The Good American Witch by Peggy Bacon. The witch grants wishes, but always with an odd price—for example, a girl who wants curly blonde hair has to give up her eyebrows. As a result, she gets eyebrows which match her hair. Towards the end of the book, a boy wants to become an artist. He’s told the price is that his wish won’t be fulfilled until after some large number of days. At the end of the book, he’s become an artist, and only then realized that while he’s been studying art, the requisite number of days have passed.
The Paladin by C. J. Cherryh—as I recall, it has quite a lot about martial arts training.
Would the Harry Potter books count as an approximate match? Talent is important, but the characters also spend a lot of time on study and practice.
I haven’t read the Potter books for a long while, but from what I recall they’re pretty good at avoiding instant-gratification solutions when there’s some specific plot coupon that the protagonists need to master. The Patronus charm, the Polyjuice potion, etc. Harry even tries hard and fails to learn an essential skill once, with Occulemency, which is practically unheard of in fiction.
It doesn’t seem to generalize very well, though. The protagonists are mediocre students aside from Hermione, and after the first couple of books her studiousness seems to be treated more as a character quirk than a serious advantage. And it’s rarely more than a plot coupon that they need: most of their final successes come from dumb luck or outside intervention.
The Good American Witch by Peggy Bacon. The witch grants wishes, but always with an odd price—for example, a girl who wants curly blonde hair has to give up her eyebrows. As a result, she gets eyebrows which match her hair. Towards the end of the book, a boy wants to become an artist. He’s told the price is that his wish won’t be fulfilled until after some large number of days. At the end of the book, he’s become an artist, and only then realized that while he’s been studying art, the requisite number of days have passed.
The Paladin by C. J. Cherryh—as I recall, it has quite a lot about martial arts training.
Would the Harry Potter books count as an approximate match? Talent is important, but the characters also spend a lot of time on study and practice.
I haven’t read the Potter books for a long while, but from what I recall they’re pretty good at avoiding instant-gratification solutions when there’s some specific plot coupon that the protagonists need to master. The Patronus charm, the Polyjuice potion, etc. Harry even tries hard and fails to learn an essential skill once, with Occulemency, which is practically unheard of in fiction.
It doesn’t seem to generalize very well, though. The protagonists are mediocre students aside from Hermione, and after the first couple of books her studiousness seems to be treated more as a character quirk than a serious advantage. And it’s rarely more than a plot coupon that they need: most of their final successes come from dumb luck or outside intervention.