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What are things you commonly find in Urban Fantasies?



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Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:42 am
Gringoamericano says...



I'm trying to work on an comedy/action novel, and it's kind of a riff on the surge in urban fantasy novels such as Harry Potter and Twilight. What are some things you find a lot of in books such as these?
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Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:13 am
RacheDrache says...



First, Harry Potter isn't an urban fantasy. I'm not even sure Twilight counts as an urban fantasy, although it's much closer than Harry Potter.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of urban fantasy is the 'urban' part. Big city.

Also, the modern day day and age or a few years beyond.

Vampires, werewolves for a certainty, but not necessarily...
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Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:53 pm
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Rosendorn says...



The only part of HP that is "urban fantasy" is the whole idea of a parallel world. However, a parallel world isn't exactly what urban fantasy is about.

Urban fantasy is basically this:

Either there is an underground world (not parallel, which indicates the world is completely separate; "underground" indicates it is below the radar of detection, not that it is actually underground) that humans don't know about but the fantasy creatures live within that realm of secrecy.

Or, fantasy creatures and humans live together in a big city. The degree of peace they live in depends on the story.

Any and all fantasy creatures are game for urban. I've seen interesting variations on urban fantasy because somebody decided to raid their mythology encyclopedia.

That's my idea of urban fantasy in a nutshell.
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Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:25 pm
Squall says...



Rosey, isn't Harry Potter considered urban by your first definition? Because the wizarding society actually exists in the real world. (E.g: Hogwarts Castle is actually somewhere in the fields of Scottland, but charms surrounding the castle prevents muggles from being able to see/detect the castle.)
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Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:31 pm
Rosendorn says...



I find it's a bit too separate between worlds, but that's me. As always, there is no clear line between genres. :P

One of my mainstays is how much the worlds have a likelihood of overlapping, either for the protagonist (which causes conflict, hiding one side of life) or for interactions in general. An example for me would be American Dragon: Jake Long, which has fantasy creatures everywhere in NYC with several fantasy creatures interacting in the protagonist's day to day life as humans, but he knows they're really fantasy creatures (and, sometimes, even he doesn't).
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Wed Jul 25, 2012 10:10 am
OokamiKitsune says...



A Urban Fantasy is really strange overall. First of all the word Urban means the characteristic of a city or town. And everyone knows what fantasy is 8) riiiighhhht

So when I think of an Urban Fantasy I think of a very realist place, lets say Metropolis and add something not so real- how about a boy from space and freaks he fights as a teenager (sound familiar)

Twilight is a bad example but yes
Superman's entire life is an Urban Fantasy

Most Urban Fantasy originate from some kind of myth or legend. Hense Urban Legend. :smt003
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