Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy discussion

I'm doing some research / reading on books that have very little warm up time. I want the story and action to start in the first 2-3 chapters. I would also love to see an UF or fantasy book where all the characters are familiar with the world already and there is not a character dumped into the world so that the author can conveniently explain the world to them and the reader.

Your suggestions would be highly appreciated.

comes to mind. First pages are available to view on Amazon.

Have you looked at the Hidden series by Colleen Vanderlinden? Her books always starts with some kind of action going on.

Starts up pretty fast, most of the characters are from a different series so no intros needed mostly.

Georgina Kincaid series is pretty head on.

I just read clean sweep Clean Sweep. There is action in every chapter because it was originally doled out online like fanfiction. The first 5 chapters of the second book are now online http://demo.ilona-andrews.com/clean-s....

Everyone has probably read them by now, but Patricia Briggs' books have characters who already live in the "world" of the book.
for example.

Thank you everyone for your suggestions, I will be checking into them.

I have already read Wicked Nights by Gena Showalter, but the girl is not part of the angelic world so she is used as an author's tool to explain the world. I really enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but I'm looking for books that avoid the newb character.

So far, Moon Called seems like the best one for my needs right now, if any of you know of any other books where the characters are all of the "world" in the book please put them down here. Thanks!

A book I can think of right away is . Granted I DNFed this book at 9% because the world-building was weak and the Insta-Love was RIDICULOUS. However, the reason for the weak world-building was that all the characters were already "of the world" so a lot of the decision-making was unclear and confusing. There was no explanation of the laws governing the relationships and choices of the characters since they were apart of the world and presumably knew what was happening. The reader however...

So I don't know if you're looking for good books necessarily, lol, but this one might fit your parameters

Rachel, you have described the problem perfectly. How do you, the author, do your world building when all of the characters are of the world and familiar with all the nuances of the world already, especially if you are trying to be conscientious about the AWAKs (as we all know)?

Thank you for your example, bad examples can be just as helpful as good ones. :-)

It's an interesting challenge to try and think of books that fit this designation. I think you also have to qualify what you mean by "of the world"

For example, in the book (which I loved, btw) both characters have existed in the same universe and understand the history of the universe. However, they are coming at it from two different perspectives: he's the poor soldier with the boots-on-the-ground mentality and she's the rich girl who doesn't see the seedy underbelly of the universe. So they still have a lot to teach each other and the reader learns about the world as they both combine and share their perspectives.

Then there is which is the fifth book in a series. I was excited to read this one because finally the heroine was already involved in the world before she ran into the hero so the big-bad Alpha Male didn't have to explain to her that vampires existed, yada yada. So where does that leave the reader? Well, it's the fifth book in the series, so I have to imagine the author assumes that if you're reading book five you've got a handle on the larger MB universe and its rules. So at that point does the author assume that the reader is now "of the world" as well?

I'm enjoying this analytical project! What are you using the research for?

Patricia Briggs Alpha Omega series (which is in the same world as Mercy) also dives right in. Although the main character has been sheltered so there is a little world learning with her. The Kate Daniels series Magic Bites Rachel Vincent's Stray Strayand the Mistborn trilogy The Hero of Ages all have characters that are well established in the world right from the start. Mistborn is really fantasy but I fits what you are looking for. You might want to look in to other fantasy books for more examples. I haven't read too many fantasy books. And I am trying to decide if the The Name of the Wind The Name of the Wind fits or not. Kvoth is young and his world is so vast he is constantly learning more about it. It's a really good book. You should probably just read it anyway. I guess fantasy often uses "the man on a quest" like UF uses "the new girl to the party" to introduce the world to the reader. If you are looking to write UF you should just read a lot of UF to make sure you just don't re-write what has already been done. If you are looking for more ways other authors have built their worlds and shared that with the reader you should read as many different genres as possible. Historic fiction does the same thing.

The different perspectives is a very good alternative to the newb character that I will have to check into.

A book 5 example is not really what I'm looking for because, as you state, everyone is pretty well caught up by then and has learned how the world works by then.

I'm looking for something written as if Harry Potter had been raised by a wizard instead of muggles. There would have never been a "let me explain about the great game of quidditch" convo bc he would already know what it is. The background about voldemort would have been revealed in snippets and inferences rather than a history lesson info dump. To be clear, I'm not looking for HP fanfic. :-)

I'm really just curious if anyone has successfully written a fantasy world without having the newb character as an information receptacle.

Hi Nevada,

I know exactly what you mean. The apparently obligatory 'info-dumps' can be frustrating to read. I hope you don't mind me mentioning it, but my novel jumps right into the action, and doesn't let up. You'll notice from the reviews that some people love that approach, while others prefer a slower pace.

As a reader, I prefer to be thrown right into the action, so that's what I enjoy writing.