Sword & Sorcery: "An earthier sort of fantasy" discussion

discussing the limits of professional adventurers for fantasy:
http://marycatelli.livejournal.com/76...

After reading your article, Mary, I agree with your points, but feel your view is somewhat limited to why a professional adventurer might work. I can think of many reasons why a character would choose to become a professional adventurer or mercenary. Money is a big motivator. Someone who was raised in a small town or village but seeks to escape its drudgery. If a character's family was murdered and they have no more ties to home-and-hearth. Vengeance is a powerful reason. Not all characters are good; some like to kill for pleasure and becoming a professional adventurer gives them a way to make money doing it.

Perhaps a character has been a professional adventurer for quite a while and the story revolves around their struggle to get out of the business -- yet it keeps pulling them back in for 'one more job.'

In my third book, Paragon's Call, I explore the creation of the occupation of professional adventurer (called 'paragons' in my book) which didn't exist in the first two books of the trilogy. The characters learn there can be some decent money to be made.

The fact that an adventurer character is a professional or amateur is incidental, and is just one more potential facet to what makes them tick and what motivates them. You might as well say that adventurers can only be male and never female, or some other arbitrary trait.

Oh, there's a good number of stories where it would work. The thing is, you have to know whether your story would work as one of them.

Steven wrote: If a character's family was murdered and they have no more ties to home-and-hearth. ."

That, of course, is the classic (if not cliche!) way to finesse all problems. Any adult forcibly relieved of all responsibilities can adventure at will, and has a motive to do so.

And like all cliches, it is old and wise and powerful, and merits respect, because nothing gets to be cliche without a lot going for it.

Mary wrote: "Oh, there's a good number of stories where it would work. The thing is, you have to know whether your story would work as one of them...

I avoid cliches like the plague.

;-)