Writing the Paranormal Novel: Techniques and Exercises for Weaving Supernatural Elements Into Your Story.

by Harper, Steven

  Another method for ratcheting up the tension is good old-fashioned complication. This is when a conflict gets worse instead of better. The hero tries to solve this problem, but something else gets in the way and makes things worse yet — or perhaps just more complicated. And since you're writing a paranormal novel, you can use supernatural complications. Greg wants to make up with his fiancée and persuades her to meet him at a restaurant, but on his way to this assignation a vampire attacks him. He wakes up in a Dumpster with a new set of fangs and ten angry text messages from his girlfriend. Greg's first problem has just gotten worse. Hamlet arrives home from boarding school, eager to see his girlfriend Ophelia, and discovers his father has died and his mother married his uncle Claudius. While Hamlet is dealing with his feelings about this, the ghost of his father appears and demands revenge — he was murdered by his brother, who stole his throne. Hamlet must pretend he's insane in order to get proof from Claudius, but abruptly discovers this makes his relationship with Ophelia difficult. Hamlet tries to learn more about the murder from his mother, but accidentally kills Ophelia's father, which drives Ophelia mad. Complication piles on top of complication, difficulty upon difficulty, as Shakespeare's most famous supernatural play progresses, until the explosive, tragic ending becomes all but inevitable.

  This, incidentally, isn't to say that your protagonist should have no victories along the way. Throwing problem after problem at your main character with no hint of solution will turn your book into a depressing lead paperweight. You need small successes here and there that bring the protagonist a little closer to solving that big problem. Hamlet manages to confirm to himself that Claudius did indeed murder Hamlet's father. Hamlet can't act on the information directly, but it's a small victory nonetheless. Claudius tries to send Hamlet to his death in England, but Hamlet manages to deflect that plot. Small victories along the way ensure the reader won't feel bogged down by tragedy and have moments to cheer about.

  TWISTS AND TURNS

  For any novel, predictability spells doom. Predictable stories are dull.

  Reading one is like climbing onto a roller coaster only to discover it's just the same commuter train you ride to work every day. Where's the fun in reading a new book when you can see the ending coast toward you like a familiar station?

  The reader should not be able to guess how the book will end — or if the ending is clear (such as in a romance, where an upbeat ending is a foregone conclusion), the reader shouldn't be able to figure out how on Earth we're going to get there. Careful plotting requires at least one plot twist — unexpected change in direction — that throws the reader off the trail. Multiple twists are better, since they keep the reader guessing continually.

  Paranormal novels have an extra supply of plot twists. The protagonist can discover new facets of the magical world or learn a new aspect of his supernatural abilities — or discover a new weakness. The Betrayer antagonist is always good for a plot twist, of course, and then there's the Black Moment, which we'll get to in a minute.

  J.K. Rowling, famous for her plot twists, keeps them coming in big ways and small. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry confronts Draco Malfoy, the school bully, in a scene that in most books ends with the bully winning. (Gentle warning if you haven't read the novel yet — we'll be talking about the ending in this paragraph.) It's early in the book, and the bully always wins early in the book. Malfoy flings another student's treasured object, and Harry flies after it on his broom-stick. In a surprise twist, Harry discovers a natural talent for broomstick riding and is quickly recruited to Seeker on the school Quidditch team, a plum position. In another twist, Harry believes Professor Snape has been working against him, but at the last moment, he discovers Snape has been helping him all along, and the real antagonist is actually shy, retiring Professor Quirrell.

  Hamlet stabbing Polonius through the curtain is a major plot twist in Hamlet. Richard Grace turning out to be Mulgarath the ogre in disguise is a plot twist in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Jack Torrance siding with the ghosts and turning on his family is a plot twist in The Shining.

  Plot twists do need to make sense. You have to set them up so the reader can say, “Oh! I should have seen that coming. Why didn't I?” A plot twist that comes out of nowhere is called a tomato surprise, because the so-called twist is about as effective as throwing a tomato into the reader's face and shouting, “Surprise!” Readers don't like tomato surprises, and you should set up your plot twists.

  Rowling shows Harry able to command his broomstick better than the other students before he goes off on his unexpectedly skillful ride. The incidents when Professor Snape seems to be hurting Harry are later explained to be misinterpretations of his helpful actions by Harry, who dislikes Snape, while several clues that Professor Quirrell is attempting to hurt Harry are sitting right there in the open. The audience realizes Hamlet has good reason to think Claudius is behind the curtain in Hamlet, but only a second before Hamlet does the deed. Mulgarath is established as a shapeshifter early on. Jack Torrance's psyche hangs by a thread for quite some time, and since he seems to be the protagonist, we're thinking he'll win in the end. Fortunately, we're wrong. All these plot twists are unexpected, but they all make sense within the story.

  THE BLACK MOMENT

  At or just before the climax of any story or novel should come a dreadful, terrible point in the narrative when everything looks lost. The protagonist has been separated from all friends and other support. The antagonist has stolen the magic sword or killed the protagonist's best friend or finished the spell that will release the dark god into the world. It's all over. There's no way the antagonist can win.

  This is your black moment. Almost every paranormal book has one. It heightens suspense to unbearable levels at the climax and keeps the reader up until dawn to finish the story, the intent of every author. The black moment can be as enormous as something that will spell doom for the entire world, or something as small as meaning the protagonist will never accomplish a personal goal such as crossing through the gate back home, ridding himself of a curse, or finding true love. Whatever it is needs to be deathly important to the protagonist, which makes it important to us.

  The black moment forces the protagonist to use that final, gutwrenching, all-or-nothing attempt (which also, if you're doing your job right, forces the protagonist to confront that Perfect Flaw that's been plaguing him for the entire book) to win in a way that neither the antagonist nor the reader saw coming.

  The black moment and its solution comprise the ultimate plot twist. You set up an out for yourself earlier in the book and you take it, sending your protagonist through one final wringer in the process so when he wins in the end, the reader cheers — or if he loses tragically, the reader weeps.

  Terry Pratchett ends Lords and Ladies with a heart-stopping, drawnout black moment in which the Queen of Elves has killed Granny Weatherwax and is turning her considerable power on Magrat, who has never been able to stand up to anyone. Even after the climax is resolved, the black moment continues — Granny Weatherwax is still dead. Mulgarath flings Mallory and Simon off a balcony and starts changing into a dragon to kill Jared. J.K. Rowling ends her entire Harry Potter series with a tremendous black moment. The unstoppable Death Eaters break into Hogwarts, and Lord Voldemort kills Harry. How on earth will the characters get out of this? These black moments make the books impossible to put down, and you want to make sure your own book follows suit.

  SCENE BY SCENE

  We're zooming in even closer now to look at individual scenes. That Rule of Three above still applies as we move inward, and so does that plot mountain.

  Any scene in which the main character needs to accomplish something is actually a short story within your book. In the scene, you need to have rising action, complication, climax, and falling action. This is part of that fractal pattern I mentioned earlier — little plot mountains that make up the big plot mountain. This structure pulls the readers along because those little mountains a
re continually moving toward a climax, hitting one, or just recovering from one.

  The pattern you generally want to follow is the one with Greg's conflict a few pages back. It works at the novel level and it works at the scene level. At the scene level, we might have Greg trying to break into a house one night. (Greg has a conflict.) He tries the door and windows, but they're all locked. (Greg tries to solve the conflict and fails.) Greg tries to pick the front door, but his picklocks break off in the keyhole, permanently jamming the lock. Meanwhile, a police car has turned down the block. (Greg tries to solve the conflict a second time and fails again. The conflict gets worse.) Greg dashes around to the side of the house and sees a basement window. He kicks it open, breaking it, and squeezes in, though he slices his arm badly and leaves blood on the glass. (Greg tries to solve the conflict a third time and puts everything he has into this ultimate, last-ditch solution.) The police car's headlights sweep the place where Greg was lying as he drops into the basement. (Greg succeeds.)

  This structure shows up in A Dirty Job. Charlie, still uncertain about this whole Death thing, is walking down the street when the three-in-one death goddess Morrigan threatens him from the sewer grating. (Charlie has a problem.) This frightens Charlie, but he keeps his cool and cheerfully reminds Morrigan that he spent the night in bed while she got to sleep in a sewer. She calls him more names. (Charlie tries to solve the conflict and fails.) At the next block, Morrigan threatens to torture and kill Sophie, Charlie's daughter. This turns Charlie's stomach, but he manages to snarl a threat back at her, which serves to make her angrier. On top of it all, people on the street have begun to notice Charlie is talking to himself. (Charlie tries to solve the conflict a second time and fails again. The conflict gets worse.) Finally, Charlie plants himself and the souls he's recently collected outside a sewer grating as bait. When Morrigan's arm snakes out to grab him, he stabs her and flings bagful of lit M-80 firecrackers into the sewer. (Charlie tries to solve the conflict a third time and puts everything he has into this ultimate, last-ditch solution.) The firecrackers explode in the confined space, temporarily incapacitating Morrigan. (Charlie succeeds.)

  I should add that this is not a hard-and-fast rule, and not every single scene will run this way, but it is a compelling structure for both small scenes and big novels.

  SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

  You'll need more going on in your book than just the protagonist's attempt to save the world. People deal with multiple problems in the real world, and fictional people should deal with the same situations. Secondary conflicts within the main conflict are called subplots, and you'll want two or three of these. Subplots add breadth to your world and depth to your characters by letting you explore facets of both that may or may not have anything to do with the main plot. It's the little things that make a person's life interesting — and more realistic. You can use subplots to heighten tension, contrast two characters, add to the main plot, and more.

  One of the more common — and expected — subplots is the romance. Sure, Greg has to figure out how to survive as a vampire and stop the werewolf rampage from destroying the city, but he also needs to sort out his feelings toward his fiancée Kelly, especially since he's been feeling oddly attracted to Isabel, that South American vampire who turns up whenever he needs help. Diver's vampire fashionista Gina in Vamped is mainly interested in stopping a vampire queen from undeading Gina's entire high school, but Gina also deals with boyfriend difficulties, all of which is further complicated by the fact that both her current and ex-boyfriends are now vampires, too. Glenda from Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals watches her best friend fall in love, and she becomes quite surprised when it happens to Glenda herself.

  None of these romances are the main story. Paranormal readers enjoy watching the main character slip, fall, or be dragged screaming into a relationship, but they don't want it to be the primary focus. If the protagonist's relationship makes up your paranormal novel's main plot, you're writing a paranormal romance, a slightly different kind of book.

  Not all books need a romance. A Dirty Job doesn't have one for Charlie Asher. Terry Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax deliberately turns one away in Lords and Ladies. So it's not a requirement, even though it's quite common.

  Romantic subplots are usually resolved after the main climax of the book. Greg barely defeats the alpha werewolf in life-threatening combat, and only when it's over does he admit to Isabel that he loves her, for example. Ron and Hermione, and Harry and Ginny get married only after Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters have been dealt with at the end of the Harry Potter series.

  Another subplot revolves around those character flaws I mentioned in chapter eight. Will the character manage to overcome the flaw? If so, how? What impact will all this have on the character? Sometimes a character flaw will take center stage and becomes the main plot, but that's called a character novel. It might be a paranormal novel, too, but the structure is different than what we're talking about here.

  Character flaw subplots are usually resolved during the main climax. This is because you, the author, have cleverly set things up so your main character will be forced to confront this flaw in order to achieve her goal at the climax. A protagonist with a fear of heights will naturally find herself fighting for her life — or the life of someone she loves — atop the Empire State Building. A main character who has trust issues will be faced with the choice of trusting someone and succeeding or drawing away from the other person and failing. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry is forced to confront his own secret desire for parents in the Mirror of Erised at the same time he confronts Professor Quirrell and the fledgling Lord Voldemort at the book's climax. The combination makes the scene even more gripping — there are two issues to resolve, and if Harry fails at either one, the story will end in tears. The tension heightens, and the reader can't put the book down.

  Running jokes or other nagging problems are yet another type of subplot. That annoying little demon the main character forgot to banish and who now hangs around on top of the refrigerator. The police detective who won't leave the werewolf protagonist alone. The main character avoiding a doctor's appointment. The aforementioned hellhounds become a major subplot in A Dirty Job, for example, and Charlie's attempts to get rid of them become a running joke as well.

  This kind of subplot can be resolved whenever the author wants. In a series, they may never be resolved, especially if the readers like them. Or they can be resolved within a chapter or two.

  Whatever subplots you create, they should receive the same care and feeding as your main plot. You're not allowed to shortchange a subplot just because it's not the main story! They have the same rising action/climax/falling action structure as a main plot, complete with a complication or two along the way. They're just smaller in scope than the main plot.

  SUBPLOT BONUS POINTS

  Although subplots can exist separate from the main plot, you get bonus points from the reader if your subplots somehow connect to the main plot. When plot and subplot are woven together into a tight tapestry, the story becomes more compelling — it's essentially become a single story with multiple layers instead of several fragmented story lines connected by a single character. The reader isn't continually flipped from plot to subplot and back again because all the plots relate to each other, and that makes for tighter, easier reading.

  In a paranormal novel, any real-world subplot should reach into the supernatural main plot and have an impact on it — and vice versa. A fine example of this is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In a real-world subplot, Harry starts dating Ginny, the younger sister of his best friend Ron. Ron discovers the romance and becomes angry with both Harry and Ginny. Hermione, Harry's other best friend, tries to patch things up, but Harry and Ron continue to fight, and she eventually storms off, disgusted with both of them. As a result of all this, Harry spends a chunk of the book without his friends' help. This severely hinders his attempts to resolve his supernatural main goals for t
he book: shut the evil Lord Voldemort out of his mind and find a way to get at the magical memories stored in another wizard's head. It isn't until Harry has patched things up with Ron and Hermione that he's able to move ahead with his main goals. The subplots have a big impact on the main plot, which makes the book tighter. Whenever possible, your book should do the same.

  CHAPTER 10: Fight Scenes and Flashbacks: How to Handle Paranormal Pacing

  I was in trouble. My current book was going to run long by 30 or 40,000 words. I phoned up my editor, and she said not to sweat it. “Finish the book and we'll worry about length later,” she said. So I finished the book and sent it to her. A couple weeks later, she e-mailed back with, “It's too long. You need to cut 30 or 40,000 words.”

  After I got over my urge to strangle her, I continued reading. “Every scene needs to count,” she wrote. “You have several scenes in which nothing really happens, and you can safely cut them.” Then she proceeded to list each, with depressing exactness. I sighed and called up my word processing program.

  Two weeks later, I had a cleaner, tighter read that clocked in at 120,000 words — much closer to my contracted length. The pacing had also picked up considerably. I probably learned more about pacing from that book than I had in the previous two I'd written, and we'll take a look at those issues here.

  SETTING THE PACE

  Pace is how quickly or slowly your story moves from one event to the next. Action-packed stories that fling the reader from conflict to conflict have a fast (or even breakneck) pace, while novels layered with a great deal of description, character rumination, and careful conversation have a slow pace.