Is a non-talking, non-telapathic, gold-digging, fire-snorting, virgin seeking ...

Long, long time ago I read a short story about a non-magical dragon. I don’t remember much of it, other than logically, its fire shot from, ah, the other end. with a little fake biology, it can work.

It's your world, your story, your dragon, make it whatever you want. All it has to do is be believable. Well, as fantasy goes, that is.

Some people don't think it's fantasy if it doesn't have elves, dwarves, dragons, fairies, and the list goes on. Lots of fantasy has none of those things.

The reference to being magical is in the story, yes? If so I'd think that would give the story some fun times, and in some instances some not so great scenes. Confusion running rampant can be a good thing.

Anytime anyone tells you that ________ must be _______ in order to qualify for ________ , simply smile and go about writing the story the way you want it to be.

S'Fool said:

I ask this because my writing group thinks that dragons must be magical creatures endowed with the ability to cast spells, warp time and space, and chatter/mind meld away on any topic with the first person they set eyes on.

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Absolutely not. Tell your writing group that they have no imagination.

Ever see the movie Reign of Fire??

I think it would actually be funny if people kept expecting the dragon to be magical and it was only a glorified Gila monster with a taste for virgins and shiny things.

If your dragon doesn't talk, you'll have to work extra hard to make him a "character" like Lassie. He's basically a REAL animal, yet we still have to relate to him.

And I'm assuming your dragon also has no internal monologues.

You might want to get a look at the children's genre called "animal realism" for some guidance on how to make a character out of a non-talking, non-thinking-out-loud animal creature.

Some film examples include:

The Black Stallion (1979)
The Incredible Journey (1963)
Eight Below (2006)
King Kong (2005)

Don't worry about reader expectations, as long as you manage to make it believable...there's no reason why a dragon has to be sentient, that's just become a common trend. Though, you may have to come up with plausible reasons for why the dragons acts the way it does, to keep readers from thinking its too stereotypical (like, why does the dragon prefer to eat virgins? And how does it know? o.o ). But in a way, you're going against the modern stereotype. It's all in how you handle things. Personally, I think a more biology-based take on dragons, rather than magic-based, would be really interesting.

JohnB1988 said:

Long, long time ago I read a short story about a non-magical dragon. I don’t remember much of it, other than logically, its fire shot from, ah, the other end. with a little fake biology, it can work.

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I think this was a part of Anne McCaffrey's "A Diversity of Dragons", an illustrated book of short stories. ^_^ The basic premise was that swamp dragons could rearrange their organs, so this little blue dragon named Errold (or something like that), in order to defeat a much larger dragon, did some...innovative internal reorganizing which gave it rocket-style propulsion.

Either that, or there's more stories out there about wrong-ended fire breathing than I thought. XD

I recently read Guards! Guards! and Tallymark, you just hit the nail on the head. (but gave away the end result of a lot of plot development, lol)
S'Fool, your dragon should talk to my dragon, it might help you feel better about breaking tradition (currently I'm leaning toward the idea of them being guardians of the earth... well, kinda... it's complicated)
Cheers,
Christina

S'Fool said:

dragons must be magical creatures endowed with the ability to cast spells, warp time and space, and chatter/mind meld away on any topic with the first person they set eyes on.

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Now I'm imagining a dragon that's a Hogwarts wizard, Doctor Who and Spock, rolled into one.

I think many adult fantasy readers will be familiar with Tolkien's Smaug, Anne McCaffrey's weyrdragons and Terry Pratchett's small dragons in the dragon sanctuary, that is, they will already have accepted a range of types and will happily accept another. I think that as long as you make your version consistent with your world, which it sounds like it is, you should be fine. From your summary, I get the impression that the dragon as you have it causes the right level of complication for your protagonists: magic on top of that would overbalance it.

I'd say, "Thank you for your comments," and then let your story speak for itself.

Tallymark said:

...Either that, or there's more stories out there about wrong-ended fire breathing than I thought.

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For some strange reason, I'm picturing dragons after they'd dined on really hot burritos.

Well if you make it believable, go for it. Why does a dragon have to be magical?

Maybe your readers only tend to read a certain type of fantasy, and you need more feedback from other readers with slightly more diverse tastes.

Either that, or there's more stories out there about wrong-ended fire breathing than I thought. XD

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Story I read was way pre-Pratchett, and I seem to remember the book was kinda yellow with age. I guess ideas come and go, or maybe wrong-end came first and it got “cleaned-up” for the kiddies.

Personally, I really hate dragons that are like that! It's disgraceful to the rest of dragonkind! There should be a reason for a dragon's evil, not evil just for the sake of it.

Robin McKinley has good non-talking and mostly non-magical (and pretty nasty) dragons in 'The Hero and the Crown'.

The dragons in "The Dragon and the George" series by Gordon Dickson could talk, but were otherwise non-magical.

I have to ask, though. What's so special about virgins to dragons?

I think the legend goes they offered up a virgin (pure) girl to appease a dragon's appetite so it wouldn't devour an entire village. Not necessarily that they crave virgins. Unless virgins just taste better.

It's your dragon, do whatcha want. There are more ways to communicate than verbal or mind speak... it's all about body language. Dragons don't have to be "magical" in the way your writing group sees. If they want dragons that can do all that stuff, they can damned well write their own story.

I too prefer biologically based dragon scenarios... I mean really, all it takes is one evolutionary fluke and we coulda had flying lizards all over the place. It wouldn't take much for them to evolve into larger versions either. (Dinosaurs, hello!)

Oh, and there are plenty of chemical reactions within "real" creatures to justify fire breathing. (Glow worms and fire flies make light in their butts, after all.) I read "Leviathan" (forgot the author) and his dragon had two sacs in it's mouth. Each sac had a different fluid, and once the two were shot out of the mouth and mixed together with oxygen, BOOM! fire. The skin and teeth in the mouth could be covered with saliva that is fire resistant so your dragon doesn't burn itself while frying things.

Flying - borrow from birds or bats. Make the bones hollow, make the body slender or otherwise aerodynamic, and make the wings proportionate to the rest of the body.

Likes gold? Maybe it can smell the gold. Maybe it likes the smell and likes to surround itself with the stuff so it can smell purty and attract hawt female dragons.

See? Not too hard. And even if it isn't magical like your writing group thinks, it's magical enough to satisfy most people.

Pratchett is about the only author from whom I don't run screaming at the mention of dragons - and that's precisely because his dragons are either dogs in scaly clothing (swamp-dragons) or huge scary evil things (like the big one in Guards, Guards! )

Question: Is that character believable in your story?
Answer: Yes! It is YOUR imagination that is creating this character and there is nothing anyone can say or do that should change that. It's the world you have created with various beings and each being is unique. Don't take everything that you are told to heart. Take that which resonates within yourself to be true and constructive; leave the rest.

Seems like everything has been said, but I'd like to add to PD's thoughts here. I just read an excellent book by Dean Koontz called Dragon Tears (aka Ticktock), which included some beautiful passages from the perspective of an everyday, normal dog.

Despite the title, there are no dragons in the story.

S'Fool said:

I ask this because my writing group thinks that dragons must be magical creatures endowed with the ability to cast spells, warp time and space, and chatter/mind meld away on any topic with the first person they set eyes on. My basic impression of a dragon is: lizard that flew, breathed fire, loved gold and dined on virgins (and I'm not sure about the last one.)

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The dragon in Shrek has no apparent magical abilities, other than to breathe fire. (I didn't see the subsequent Shreks, so if she displayed other powers in those movies, I don't know about them.) And we all know how popular that movie is.

Your dragon is more like the dragons in folklore, not the dragons from typical fantasy books and games. I would find crit partners who appreciate something original.

What about the film The Dragon Slayer? That was just your average big lizard with wings and spicy breath. The only reason why it ate virgins wasn't because it asked for them, but because the kingdom below its lair provided them.