybe they run trials and confirm that it's possible to do but only with a live voice.
It's your world! You're the author! ANYTHING is possible, anything.
--- Quote ---I'm with Borealis Belle. If you want to see it, write it your damn self.
--- End quote ---
See? Flip and dismissive. That same last sentence could apply to ANY post in this thread, but you're throwing it out at one idea only. Why does this idea get "write it your damn self" and none of the other ideas in the thread?
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Lightsabre on December 18, 2007, 10:59:57 PM ---ok, beiong able to sing someone to sleep, let alone a werewolf, would sort of qualify as a supernatural power.
--- End quote ---
It can't be that supernatural a power given how many times I've actually done it. Though if any of the people involved were werewolves, it didn't show at the time.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Kali on December 18, 2007, 11:15:17 PM ---And Jami isn't advocating ordinary circumstances, just a person who is, by all appearances, ordinary at the start of the story. "But... but singing to werewolves isn't ordinary!" Well dur. But that's part of her basic scenario (or at least one example of a possibility). So the *person* is still ordinary, even if the situation isn't.
--- End quote ---
I think we're having some blurring on what exactly different people mean by "ordinary".
It also occurs to me that, even if you did manage to start out with someone whom everyone was satisfied was "ordinary", they're not going to stay that way very long, because to my mind the "ordinary" person's first reaction to weird violent stuff happening is to try to hand it off to the competent authorities, or otherwise get out of the way, and succeeding at doing that doesn;t actually make for a story.
Hell's Belle:
--- Quote from: neurovore on December 19, 2007, 03:47:00 PM ---I think we're having some blurring on what exactly different people mean by "ordinary".
It also occurs to me that, even if you did manage to start out with someone whom everyone was satisfied was "ordinary", they're not going to stay that way very long, because to my mind the "ordinary" person's first reaction to weird violent stuff happening is to try to hand it off to the competent authorities, or otherwise get out of the way, and succeeding at doing that doesn;t actually make for a story.
--- End quote ---
EXACTLY.
This is the point I was trying to make...and I guess I didn't do a very good job.
Yes, people can be sung to sleep. I wasn't disputing that. I was suggesting that IF someone was able to 'sing a werewolf to sleep' while that werewolf was in an alley attacking somoene, it sure as heck wouldn't be someone ordinary that could do such a thing.
I wasn't saying any of this was impossible to write---I was trying to say that a) it would have to be written plausibly, to make such an unlikely event actually occur and b) were someone to be able to sing a creature to sleep during the commission of such an attack, they would not be what would be termed 'ordinary'. Unless werewolves or vampires or whatever monsters in that author's realm were different than the legends in THIS world. I kind of figured that went without saying, with this being a forum on an author's website.
I'm not argueing for arguement's sake---but I'm sure as hell not going to simply agree in order to validate a fantasy, either. The other point I was trying to make was that if it's a book idea, the author has to be able to establish 'the rules' early on. IF it's a case where the heroine sings a wereolf to sleep during the commission of an attack, the foundation has to be laid early on that it is possible. If the event was taking place in downtown Los Angeles (for instance) in this day and age, I don't think that I, as the reader, would be able to swallow such an occurrence. It flies in the face of what I know. If the author were able to explain early on in the book, or at the time of the singing, something about the timbre or the pitch or something to do with the heroine's voice, that would make it easier to accept.
But it sure wouldn't make her ordinary.
THAT is what I meant by my previous posts.
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