CHANGELING –What happens to a child kidnapped by fairies and raised by them? Good versus Evil is between two warring fairy worlds. Stakes: Control of immortals and humans by an evil warlock clan.Ģ. The hook was combining the worlds of witchcraft and immortals. CHARMS – How can a teenage witch help an immortal on the run from another enemy immortal? Note: In Immortal legends there is already a strong, built-in good versus evil theme. If I can grasp these, I can go on to develop character and romance ARCS and external and internal conflicts. What are the STAKES? The stakes are huge in paranormal worlds – it is often no less than world upheaval or human subjugation to supernatural beings. Are your supernatural beings seeking power or dominance over humans or other creatures? For mystery writers, it may be an evil killer versus potential victims that provides this conflict.ģ. What is the GOOD VERSUS EVIL in my world? I think for paranormal writers, this is important. What is the HOOK or PREMISE? What makes your book unique? What’s it about? Just write one sentence – the shorter the better.Ģ.

My starting point is answering these three questions:ġ. I’m sharing mine today in the hopes it may spur you to try something different that might make it all a little easier or clearer. How do you begin the whole unwieldy process of stringing together thousands of words into an interesting, coherent story? Okay, great ideas are had by all writers. Like a typical writer, I started asking those ‘what if” questions: what if he were a killer? what if he was dumping a dead body? what if I were a mermaid and he caught me?Īnd from that one dream, I created a world in which a clan of mermaids secretly lived deep in an Alabama bayou. The man noticed me and his expression was so evil that it frightened me and I woke up. I was swimming in a deep body of water when I noticed a man dumping something from the side of a boat.

I’d completed three other novels (as yet still unpublished) before switching to mermaids and landing multiple contracts with Harlequin Nocturne for a series. Not only do I write paranormal romance, my subject matter isn’t of the popular vampire or werewolf variety. Plus – I’ve never outgrown my love of fairytales and mythology! The speculation that there might be something more to reality than can be perceived through our senses provides a natural “what if” environment writers need to create stories. I love paranormal romance because the possibility of magic tingles my creative drive and curiosity.

Not one of us by debbie herbert