It's amazing how something so small and common as a little virus can make us feel so gross. I'm tired, sniffly, coughing my head off, can't sleep at night--so I'm also grouchy. It made me start to think about how many times I've read a character fighting a cold.
Not that many. Oh sure, the plague or some horrid mutated virus, definitely (I've written a few of those myself!). But just a cold? Or allergies? Something minor that's annoying but lingers, causing the character distress?
That makes me think about how explorers introduced disease into Central and South America, devastating the Maya people. If a people have never had exposure to something, they have no resistance to it. Something like a cold or the flu, can kill in that case. We might laugh and brush it off in our modern civilized world, but I sure wouldn't want an alien ship to land if one of their crew has their version of the cold! (Plot bunny, stat!)
Maybe it's the "fantasy." I write a lot of romance and who wants to read about the heroine's snot or the hero's coughing fit that pulls a muscle or separates a rib?
So maybe the cold isn't so common.
What do you think - have you read a book where the character just has a cold?
~ * ~
Joely Sue Burkhart has always loved heroes who hide behind a
mask, the darker and more dangerous the better. Whether cool,
sophisticated billionaire, brutal bloodthirsty assassin, or simply a man
tortured by his own needs, they all wear masks to protect themselves.
Once they finally give you a peek into the passionate, twisted
secrets they’re hiding, they always fall hard and fast. Dare to look
beneath the mask with delicious BDSM in a wide variety of genres with Joely on
her website, Twitter, Facebook. Be sure to check out her free reads!
Most recent release: Never Let You Down, Book 4 of The
Connaghers
I've written one! The hero of Gate to Kandrith and Soul of Kandrith has the magical ability to heal, but the price is that he's always sick or unhealthy in some way, including the common cold.
ReplyDeleteI admit I can't think of any others off the top of my head though.
Now THAT is a cool consequence of magic ability! Thanks for sharing, Nicole!
DeleteI like that consequence, too! Very neat.
DeleteChallenge accepted! Somebody's getting a cold in my next book, and it will be epic.
ReplyDeleteHa, poor characters.... At least it's not the Black Death, right?
DeleteI honestly can't think of a book off the top of my head where this applies, but I CAN do a callback to one of my favorite episodes of MacGyver, of all things. There's a third season episode where Mac starts off the plot while fighting off a cold!
ReplyDelete(One assumes Richard Dean Anderson was sick at the time and they worked that into filming. ;) )
Ha, kind of like when one of the female characters is pregnant. Either write that in - or let her sit behind a desk for the season so her belly doesn't show!
ReplyDelete