Tag Archives: paranormal

Paranormal Traits

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A trait is a distinguishing characteristic or quality, especially of one’s personal nature, defined by Dictionary.com. When using traits with a paranormal twist you can go with classic takes, such as mind to mind communication that Bram Stoker uses in Dracula and, one of the most common vampire traits, the elongated fangs. Stoker takes Dracula’s desire to speak to Mina enhancing it into a physical experience in mind and body transcending all logic, creating intimacy where there was none.

Taking things a step further, let’s look at the Argeneau Series by Lynsay Sands. The mind to mind communication in Sands vampires (Immortals as she calls them) becomes sexually charged as the heroes and heroines learn they are life mates. They share each other’s pleasure to a point their intimacy boils to such a peak they pass out, anywhere. She’s created a situation where she uses all the five senses, smell, sight, sound, taste, and touch. However, what happens goes beyond the physical and becomes a sharing between the two characters on a mental level. With humans, to the extent she explains, this would not be possible in real life. This adds something to her vampires that no one had ever seen yet in the genre.

Conflict develops when the no-fangers, vampires without fangs come on the scene. Let’s just say, they’re a tad bit crazy. To make it even more fun she adds a third type without fangs called edentates, another generation not touched by the crazies. She goes into detail about the three distinctions adding history to the series and to her characters. These are some of the steamiest, funniest, and scariest scenes I’ve ever read. Lynsay Sands uses the physical trait to drive the plot arc in several of her books, motivating good and evil in a race to meet their goals.

My favorite character trait is smell. With most predators, smell is a basic tool in their repertoire. J.R. Ward uses the trait brilliantly in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. Introduced first in Dark Lover, Wrath and Beth meet, and at first, Wrath is lead to her by duty. However, when he gets near her, her scent is so intoxicating he has to have her. Eventually Beth can’t resist him either. His scent is headier than a spicy merlot laden with pheromones. He’s like a drug and she’s drawn to him in every way. As intimacy grows, the musky scent cloaks the chosen mate of the vampire, warning any other males or females to back off. With this one trait, J.R. Ward creates some sexy heart pounding moments in and out of the bedroom.

Werewolves, another classic paranormal creature, can also compel readers with the use of unique traits. For example, take a snap shot of the wolf in its normal habitat and find traits that translate into the human hero or heroine. Nalini Singh does this in her Psy/Changeling series. Ask yourself, how does a male wolf act/react to a female wolf? Outside forces threaten the female, how would the alpha wolf handle the threat? Immerse yourself in the five senses of a wolf. What would he do around a female to show his interest? Would he rub, lick, or bite the female to mark her with his scent? Even the words rub, lick, and bite spice up a scene, heating up the romance between human characters. How would it enhance a paranormal romance? Would he use sound, his howl to attract a female or scare away an enemy, let someone know he was hurt? How do these questions translate from wolf to human characters? Does the alpha male fight other males to stake his claim of the female? Is the human hearing extra sensitive alongside sight, smell, taste, and touch?

My examples above of vampires and werewolves are not the only human traits to translate into paranormal characters; the two are just more widely recognized. You decide what traits work best for your characters helping create intensity, intimacy, and excitement that ramp up your plot, compelling readers to turn pages. Use the five senses and physical traits to open doors in your mind. But be careful. The traits you decide on have to have purpose that drive the story forward, twisting the normal into paranormal.

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!