One of the characters in my game is an exorcist, having only Ritual (Diabolism) in terms of magic.  I let him do Thaumaturgy in combat, based on the conceit that anything at or under his Lore he has the stuff for, and anything above he has to pull in somehow to meet the Lore deficit (and that this FUNCTIONALLY makes Thaumaturgy unusable in combat, but not EXPLICITLY making it unusable in combat).  

His Lore is +5, so he can perform a 5-shift ritual by forming the magic construct on Exchange 1, and attempting to power it on Exchange 2 - n.  This is likely to get you little.

He's used it to make a quick-and-dirty 5-shift Ward before ... being a Diabolist it is only effective against demons.  Exchange 1:  "I'll make a ward!  I grab my chalk and put down a circle."  Exchange 2:  "I need to get this circle up, I'll haul down all 5 shifts of power." ... but with a Conviction of 4 and a Discipline of 4 he has to take a point of stress and make a +1 roll for Discipline.

Now, outside of the norm, I've allowed him to make attacks with Thaumaturgy.  Not Evocation-style attacks, but we based it off scaling WAY back on the "Lasting Change In A Target" method of "winning a conflict in one roll" ... by turning that back into "winning a conflict with a bunch of rolls".  I.E. - Turning Lore into a slow, dangerous, cumbersome attack skill.

Since it only works on demons, we characterize it as starting and continuing an exorcism in combat.  He has the sympathetic link (his exorcism tools) and can frame the ritual (Exorcise The Demons!) in Exchange 1 and fuel in Exchange 2.  That being cumbersome the player asked if he could take the standard two-actions-at-once penalty and do both in one exchange at a -1 to both.  It works for our game, so I let it go.  Essentially allowing him to make a 4-shift Weapon:0 attack.  

In Evocation, the power of the spell (Conviction) sets the Weapon:X level while the control (Discipline) is the targeting roll.  Since we were basing off the permanent change, the complexity of the spell (Discipline) sets the flat un-rolled attack value and the control (Discipline) merely determines backlash, fallout, or success.  

So where he might have a ritual of Complexity 29 to ... target the Demon's Presence, account for a +4 roll, account for 2/4/6/8 consequences, etc etc ... it's just a flat "Difficulty 4 roll against Presence".

He's tagged Aspects to up the ante, but it means this methodology is expensive either in FP or stress (sucking down Conviction-topped mental stress or Discipline-topped backlash).  Unlike Evocation, where uncontrolled power can be selectively spilled as Fallout or swallowed with Backlash, the Thaumaturgic nature means it all has to come back as Backlash or the whole thing is wasted.  

Compared to Evocation, it's slow, dangerous, and pretty weak.  He has an enchanted item that pops out a Weapon:6 Spirit attack vs. demons only (Banishing Mirror) and that's far more reliable for putting combat hurt down.  The Weapon:X values on evocations make them insane combat weapons with only minor min/maxing, so even leveraging my "eh, I'll allow it" to the hilt the guy with the Weapon:2 handgun is far more effective for standard attacks.  It's only by bypassing the usual "mook" monster physical tree and using the thaumaturgy to target their mental tree that the laborious methodology even seems attractive.

--fje

Read a book called Moon Called not too long ago, forget the author, a mid-list traditional fantasy writer I think ... sort of about werewolves.  The protag is actually a native american skinwalker, but in the first book all that means is she turns into a coyote through innate magic instead of transforming physically into a wolf like her foster family.

Wasn't terrible.  One of the current spate of:  "Faeries and Supernatural Creatures Revealed Themselves In the World" setting books, as opposed to the Dresden style "They're There, But We Don't Know It".

Course it's also got vampires and faeries in it.  My favorite part is the faeries were more germanic than english victorian revisionist.  One of the characters is an old german gremlin.

--fje

Protagonists need to be capable.  They've got to be interesting and provide the reader with vicarious thrill.  I mean, I know I'd like to be able to point a stick and say a word and blow up a car.  That would be excellent.  But I can't.  That Harry can is cool.

But I don't think they have to be super-powered.  Even in a supernatural storyline.  They have to be capable of overcoming the opposition ... but, to make a character human, they need flaws.  And sometimes I think authors give powerful characters unreasonable flaws to provide broadside weaknesses to be exploited.

Usually the progression seems to be ... "Protagonist identifies self as normal or weak, but has special power that makes them center of story."  Then, "Protag discovers something special, possibly unique, about themselves and their power."  Such as Harry being very strong with fire evocations, if a bit wild, and having a mysterious background that we'll probably find makes him rather unique among wizards ...

At the same time, coming from an enjoyment of traditional crime/gumshoe novels ... your main character doesn't have to gain progressively cooler and more explosive powers.  Over time, Spenser (Robert Parker's character) hasn't sprouted any new capabilities.  He's always been a hard-hitting smart-talking P.I. who doesn't know when to stop.  Actually Parker has been revealing that Spenser is slowing down, getting older.  Same with John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee.  By the end, Travis McGee was getting older, less willing to brawl.

I think a long-running supernatural series could, seriously, have a normal human protagonist with no developing ability, no godlike power. 

--fje   

I'd probably at least try to give it a run.

Humdrum has been keeping me from the pen recently, rethinking the basic idea of what I'd been writing.  It wasn't ... fun ... enough. 

That and I keep getting my scifi in my supernatural.  Someplace to workshop would be ... entertaining. 

Unfortunately, I've had some cruddy experiences with online workshopping groups. 

It would be ... nice ... if there were some participation from one or more published authors.  Just because it's nice to hear some words on craft from the folks where the rest of us wish we were.

If the problem getting the board set up is hosting space or software, I do have a webhost and domain.  Pretty much the wife and I use it for tinkering around and hosting our resumes.  I use about 1/100th of the bandwidth I pay for and it has several ready-set BB programs I could dump on it and set up.  Just an offer, not trying to step on toes or anything.

--fje

I think we're entering an era where the Doc Savage is going to make a bit of a comeback.  Things are getting dark in reality and have been there long enough that something brighter might be popular.

I don't know if cyberpunk will ever make a come-back.  It was birthed in a different era where different ideas about technology were able to flourish.   It's hard to decide what's going to be called what in the future... the best of sci-fi and cyberpunk DROVE technology ... it looked forward and groped for terms for things we didn't have and those things became real through that. 

EDIT:  As for fantasy, I, myself, would be moving away from the angsty political melodrama and into the action/adventure serial, again.  But that's me.  That's what I like to read, that's what I do read ... and that's what I don't see on the shelves anymore.  Everybody seems to be doing these multicharacter political epics focused on loss and unrequited desires.

Too often I'm saying:  "There he is, you've got him ... he killed your grandfather, he pillaged your home town, he kicked your puppy.  Now we get to the stabbing!" and instead we get:  "Oh, but my shock at seeing him here, at my mercy, overwhelmed me ... and he slipped away during my moment of agonized indecision and killed my girlfriend and ate one of her pet kittens!  Let me contemplate my agony at that for another chapter."

If/when I write a fantasy novel ... there'll be righteous vengeance and some swinging from ropes over chasms and probably an evil god or three that needs to be taught a lesson.  Some explosions, probably a girl that the hero eventually gets, and some stalwart companions.

Where'd all the stalwart companions get off to anymore, eh?

--fje

The "On-Line Writers' Groups" thread sparked something, so I decided it was better put here. 

When I was in high school I wanted to be "a writer".  From when I was about eleven on I read voraciously.  My folks had moved from southern Wisconsin (about an hour or so from Chicago, a place that was even then turning into a Chicago suburb) to nowheresville Lower Alabama.  I had alot of transplant anxiety, so I went to the library ... started with Sci_fi ... read EVERYTHING they had (everything ... seriously ... all of it) and was forced over into fantasy.  (I also read all of that and moved over into old pulps and hardboiled crime fiction, later).  My favorite author became David Eddings, and for YEARS I would read all of his fantasy series over the summer, start to finish, chronological order ... sort of a bizarre ritual. 

At some point in there I decided:  "This rocks, I'm going to be a writer like David Eddings."  I was probably thirteen.  So I wrote.  Short fiction, long fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, poetry.  My teachers (because that's what teachers DO) encouraged my writing ... my folks encouraged my writing ... my mother still has boxes filled with my notebooks from that period.  My teachers suggested I enter various local contests for short fiction and poetry, which I did well in, so all the way into early college that was my thing.  I won local and regional fiction contests by the boatload (my mother still has all of the plaques and trophies ... that's what mothers do).  I figured I was "hot stuff". 

About 8 years ago (I was 18, early acceptance and a year into college) I decided it was "time" to write that fantasy novel ... which would sell and net me a deal for the other four parts in a five part epic and propel me, not into the realm of Stephen King, but into a comfortable life writing similar five-part epics with a strong fan base and the easy freedom of "doing what I loved". 

I started doing alot of research into "the industry", and publishing, and reading about authors and reading the writing authors did about writing ... I've always been a research nut ... more and more the reading in the industry suggested things were getting tight.  New authors were always submitting manuscripts, there were too many young authors to publish them all, but because nobody knows where the next break-out hit would come from it was reasonably easy to get a first book deal ... impossible to get a second.  Mid-list authors were feeling the pinch ... why buy a fourth book by Joe Midlist for 4th-book advances when you can get two or three fresh new writers for that price and maybe get the next LKH in the deal?  Like trading cards. 

"But," I figured, "If I'm the next Stephen King, then it won't matter, right?  I can write a break-out run-away hit.  Right?  That wasn't the plan, but I'm adaptable, I'll just write a best seller."

At the time, where I was, reading what I was reading, the "new" and "big" thing seemed to be online critique groups.  Like traditional writer's groups, but without all the hassle of having to, y'know, live near any freakin' writers.  Remember, I'm in nowheresville.  The only other local guy calling himself a writer is a year younger than me (and today he sells used cars.  I know, I saw him a week ago.)  So I joined an online critique group.  It was the best I could find, had very strict rules about critique and required X critiques before story submission, etc etc.  So I joined up.

I wrote, I think, the first two chapters to a planned fantasy novel as part of the group.  It sucked.  Alot.  It's something I think I could do again, as far as concept goes (sort of a Dutch Mercantilist setting with a fat Bilbo-esque merchant protagonist).  I'd done a lot of historical research prior to starting, including Dutch naming conventions.  I put some forethought and work into character names.

A few people pretty harshly ripped on ... my character names.  I think, today, it was a pretty odd thing to be critical of ... and, remembering my style back then, they could have done some critiques of obscure vocabulary and purple prose ... but for whatever reason it totally deflated my bubble.  I walked in having done my reading ... I was going to be thick of skin and quick of wit, taking lumps and learning "craft" ... but one person said the lead's name sounded like an expensive shampoo and I was GONE.

I think, mostly, it was that I'd done specific research on a subject in order not to sound silly doing it ... and then got called "silly".  Also all of the industry reading basically said:  "You're doomed!  Unless you write a runaway Best Seller as your first book, and get a great agent, and don't sign a bad contract, you'll sell one book and be blacklisted for life if it isn't an instant hit!"  That may not have been what was actually being said, but that was my impression.  I figured if I can't even get past "Name The Character", I wasn't going to write a best sller and would be doomed instantly to career crash-landing.

So I decided that week that I was going to shelve my writing "career".  I figured I should do some living and learning, get educated, practice in other ways, get a degree in English (two of them!).  I decided I wasn't going to go for the Creative Writing major, but I took some courses ... that was GREAT for my craft.  Both the classes and not making it my career choice.  Where I was, all of the writing classes concentrated on contemporary literary fiction ... and I wanted to write fantasy.  The teachers were all mid-list or low-list contemporary literature authors whose "day job" was teaching mid-list literary fiction to college kids.  They had TONS to teach me about craft ... but most of them also looked down their nose at people who didn't write contemporary literature. 

So I wrote contemporary literature.  Just excercises, mostly.  Vignettes.  Shorts and short stories.  We focused on prose and the dramatic/tragic contemporary literary plotline.  I saw why some teachers outright refused to work on fantasy/sci-fi when I got into a class that didn't, outright, refuse to work on fantasy or sci-fi.  Then I stopped writing fiction entirely until recently.

Various things led to my picking it back up.  The desire had been growing for a long while.  My wife came across some of my old writings and encouraged me to write again.  Butcher's series was something that I'd been wanting to read, but nobody had written.  That it sold said that maybe what I liked wasn't entirely outside of what the market desired.  I read up on the industry some more, this time things suggested it wasn't as gloomy as I'd thought. 

My WIP is a little hardboiled crime, a little mystery, a little supernatural.  Set in Birmingham, Alabama and surrounding area, with some focus on Muscogee, Cherokee and Navajo mythologies.

Just a minute ago, for practice, I put together the plot in a story skeleton (which is a little more action-oriented than the question we used in our classes):

"When a young woman disrupts his life and then disappears, a man with no memory tries to track her down.  Will he succeed where a black cult, organized crime, old gods, and his own past want him to fail?"

It may end up being garbage.  I believe now, where I didn't before, that I CAN write fiction that will sell ... it may not be a break-out run-away best seller, but if the prose is solid and the story is exciting ... it'll get picked up.  Maybe not this book, but perhaps the next, or the one after that will be where I reach the point. 

Then, after that, it's just a matter of continuing to write solid, exciting fiction that people enjoy reading.

--fje

I've "always" operated under a bit of a nom de plume.

My first name is Frank, I go by Frank, everybody calls me Frank (or Big Frank, as it were). 

I've just never liked seeing it in print.  So I shortened to F.J. Eastman for all of my official written transactions and the like.

As a pen name it has the bonus of being gender-free, recognizable, and falls well in the racks.

If your works are VERY different, to the point that a reader who enjoys one may not like the other, it's probably a good idea.  If you write, say, standard 3-part epic fantasy and then decide to write racy bodice rippers, you may turn off some of your other audience who then buys NONE of your books.  If you write nondescript contemporary crime action and then write, say, a very political sci-fi piece based on your passionate love or hate for the current regime.  Etc.  If I, for instance, decided to write some erotica ... I'd do so under a different name.  1) I don't want anybody in my family to connect me to it.  2)  I don't want to know that the people who connected me to it read erotica. 

I live in the south.    That I wrote smut would be the talk of my hometown.

--fje

So over in the Vampires in Contemporary Supernatural Fiction thread we've started talking alot about the male/female breakdown in the genre today.

I.E., it seems that 3/4+ of the fiction currently on the shelves in your local Big Name Bookseller (can't say anything for presses too small to get into BNBs, etc) billing itself as contemporary supernatural/occult/fantasy features strong female leads, is penned by female authors, and contains strong elements of romance (not just relationships between characters, but a focus on romantic interludes and sexual encounters between the lead and characters in the work). 

What does everybody else think of this?

Talking Points:

Are male authors uninterested in working in this subgenere?  Discouraged from doing so? 

Are male readers uninteresed in this subgenre?  Discouraged from being so because of the current face of content?

Is there a PERCEPTION that male readers are uninterested, and is that perception borne out in the numbers? 

Does the subgenre require romance elements?  (not Romance in the literary sense, of which the whole bag is included, but romance in the "her soft womanhood yeilded to his turgid prominence" sense.)

Discuss!

--fje