Author Archives: Wendi Knape

Paranormal a Ghost Story

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As I was sitting at Starbucks writing one morning, a man sitting next to me asked what I was writing. I answered Paranormal Romance. He responded, “Oh! You’re writing a ghost story.” I smiled and told him that paranormal these days didn’t necessarily mean a ghost story. I explained I was writing a vampire romance. We went on to discuss a bit more about my manuscript and then I went back to writing.

When I think about that short conversation, it makes me ponder all the ways people might construe the word paranormal; how paranormal romance often is categorized in the fantasy section of the bookstore, so I looked up the definition of paranormal. Dictionary.com defines the word.

Paranormal: of or pertaining to the claimed occurrence of an event or perception without scientific explanation, as psychokinesis, extrasensory perception, or other purportedly supernatural phenomena.

Ghost stories are definitely under the paranormal heading but so are many others. When you look at the second to last word of the definition, supernatural, the manifestation of a paranormal romance can move your imagination in many directions. There are vampire stories, which have saturated the industry (J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, which was developed into HBO’s True Blood, just to name a couple), to zombies, gods, faeries, witches and werewolves. The list could go on and on.

In my blog, Normal Becomes Paranormal, on Feb. 10th, I chose things in everyday life like the tree and the knife and made them something more as I developed my paranormal idea. In Gina Lamm’s Geek Girls series, an antique bureau literally pulls the unsuspecting heroine–or suspecting, depending on which book you read—to another time. This is a prime example of ‘without scientific explanation’. The heroines in the series couldn’t possibly function in the past, losing all their creature comforts, right? They do though, with the help of very sexy alpha males. Voila! The paranormal aspect is a simple time machine but the complications that it causes for the heroes and heroines make for a more dynamic romance as conflicts surmount.

A fresh take on paranormal romance that I’ve enjoyed in recent years is the Charley Davidson series by Darynda Jones. In First Grave on the Right, first in print in 2011, you learn her main character, Charley Davidson, is the grim reaper and her love interest isn’t your typical bad boy. Ooowee! Talk about a complicated relationship (I’m fanning myself just thinking about him). I can’t go into detail because it would spoil the story arc, so if you’re new to the author make sure you find a copy so you can devour all the excitement Darynda Jones packs onto each page. The story is rich with coffee obsession, laced with the not so typical t-shirt quote along with lots of steamy-hot-guy-going-on whenever Charley and her bad boy meet. There are also those pesky complications I mention, making a well rounded story, in a contemporary setting.

When you as the writer think about developing a new paranormal romance your ideas can go any direction you want. I know, I know, how can you possibly write an original vampire novel, you ask? Well the only way to answer that question is to see what’s already in print. What I would recommend is to read as many books as you can with similar characters; vampires, witches, and werewolves, etc. Find out what you like and dislike about the books and make your idea better. It’s not going to be an easy task but you can bring your own unique writing style to your story. Just keep jotting down ideas until you find the one that unfolds into something special.

Happy writing!

Normal Becomes Paranormal

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Paranormal romance ideas can spark from many places and ignite into something wondrous. You as the writer can light that flame of imagination and let it grow into a wildfire. From the simplest things like a key or even a pen, ideas can flourish from ordinary into something amazing.

An example of an everyday item turning into something extraordinary is the use of a book. In Jennifer Probst’s, Marriage to a Billionaire series she uses a book entitled The Book of Spells. Jennifer has her female heroines write the same list with the most important attributes of their ideal man on two pieces of paper. They’re directed to put one copy under their mattress while the other is burned. As the stories progress characters are astounded the magic book gives them their happily ever after. Isn’t that what all romances try to do? We’re just trying to add that one little twist of magic or something extraordinary that would make it paranormal.

Let’s do a little writing exercise. Look around you, on your desk or out your window. What do you see? I see a tree out my window and a knife on my desk.

Ask yourself, what would happen if the two things you chose somehow influenced or have a direct affect on the objects you’ve chosen or the people that encounter them? Once you pick the two items write what comes to your mind regarding the items. It could be a word, words, phrases, anything. It doesn’t matter what they are at this point but how they can become something else to the characters that would be developed around them. Use the old standby of who, what, why, where and when. After you do this, narrow your choices down to your favorites.

The below is a result of my choices and adding magical elements to the everyday.

A wide eyed little girl that only wants love etches a heart into a weathered maple tree in front of her house with her initials and the initials of the boy next door. What if the blade she uses isn’t an ordinary blade (one she’s found in a box buried in her attic) and the tree is no ordinary tree? What if the knife is really an Athame (a knife used in Wiccan ceremonies), and the tree turns out to be an ancient tree and the objects are imbibed with magic from generations of little girls finding their happily ever after because they carved their initials of the one they loved into the tree with the sacred knife? Now, the knife the little girl thought was ordinary when she found it and the ancient tree are something that drives the story of that little girl into adulthood.

Driven away by the bitterness of her mother’s hidden contempt for her family’s tradition of carving in the tree, the daughter only returns to her childhood home because an intruder has killed her mother. As she uncovers more of her family’s secrets in the attic, her life becomes threatened and the boy next door, now a man and cop, reenters her life.

What I’ve done is create a thread of content that causes the main character to delve into her families past, which leads to her Wiccan heritage and the threat that someone wants the Athame. This puts the hero in place to help the heroine, creates tension from the added protagonist (the intruder) and adds magic. Most importantly, it allows the love between the two to kindle that the heroine has been dreaming about since she was a little girl who carved their initials in the ancient tree.

Obviously, this is not the whole story but the spark I talked about earlier. If you can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary, you have what you need for a good start, making that bit of flame into a blazing fire as the story heats up, giving the reader the happily ever after.

Happy writing!