Mystery fans: Is getting your detective protagonist roughed up necessary, played-out, or somewhere in between?

It depends on whether it happens all the time or not. If our hero gets roughed up too frequently, I tend to start worrying about his judgment and his medical plan. Mainly, I get irritated if he or she gets roughed up because he did something really stupid.

I was just thinking about something similar after reading one book in which I never felt as if the protagonist was in jeopardy and another in which I thought the oft repeated jeopardy began to seem contrived. It's a fine line.

I think it depends on what the story demands, erika. If it's set up well and means something -- either in character development or moving the plot -- then go for it.

The danger is something like Giles getting knocked out all the time, I think. That was played as a running gag after a while, of course, but in a novel, unless your tone is pretty light, that's harder to pull off.

AU Channel Christmas Specials

Carl The Christmas Vampire

Little Match Girl II: She's back from the dead and out for revenge.

Saving Pottersville: Can the people of a thriving metropolis be saved from an evil spell that seeks to make them vanish as though they'd never existed?

Dreidel of the Dead: "shin" in this game will cost you more than just Hanukkah gelt.

CSI North Pole: who killed the sinister Arctic sweatshop owner with the midget fetish?

Little Match Girl II: She's back from the dead and out for revenge.

That is wonderful. There are no words for how much I loathe the original story.

It was the first one I came up with.

The Terror of Jingle Bells: Who will survive the race with the wolf pack?

The Terror of Jingle Bells II: They've eaten Grandma. Who will be next?

Little Match Girl III: She's back with her matches and this time she has gasoline

CSI NY: The bearded man at Macy's claimed he was Santa, but what was he doing with little girls?

Other AU sequels:

Little Red Ridinghood II: Revenge of the She Wolf

Little Red Ridinghood III: The Woodsman with his Ax Gave Grandma 40 Whacks

Jack and the Beanstalk II: The Ho-ho-horrible Revenge of the Giants

Cool, Ginger. Anyone else?

Frosty the Snow-man: The first taste is free.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer II: Payback's a bitch.

We Three Kings, the Rambo Remix: The Kings arrive with their palace guards and have a showdown when Herod's troops show up.

A Christmas Carol (rejected concepts): Christmas Future--The Cratchits sell their oldest daughter to Mother Fitz to get the money for Tiny Tim's medical care.

(sorry about the last one, Victorian England was a nasty place)

Murder on 34th Street