So every book is a learning experience. I'd never done a contemporary adventure book before, and it took a lot of experimenting before I found the direction the series seemed to want to go.
So that's a lot of choices that were more-or-less made for me as I put in what seemed to work and then found myself stuck with it. No place more than with my protagonist. She started with a checklist of "strong female character" tropes I was determined to avoid. And then accumulated a bunch of baggage I hadn't planned -- things that, again, worked for that book and ended up becoming canon.
She's being pulled in too many directions and is too unfocused as a character. I long for having a single-minded character with a clear emotional goal; "I must find the Lost Talisman of Abraham that my father spent his life searching for."
It hit me over brunch. Maybe it was a couple of BookTube videos on trends in modern fantasy, or a really long dissection of Totally Spies! by a non-French-speaking Canadian (yes, language came up frequently).
I want to write a stock 90s Urban Fantasy heroine. I want to check every one of the little boxes I so carefully unchecked when I created Penny.
A loner that hates crowds, hot as hell but always wears black jeans and leather jackets, never skirts and especially nothing "girly." Hates cheerleaders. Skilled martial artist and fighter and confident in her skills. Viciously snarky. No romantic confidence at all (or experience) but every hot guy in the story -- and there are many -- are all chasing her.
Trouble is, I wouldn't be able to get through it without lampshading.
No comments:
Post a Comment