Lions and Tigers and Werewolves, Oh My! Writing the Paranormal Romance

Lions and Tigers and Werewolves, Oh My!
Writing the Paranormal Romance

by Becci Clayton

Read any good vampire stories recently where he isn't killed and the heroine marries him because she loves him? How about a heroine who falls in love with a gorgeous, tall, blonde who is actually a cat in disguise? What do these story lines have in common? They are paranormal romances.

Writing the paranormal romance isn't as easy as it seems. This type of story is not just about settings in different universes or heroines taking wobbly candlesticks and ascending into attics because they heard ghosts. Paranormal romance requires even more attention to plot development and detail. Points to consider in writing a paranormal are believability in the three "C's"--character, conflict and consistency.

CHARACTER: When writing about a character from a different time or setting other than present day earth, you need more detail. It's perfectly fine to make your hero a feline king on planet Xlkdat but then explain what his ordinary environment is like in terms that we carbon based bags of water life forms can understand and somehow relate to. Is he afraid of water and why? If his race has fur, does he find the nearly "furlessness" of the heroine very erotic and unusual? If your heroine is a ghost, what is her greatest fear? What if she became human again? Does she miss the touch of velvet against her warm skin? If she travels to the future, does she miss the smell and texture of fresh baked bread in the cold, stainless steel world?

Ground your characters in the details of our world so we can relate to and understand their trials and experiences no matter where they live. Give them fears that we suffer so we can understand and relate to the fears your characters are experiencing. Even if you create a complete and total world different than anything we have seen or experienced, help us to see, feel, hear, taste and smell that wonderful world through the senses we have here on earth.

Most importantly, keep the focus of your story on the romance. Even if you have created the ultimate science fiction setting, the story is still the development between the hero and heroine, no matter what form they take or where they live. Diana Gabaldon was once quoted as saying, "They [your readers] will be displeased if the hero and heroine stop experiencing sexual tension for long stretches in order to deal with minor things like political assassination or inter- planetary bank robbery...It still has to be primarily a romance..."

CONFLICT: For me, the fun of writing paranormal romance is the enormous possibilities for conflict. Not only is there the usual conflict between or among characters and their personalities, but there is also the conflict between the protagonists and a different environment, different race, different time, different goals...the twists on conflict can be endless. Think about the time-travel heroine and how she must deal with life and social norms in either the past or future. How does the hero who is a scientist handle falling in love with the heroine who is a ghost? What if they can't find a way to bridge the physical and non-material worlds? What if she morphs into a tiger anytime she becomes aroused around the hero who is human? The possibilities and ideas are endless!

CONSISTENCY: What special powers do your characters have? If you are writing a paranormal romance, it's more than likely that one or both of your main characters will have some type of unusual power. The details need to be consistent throughout your story though. If your heroine can time travel but can't be seen when she does, then she probably shouldn't magically stumble in later in the middle of a scene. If your hero is an alien who can't breathe in our oxygen environment, then it wouldn't make sense for him to remove his helmet and kiss the heroine while sitting by a beautiful lake on earth.

If you are looking for additional references or resources about writing paranormal romance, try these sites:
    <www.ffp-romance.com> Futuristic, Fantasy and Paranormal chapter of RWA
    <http://members.aol.com/RWAWNTR/index.html> Writers of Non-Traditional Romance chapter of RWA
    <www.ROMFORT.com> Romance Foretold online site with reader and writer resources of fantasy romance
    <www.mysticvision.com> Mystic Vision site for paranormal romance

Paranormal romance writing presents the writer with special challenges and the opportunity to expand into strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly go where no writer has gone before. Well, even if that one has already been done, the possibilities for other stories are endless. Just keep in the mind the three "C's": Character, Conflict and Consistency. Keep those three elements believable in relation to our world with the romance as the primary focus and you'll have loads of very happy readers in the present and the future!

Becci Clayton is the romance editor for DynamicPatterns.com and contributing editor for romance writing genre at Suite101.