Non-traditional heroes

[Jim Hetley]

At my agent's prodding, I have a short excursion on writing non-standard heroes on line:

(James A. Burton is me . . .)

James A. Burton talks about non-traditional heroes, THE SUMMER COUNTRY, and POWERS:

http://luciennediver.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/men-of-urban-fantasy-james-a-burton/

[David Friedman]

In article <6c037ffe-5023-4e59...@googlegroups.com>,

Interesting. You do a good job of making the reader think your books
would be worth reading.

And your general approach fits into my "no plot survives contact with
the characters."

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
_Salamander_: http://tinyurl.com/6957y7e
_How to Milk an Almond,..._ http://tinyurl.com/63xg8gx

[J.Pascal]

That's a really great article and I think it would be helpful for anyone, if they developed characters as they went, or if they did so ahead of time and plotted everything out.

I wonder though... why the pseudonym?

-Julie

[Jim Hetley]

On Thursday, October 25, 2012 12:37:32 PM UTC-4, J.Pascal wrote:

>
> I wonder though... why the pseudonym?
>

In one word, sales. As in, not-good sales of my previous books. We're trying to fool the Big Ordering Computer into books by this New Author Name. Doesn't look like the ploy is working.

Jim

[Jymesion]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:02:59 -0700, David Friedman
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:

> "no plot survives contact with the characters."

I feel like the world's biggest idiot for not realizing it in those
terms 40 years ago!

[J.Pascal]

I've heard that before and it never really made sense to me. Maybe it does on some mysterious wholesale purchasing level but certainly readers don't keep track of sales and hold it against authors if they didn't sell well on earlier books. They might if a book sucked, but yours don't.

You write terrific books. Hopefully they're available if someone picks up the new one and likes it and wants to get "more of" what you've written.

-Julie