Paranormally Yours
It takes a lot of imagination to write 300 pages of a novel. You make up an entire world, characters, their problems, their lives. You figure out who your characters' parents are, what their habits are, why they are dysfunctional or happy or tortured. You find their voice and meld it into you so you can write in that voice for pages on end. It's hard work, but great fun.
It's even more fun--at least for me--to enter a paranormal world. For me, it is absolutely freeing because even less rules apply. You enter a fantastical world, and you get to make even MORE stuff up--and as long as you create a MYTHOLOGY that is believable, your readers will suspend their disbelief and join you.
My first paranomal was called Urban Legend, and I wrote it for the Silhouette Bombshell line. It sold out of its printing and was re-released as Twice Bitten in trade-size (with Crystal Green's book, The Huntress). I had a ball writing it, mostly because it was writing using a sense of playfulness and imagination even greater than in my usual books. I needed to make my vampire memorable, so I took what I liked of vampire myth (immortal nature, can't go out in daylight), discarded some that I didn't (such as shrinking back from crosses and religious hallowed ground). I made my vampire a Buddhist. Definitely tricky to pull off, but it worked with her mythology.
My second paranormal was for teens, High School Bites. In this book, the vampire hunter was a girl descended from the real-life inspiration for Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and her world was populated by descendants of Stoker and Henry Irving, a real-life actor from the Lyceum Theatre in London. I got some of the best reviews of my career, including Kirkus.
So now . . . I am returning to the world of vampires for the new Nocturne line, to write about a dhampir in a book titled Blood Son for January 2007. And once again, when I am working on it, I find myself so absolutely excited. Wolves, gargoyles, a strange abandoned convent . . . it's not just inventing a novel--hard work, indeed--but creating the mythology.
I know paranormals are "hot" right now. But for me, writing has always been about creating another world. And with paranormals, you get to take it one step further. Again, that word, mythology.
Anyone creating a mythology in their work in progress? Does adding paranormal or fantasy elements take it to some other level for you?
It's even more fun--at least for me--to enter a paranormal world. For me, it is absolutely freeing because even less rules apply. You enter a fantastical world, and you get to make even MORE stuff up--and as long as you create a MYTHOLOGY that is believable, your readers will suspend their disbelief and join you.
My first paranomal was called Urban Legend, and I wrote it for the Silhouette Bombshell line. It sold out of its printing and was re-released as Twice Bitten in trade-size (with Crystal Green's book, The Huntress). I had a ball writing it, mostly because it was writing using a sense of playfulness and imagination even greater than in my usual books. I needed to make my vampire memorable, so I took what I liked of vampire myth (immortal nature, can't go out in daylight), discarded some that I didn't (such as shrinking back from crosses and religious hallowed ground). I made my vampire a Buddhist. Definitely tricky to pull off, but it worked with her mythology.
My second paranormal was for teens, High School Bites. In this book, the vampire hunter was a girl descended from the real-life inspiration for Lucy in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and her world was populated by descendants of Stoker and Henry Irving, a real-life actor from the Lyceum Theatre in London. I got some of the best reviews of my career, including Kirkus.
So now . . . I am returning to the world of vampires for the new Nocturne line, to write about a dhampir in a book titled Blood Son for January 2007. And once again, when I am working on it, I find myself so absolutely excited. Wolves, gargoyles, a strange abandoned convent . . . it's not just inventing a novel--hard work, indeed--but creating the mythology.
I know paranormals are "hot" right now. But for me, writing has always been about creating another world. And with paranormals, you get to take it one step further. Again, that word, mythology.
Anyone creating a mythology in their work in progress? Does adding paranormal or fantasy elements take it to some other level for you?
posted by Erica Orloff at 3:43 PM
11 Comments:
I didn't think I was any kind of paranormal writer either until this weekend when an idea for a YA paranormal trilogy knocked me upside the head. Who knew? But by the time I have this baby written, polished and ready to go, it might be 2009 already and perhaps the market for paranormals would have cooled off then.
Karm:
I love when things like that happen . . . an idea just zaps you out of the clear blue sky!
I would not have thought I could write paranormals . . . but I always adored vampire flicks, so maybe it was always brewing in me.
E
Ah yes, the draw to paranormal elements. :) My series is debuting next summer and features (as Erica knows) a vampire, but this new one I'm working on is...well, it's kind of paranormal as well, but in an odd way. It's about a boy that stumbles onto Wonderland....but this Wonderland is creepy, scary, dark, desolate...good times, good times...
I'm a BIG vampire/horror fan, so for me it was natural to write these things. I can't imagine straying too far from it.
Heather:
The funny thing for me is I started out writing comedy, basically. So now to get so into these vampire books or other fantasy elements . . . it strays a bit from my original core books, but I have so much fun that they are just about my favorite to do. My voice is so utterly different during them too. In comedy, I am very brief . . . not sure why, but I am. Quick, quippy. With the paranormals, MOOD and setting are so important and I really do a lot of description and create that world.
E
I'm a big Stephen King fan so, although I don't write paranormals myself (not yet, anyway), I can certainly appreciate the artistry behind them.
My nephew recently had an encounter with what sounds like a malevolent spirit, so maybe I'll write about that some day. It happened at a closed dentist's office at night--a scary setting even under normal circumstances, I think.
That's fantastic, Erica. I often wonder if I wrote something completely different, would my voice change? Has it changed just with experience?
And mood...it's so important! I love rich descriptions, but tend to take it too far, so I have to reel myself back in during revisions.
Both of my series are paranormal. First series I created being called vashon, which is vampiric-fairies hybrids that feed of magick. Second series is about the only woman Archangle in training.
I love creating a fantasy world brimming with paranormal elements.
LA:
Both of those sound fun--and again, that added imaginative element is just wonderful.
E
I love to read paranormal books of all types. I want to thank all the authors out there that make a reader feel like they are in the book right along with the characters in the books.
Loretta:
That is the highest compliment any reader can pass along to an author.
E
I don't have anything paranormal... yet. I'm sure that one will come along though. My first adventures into writing prose were short stories about vampires and werewolves, so I am sure I'll be back there soon enough :)
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