What do you wish would be done MORE in urban fantasy?

[The Corvidian]

Well I say that if an author wants to make it work an ordinary person CAN defeat the bad guys and it's boring and over-done to have them turn out to be half fairy or half vampire or whatever. I'm sorry you disagree but it CAN BE DONE.

You'd have to have a bit of supernatural ability to do that. Perhaps the person in question has a piece of jewerly that allows them to do that, but the rest of the time, they are a vanilla human.

[Hell's Belle]

Well I say that if an author wants to make it work an ordinary person CAN defeat the bad guys and it's boring and over-done to have them turn out to be half fairy or half vampire or whatever. I'm sorry you disagree but it CAN BE DONE.

You seem to be taking this a bit personally, and I'm wondering if that's because you want to find a book that features someone you can identify with to a large degree.

I'm not talking about you personally. If you want something like that, write some fanfic or ask someone to write it for you.

What I'm talking about is that a hero, by definition, isn't an ordinary person. It may be the actual point of saving someone through whatever measure they use, that may define them as extraordinary, but there are many ways to reach beyond the 'ordinary' definition..

[DragonFire]

You seem to be taking this a bit personally, and I'm wondering if that's because you want to find a book that features someone you can identify with to a large degree.

I'm not talking about you personally. If you want something like that, write some fanfic or ask someone to write it for you.

What I'm talking about is that a hero, by definition, isn't an ordinary person. It may be the actual point of saving someone through whatever measure they use, that may define them as extraordinary, but there are many ways to reach beyond the 'ordinary' definition..

I agree with BB, here.

Part of the problem is that overweight people can't really do the things that in shape people can. Please do not think 'in shape' = 'skinny'. It doesn't.
But most of the people who can, for example, kick a vampire's butt, need to be very highly trained, and that brings with it a measure of physical fitness that normally discounts being overweight.

Really the only way you can kill vamps, and still be overweight is using some sort of supernatural power, and not engaging physically at all. And that's not really butt kicking, is it?

AS to an 'ordinary person', there have been many 'ordinary' hero's, or rather, they started ordinary. Try reading the "Chronicles of Pyrdain" by LLoyd Allexander. His hero is the 'assistant pig keeper'. That's ordinary. He later becomes king, but he starts out at a pig keepers assistant.

The other problem with 'ordinary', read plain vanilla human, is that, in supernatural settings, they are both boring and ineffective.
Any supernatural you want to look at, vamps, were's, elves, all have significant advantages over a vanilla mortal.
You need to give your 'ordinary person' some way to fight back, and again, this lifts them from the ranks of the ordinary.

Protaganists are never ever ordinary.

[DragonFire]

How about extrodinary compassion for other people? The willingness to risk their own life for a stranger simply because "It's the right thing to do"?

That's motivation, but not means. What makes the protaganist any better able to fight off the monster than the intended victim?

There's ordinary people who do this in the real world. There's absolutely no reason it can't work in a fantasy novel. Sure, maybe they luck out and pick up an old iron pipe to hit the fairy in the head with, or a broken piece of wood that hits the vampire right in the heart.

Every single time? That sort of luck would start to border on the absurd. Someone who is that lucky, all the time, would not be ordinary.

Or perhaps they have a talent like I suggested before - they're able to sing a werewolf to sleep simply because they're such a talented singer. All without having to be anything more then an ordinary human.

ok, beiong able to sing someone to sleep, let alone a werewolf, would sort of qualify as a supernatural power.
Even if it wasn't, that level of singing talent would mean you weren't ordinary.
Either way, this character is NOT an ordinary person.

[Kali]

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.

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.

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. 

I also think everyone knows exactly what Jami means by "ordinary person", and there's some arguing for arguing's sake going on here.

[DragonFire]

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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!

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.

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.   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.

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.

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.

Quite aside from being unnecessarily rude, this doesn't make sense.

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...

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.

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?

Who's writing? who's tried this?

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)?

Jim could do what he did in Alera partly because he's working with concepts, which he could define.

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! 

Jami is doing the defining, and then complaining that no one has written the story that fits her definition yet.

Yeah, we all are.   Again, that's the point of the thread, no one's writing the stories we want to read most. Or so I thought.

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'.

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. 

I'm with Borealis Belle. If you want to see it, write it your damn self.

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]

ok, beiong able to sing someone to sleep, let alone a werewolf, would sort of qualify as a supernatural power.

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]

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.

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]

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.

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.

[DragonFire]

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.

100% agree.

It's what I've been saying as well.

We aren't talking about ways or means to write this.
This was a very specific premise, layed down by one person. Kali's additions and suggestions are all very well, but I doubt, if they made it to a book, Jami would find they gave her what she wanted.

[Quantus]

Moving on...

What Id like to see in modern fantasy more is Supernatural explanations/motivations for familiar things, especially locations.  I mean, everyone expects there to be mysticism with old structures such as Stonehenge or various temples and pyramids.  But, if Magic never died out, why would the practice of mystically significant architecture be a lost thing.  Age doesn't have to be the only thing to give a place power or purpose.  A similar vein was used in the recent Transformers film where the Hoover Dam was built to conceal alien artifacts and vast energy signatures. 


Take the Dresdenverse for example: 

Given what we know about magic, and that magic has a presence in an almost corporate guise with Monoc Securities,  there has to be more to the design of the Pentagon than a mere misunderstanding of the phrase "Think outside the box."  Maybe its part of some kind of giant sigil of malicious intent, or maybe its shape is part of some intense mystical defenses for our governments military and intelligence. 

And this can work from almost anything:

Maybe Fort Knox is Fort-freaking-Knox because They (Capital T) needed to convince the masses that its was impenetrable to tap the energies of that mass belief into actually making it so, and gold was just a sellable euphemism for some other treasure.

Maybe the Arc de Triomphe, with its Twelve radial Streets, is actually a giant portal of Napoleonic Empirialism. 
Same idea with the St. Louis "Gateway Arch"  (tell me thats not just begging to be an invasion point for fey outsiders or black council).

The Vatican, which is structurally a circle inside a square inside a five pointed star, has some infinite possibilities.




(For a larger list of geometrically suspect structures, see:  http://www.city.hakodate.hokkaido.jp/kikaku/kokusai/$summit/01-cities.htm)

[Hell's Belle]

Moving on...

What Id like to see in modern fantasy more is Supernatural explanations/motivations for familiar things, especially locations.  I mean, everyone expects there to be mysticism with old structures such as Stonehenge or various temples and pyramids.  But, if Magic never died out, why would the practice of mystically significant architecture be a lost thing.  Age doesn't have to be the only thing to give a place power or purpose.  A similar vein was used in the recent Transformers film where the Hoover Dam was built to conceal alien artifacts and vast energy signatures. 


Take the Dresdenverse for example: 

Given what we know about magic, and that magic has a presence in an almost corporate guise with Monoc Securities,  there has to be more to the design of the Pentagon than a mere misunderstanding of the phrase "Think outside the box."  Maybe its part of some kind of giant sigil of malicious intent, or maybe its shape is part of some intense mystical defenses for our governments military and intelligence. 

And this can work from almost anything:

Maybe Fort Knox is Fort-freaking-Knox because They (Capital T) needed to convince the masses that its was impenetrable to tap the energies of that mass belief into actually making it so, and gold was just a sellable euphemism for some other treasure.

Maybe the Arc de Triomphe, with its Twelve radial Streets, is actually a giant portal of Napoleonic Empirialism. 
Same idea with the St. Louis "Gateway Arch"  (tell me thats not just begging to be an invasion point for fey outsiders or black council).

The Vatican, which is structurally a circle inside a square inside a five pointed star, has some infinite possibilities.




(For a larger list of geometrically suspect structures, see:  http://www.city.hakodate.hokkaido.jp/kikaku/kokusai/$summit/01-cities.htm)

Now THIS is an excellent suggestion.  I'd have never really considered it, but it adds another layer of depth and mystery.

[david-de-beer]

Silver as Achilles Heel for werewolves is part and parcel of the mythos. A person self doesn't need anything extraordinary to use silver. An overweight housewife trapped alone in her house with a werewolf, her baby starts crying in the next room, the werewolf pauses for just a moment, she grabs the first thing she can find [a silver spoon] and beats the werewolf over the head with it. Maybe, in this world, silver doesn't need to penetrate werewolves, only make contact and then it acts like acid, or it releases a skin-contact neurotoxin into the werewolf that's lethal to their species.

Gremlins was one of the funniest movies I ever saw, but if memory serves, the nasty little critters were utterly enthralled the moment the Snow White jingle played. It was an accident they were sitting in the cinema and the movie started rolling to begin with.
It was also an accident the gremlins ended up with the kid who turned out to be hero. And he had no powers, just a sense of responsibility to fix the damage he'd caused and the guts to do it.

Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstanes can be heroes, and there are means to fight the supernatural that might require some creative thinking but doesn't mean you need to have either special blood, martial arts or any kind of fighting skills whatsoever.
A woman who is nevous around mice and blood, can become exceptional when her family is threatened and there is no one but her to protect them.
How on earth would a perfectly ordinary, wussy woman protect her family against critters of the darkness? I don't know, but  as a reader, I'd love to keep reading and see if she can do it and how she does it. Everything against her, nothing going for her - the stakes have suddenly becoming delicious.
And, you know, this mousy timid woman might really always have been dominated by her father, her husband, trained to rely on men to do the job. "Go stand in the corner and look pretty, honey."
When push comes to shove there are no men and she has to do something she's never done before  -make decisions and take action. She fights back and wins againts the odds and discovers she's not the wilting wallflower she always beleived herself to be. That kind of story and character can have power and resonance with today's audiences.

I'd like writers to stop trying to up each other by going bigger and more explosive and become more inventive and broader in terms of character and story. A hero who kicks monster butt not through his fists [he can't, they'd mop the floor with him], but through some other means. Discovering their weakness, exploiting their hubris of superiority, etc.

I like characters who have magic and can fight, but not all the time and I don't like the chosen one syndrome at all. "Only I can fight the monsters because only I have been accidentally blessed by birth with the right genes."
Down that path lies pure bloodlines, eugenics, racism, Adolf Hitler.

or do use that concept, but put some thought into how it would really go - only half-vampires can fight vampires. Fine, they are the speshul ones. Would they not be arrogant? would they not start looking down on full humans? would they not start feeling themselves entitled to certain exemptions from normal human law and morals? after all, they are a higher breed of being.
there's lots to explore there.

Heroes become extraordinary, but they are not always so to begin with and sometimes it's more an accident of events that forces them to choose - do they run, or do they fight and become a hero? Heroes are still very often ordinary people - baker's boys or handmaidens in second world fantasy - who do extraordinary things. Therein lies the charm of fantasy to all readers, we want to believe we, also, are capable of great things. That an extraordinary person is not ordained extraordinary, but is an ordinary person who becomes extraordinary.

I'd like to see urban fantasy employ more variations in character than tropes, really. Tropes can become new and fresh when used against characters who are not run-of-the-mill. Basically, characters whom you expext to lose.

[meg_evonne]

Here, Here!  I agree with David.

Oh and:  "Could you imagine what a supernatural witness protection would be like?"--wasn't that the premise of the Incredibles?

I especially agree with the "ordinary person" who is thrust into an extraordinary situation.  We love the underdog and we love identifying with that hero.

I agree on the sad state of ---  Okay, an author did this, so now we have to have a bigger, more violent, more horrible enemy to confront in the next book.  Sort of the Buffy-syndrome, you always have to have something bigger and more evil in the next story arch.  On the other hand, it's what we want, right?  I mean if you review Jim Butcher's writing journal he says that every "scene" has to build and push forward the confrontation, expose a new weakness, a new possibility for failure--but at the end of the day the hero wins by over coming that weakness.  (EEK--at least so far, heaven help us if Harry bites the dust at the end of the acopalypse.  ignor my spelling )