Characters With Jobs

[mmerriam]

Now that housework for today is finished (sort of, laundry is a never ending battle), the plan is to turn my attention back to writing, assuming I can continue to fend off the encroaching headache.

Novel revisions are on tap today, once I've made my novel_in_90 words for the day (we're going to talk about the whole novel_in_90 thing later this week). I've printed out the notes I made so I can scribble all over them. I've figured out approximately how I want to restructure the novel. I'm also a bit worried that the ending might not pay-off as well as it could, wild fight for survival in the basement not withstanding.

One thing I need to pay careful attention to is the aftermath for my characters. I've begun to think there is a reason most characters in Urban Fantasy seem to be people who live on or very near the fringe of things, with few of the normal ties-that-bind: it's easier to wrap up the aftermath. When your characters can go back to being a musician/artist/actor/street performer/starving poet after all the weirdness, it makes things simpler for the writer. There's less to explain, especially to your character's employers or government officials. The life they return to fits in (well, has a higher potential to fit in) with all the weirdness they've experienced.

Me, I have two characters who work for the county, one in child protective services, one in the law library, and another who's an ex-waitress now working as a flight attendant. Among the characters you'll find in the two novels I've written, there's a barista, a short-order cook, a staff writer for an outdoor magazine, a surveyor for the county, a receptionist, a couple of police officers, and other people with, you know, everyday jobs. Jobs they're going to have to go back to (or not) once all the mystical magical woo-hoo (that's a technical term) is over. Because you know, I think Jill's boss is going to want to know where she's been and why she's wearing an eyepatch all of a sudden.

Speaking of work, time to get back to it.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Good on you. We need more receptionists, county surveyors, librarians, and flight attendants in these books. In part so that the occasional starving artist does not make me run screaming from a book I'd otherwise enjoy.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything against the artists and buskers that populate so much of urban fantasy, I just want to write about some other people.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I was trying to think of any characters with "straight jobs" who managed to make it back to their previous lives in modern urban fantasy. I'm having trouble coming up with any that I've read.

College students? Check. Artists? Check. Bum? Check.

Charlie Nancy? Hosed for most of the book. Richard Mayhew from Neverwhere? He actually stopped existing in the minds of normal society. If you end up in a China Mieville story, you might as well just end it all now. I'd rather be written by O'Henry. :)

It seems almost like you have to be willing to completely shake up your characters' lives if you want to put them in these situations. Or do a lot of logical gymnastics in the way of coincidences or bosses who are really understanding about last-minute requests for leave.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

One of the really key questions I'm facing in the rewrite is: how much have these characters changed and can they ever really go back to theri previous lives?

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I think you're spot-on about one of the whys, and I think your efforts are very worthy indeed.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Thanks. We'll see if I've the ability to pull it off.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Good thoughts. There does seem to be a preference for misfit characters (maybe it's a genre thing, that readers in f/sf genres tend to feel more like misfits ourselves) - but it gets old and there's a lot of room for a wider range of occupations and interests among characters.

Explaining it afterward does present a challenge. "Uh; I had to use some personal days. Family business."

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

You make a very good point about how many of us in SF&F fandom tend to feel like misfits ourselves, making us identify more with the misfit, marginalized characters.

I'll have to ponder on this as I work on the rewrite.

[allochthon.livejournal.com]

One of the things that bugged me most about the movie "Cast Away" (Tom Hanks marooned on a desert island for 5 years or so) is that they just skip his re-integration into society.

They kinda deal with the fact that his wife has moved on, but what about the first time he walks into a supermarket?

Kudos for you!

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I like epilogues where we find out how it all shook down for the characters after the dust settled. I have them in both of my novels. It give me, and I hope the reader, a better sense of closure.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

"We had a spontaneous pirate convention, and, well, it got a little out of hand."

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

Because you know, it's all fun and games until someone looses an eye...