With what you've told us about your world, my first question is: WHY are your characters archetypes? This isn't an attack--you have a great, catchy premise. Gaiman's Endless are archetypes because he's commenting on how those archetypes are understood and what it means about humanity that we tell those stories. That's probably the best reason for characters to actively embody an archetype--they're not just the archetype, they say something new about that archetype and the world it inhabits, how it's changed and maybe why.
Once you know that, I have some basic worldbuilding questions: Do they know they're archetypes, are they immortal because they're archetypes, do they have special powers, do people know about them, do only certain people know about them? Even in Sandman there's a lot more going on than just the Endless, and his characters had many places they could go for information. I'm not suggesting you need a Gaimanesque world of crazy people, but consider sources of information other than your primary characters. Books, museums, universities, secret societies, archetypes not directly involved but sympathetic to Fox, other humans who know about the archetypes, etc.
I like the idea of combining Fox doing research and some other, human/archetype source of information, and I definitely advocate sprinkling the exposition throughout the text. Infodumps are awkward and irritating to the reader.
Also, I know someone suggested making Fox an archetype herself as a plot twist, but I have to come down against that. In my opinion it would be incredibly predictable--of course fantasy books aren't about normal people! Everyone in a fantasy book must be fantastic! Blargh. I admit to a slight bias, however.
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Date: 2009-11-26 02:24 am (UTC)Once you know that, I have some basic worldbuilding questions: Do they know they're archetypes, are they immortal because they're archetypes, do they have special powers, do people know about them, do only certain people know about them? Even in Sandman there's a lot more going on than just the Endless, and his characters had many places they could go for information. I'm not suggesting you need a Gaimanesque world of crazy people, but consider sources of information other than your primary characters. Books, museums, universities, secret societies, archetypes not directly involved but sympathetic to Fox, other humans who know about the archetypes, etc.
I like the idea of combining Fox doing research and some other, human/archetype source of information, and I definitely advocate sprinkling the exposition throughout the text. Infodumps are awkward and irritating to the reader.
Also, I know someone suggested making Fox an archetype herself as a plot twist, but I have to come down against that. In my opinion it would be incredibly predictable--of course fantasy books aren't about normal people! Everyone in a fantasy book must be fantastic! Blargh. I admit to a slight bias, however.