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

by Harper, Steven

  Pace is, frankly, subjective. One reader's snappy pace is another one's breakneck. One author's leisurely pace is another's dragfoot. General tastes in pace also change. Nineteenth-century readers allowed a much slower pace in their fiction, and authors like James Fenimore Cooper and Victor Hugo thought nothing of stopping the plot dead to explain how to build a log cabin or to deliver a little lecture on the history of the Paris sewers. As society sped up, however, the demand for a faster pace in fiction grew and these little side jaunts became unfashionable. You'll need to decide what kind of pace you want for your book while keeping several factors in mind.

  Many paranormal novels are flat-out adventure novels, and most of the remaining ones usually have at least a hint of adventure to them. Adventure lends itself to a faster pace, with the characters rushing headlong from one conflict to the next, with only brief pauses here and there to catch their collective breath. Young adult paranormal fiction also tends to move quickly, the theory being that younger readers will lose patience with a slow book and set it down.

  On the other hand, paranormal books that focus more on characters or relationships will oft en have a slower pace. The author takes the time to explore emotional reactions, internal thought processes, and the characters' relationships, which slows down the overall plot. This is fine, as long as your audience is expecting character and relationship instead of adventure. So the pace will depend on what you're writing.

  There are trade-offs among types of pace. Faster-paced books tend to give the reader quite a lot of action, since they concentrate more on plot. Even character development scenes tend to be conflict-driven, and a sense of urgency drives the book continually forward.

  Slower-paced books tend to give the reader more language play. When less is happening, the author needs to keep the reader's interest in other ways, and one method is to use more figurative language and other stylistic tricks to pull the reader along. Faster-paced books oft en lack the lovely language not because the author necessarily lacks the skill, but because there isn't room — extra similes and metaphors and other careful descriptions eat up words that the author wants to use for action.

  Note that this is a tendency, not a hard rule. We all know authors who are stylistic geniuses and who can keep a story moving. Shakespeare is the most shining example. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is a stylish supernatural character story with a fairly fast pace, especially considering he wrote it in the Victorian era, a time when novels moved slower.

  No matter what pace you settle on, however, your opening hook should be quick and snappy. As I said in chapter nine, you want to grab the reader right away, and a fast pace is the best way to do it. Once you've hooked the reader, you can slow down, if that's your intent.

  Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, for example, has an overall leisurely pace, but it begins quickly, with a paragraph about a girl fleeing from danger. Then it presents a creepy two-page conversation between two odd men named Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar. After that, things slow down considerably. Gaiman gives us a careful description of London along with a bit of the city's history, and then he slips into a long explanation of two characters named Richard and Jessica's relationship. Not much happens for several pages. The quick opening hook is meant to grab the readers so they'll stick around once Gaiman drops into the slower pace.

  Naomi Novik does the same thing in His Majesty's Dragon. Temeraire, the dragon, doesn't hatch until page 17, and the preceding sixteen pages are filled with descriptions, character bits, and exposition. It's all exceedingly well written (which is partly how Novik gets away with it), but ultimately very little happens in those initial pages. The rest of the book has what I would call a slow-to-medium pace, until the climax, when she speeds up considerably. But Novik starts this slow-to-medium paced book with, “The deck of the French ship was slippery with blood,” and the rest of the paragraph shows us how the battle ends. Because her book has a slower pace, she makes sure to start with a fast opening hook.

  THE GREAT PROLOGUE DEBATE

  Paranormal (and high fantasy) novels sometimes start with a prologue, a sort of chapter zero. I mention them here as a point of pacing. Authors, editors, and readers continue to debate them and their effectiveness. The first question is, what are they used for?

  Some authors use prologues as opening hooks. They start with an action-heavy scene that usually ends badly for the main character, then they abruptly flash back to the past, where the events leading up to this scene begin. The theory is that the reader will be hooked by the action and then stick around to find out how we got there.

  Prologues are also used to hand background information to the reader. See, paranormal novels oft en have a lot to explain. There's a magic system, secret history, cultural information, or any number of things that the reader might have to know in order to follow the main story, and a prologue can get that information to the reader quickly and efficiently, which makes them very useful. However, there are some problems inherent in prologues, too. Let's take a look.

  PROLOGUE PROS

  Prologues help authors and readers in a number of ways. If you're writing in a complicated or strange setting, the prologue can clue the reader in very nicely. A prologue can give a character's backstory or history by showing events from years before the main story opens. A prologue can also show us events from another character's point of view so when the main character arrives at these events, we're already armed with a certain perspective.

  Terry Pratchett opens several (though not all) of his books with a prologue that describes the Discworld. In The Fifth Elephant, he opens with:

  They say the world is flat and supported on the back of four elephants who themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle.

  They say that the elephants, being such huge beasts, have bones of rock and iron, and nerves of gold for better conductivity over long distances.

  They say that the fifth elephant came screaming and trumpeting through the atmosphere of the young world all those years ago and landed hard enough to split continents and raise mountains.

  No one actually saw it land, which raised the interesting philosophical question: When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, and there is no one to hear it, does it — philosophically speaking — make a noise?

  And if there was no one to see it hit, did it actually hit?

  In other words, wasn't it just a story for children, to explain away some interesting natural occurrences?

  As for the dwarfs, whose legend it is, and who mine a lot deeper than other people, they say that there is a grain of truth in it.

  After this, Pratchett shifts to the main characters. Later in the book, the existence of the crash-landed fifth elephant becomes extremely important, and the prologue helps the reader — weirdly — believe it a little more easily.

  PROLOGUE CONS

  Prologues come with certain baggage. Some readers (and editors) flatly dislike them, no matter how necessary or well written they are. They also jerk the reader around by starting the story in one place and then suddenly popping through time or space to another. The reader has to start over, reorient in a new setting or with new characters just after settling in with the old ones. (This is why some readers hate prologues.) Finally, prologues are extra work for the author. You have to hook the reader twice — once for the prologue, and once for chapter one.

  THE FINAL ANALYSIS

  In the end, use prologues with caution. A prologue will automatically alienate some readers, but opening with chapter one alienates no one. If you're thinking of using a prologue, keep in mind a few tips:

  First, keep it short. Say what you need to say, and get on to the first chapter. Terry Pratchett's prologue above isn't even 200 words long, and in the book it covers barely a third of a page.

  Second, keep it extra-entertaining. You're starting with a potential strike against your book, so you'll need to give your reader a reward for putting up with it. It's oft en death to start with high-sou
nding language that sounds like it came out of a college textbook. Pratchett uses readergrabbing humor in his, which has the additional advantage of letting the reader know that the rest of the book will be funny, too.

  Before you start with a prologue, ask yourself if there's any way to avoid it. Can your reader follow what's going on if you just start with your story? Couldn't you fill in the information a little later with some well-placed exposition? If the answer to either of these is yes, don't use a prologue.

  Another possibility to consider is renaming the prologue. Is your prologue really just chapter one in disguise? If you can call it chapter one and move on, do so. J.K. Rowling starts Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with the story of how Dumbledore brings the infant Harry to his awful aunt and uncle's house, and it's written in a fly-on-the-wall point of view. At the beginning of chapter two, we've jumped ahead ten years, and the story is suddenly told from Harry's point of view. We stay with Harry's point of view for the rest of the book, and we have no more giant leaps ahead in time. Rowling's opener, in fact, reads very much like a prologue, but it's titled chapter one. Hmmmm …

  Finally, when in doubt, don't use a prologue. Jump right in and start your story.

  PACING AND EXPOSITION

  Exposition is the writer term for the process of explaining stuff to the reader. Paranormal novels have a problem endemic to all speculative fiction — there's so much more to … er, expose. The history of werewolves or how vampires are made or where fairies come from or how magic works all need explaining, and this comes in addition to all the “regular” exposition you have to sneak in, including character background, setting, plot setup, and so on. The problem is compounded by the fact that when you pause for exposition, the plot screeches to a halt and people often don't want to read it. So what's a writer to do?

  AVOID THE INFODUMP

  There's a terrible temptation to drop necessary exposition onto the reader in a big lump to get it out of the way or simply to make sure the reader has it. This is sometimes called an expository lump or infodump, and it makes for dull reading because the reader has nothing to do but “listen” to an author's lecture. You can avoid lumps and dumps in a number of ways.

  First, you can break the information up into tiny pieces and scatter it into a scene where something else is going on. Spread those little lumps out, and readers scarcely notice they're reading exposition. Check out this passage from Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass:

  Lyra stopped beside the Master's chair and flicked the biggest glass gently with a fingernail. The sound rang clearly through the hall.

  “You're not taking this seriously,” whispered her dæmon. “Behave yourself.”

  Her dæmon's name was Pantalaimon, and he was currently in the form of a moth, a dark brown one so as not to show up in the darkness of the hall.

  “They're making too much noise to hear from the kitchen,”

  Lyra whispered back.

  Pullman gives three bits of exposition in this passage: Lyra has a dæmon, the dæmon's name is Pantalaimon, and Pantalaimon can change shape. The first fact he drops casually into the narrative by simply referring to Lyra's dæmon without comment. The second fact — the dæmon's name — he states directly. This is fine — it's short and quick, and we barely notice he's telling us something. Pullman puts the third fact — the dæmon's shape-shifting powers — in the context of what's going on: Pantalaimon has taken on this shape for camouflage so he won't be seen. (Indirectly, we've also learned that Lyra isn't supposed to be in the hall, so I suppose Pullman has actually handed us four bits of exposition.) Rather than stop the action to explain that all people in this world have dæmons and that children's dæmons can change shape, Pullman shows us a dæmon at work, and tells us only a couple tiny facts, barely pausing in the story to do so.

  Another method uses dialogue to fill in expository blanks. People talk about the necessary information, and the reader eavesdrops. In the case of The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, Percy, the protagonist, eavesdrops, too:

  I inched closer.

  “… alone this summer,” Grover was saying. “I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too —”

  “We would only make matters worse by rushing him,” Mr. Brunner said. “We need the boy to mature more.”

  “But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline —”

  “Will have to be resolved without him, Grover.”

  We learn that something is strange about Percy's background. Not only that, his friend Grover and his teacher Mr. Brunner are in on it. A Kindly One, whatever that is, has appeared in the school, and although the summer solstice is important, Percy will have to miss it. We don't know all the facts, but we've learned enough to move the story forward, and the tension created by Percy's eavesdropping gives the reader a reason to stay interested.

  A variation on this method is the necessary lecture. A character in the know explains to a less-informed character what's going on. Brandon Mull uses this technique in Fablehaven.

  “What have they done to him?” Kendra asked.

  “An act of vengeance,” Grandpa said grimly.

  “For trying to catch fairies?”

  “For succeeding.”

  “He caught one?”

  “He did.”

  “So they turned him into a deformed walrus? I thought they couldn't use magic against us!”

  “He used potent magic to transform the captured fairy into an imp, unwittingly opening the door for magical retribution.”

  Here, Grandpa “lectures” Kendra about what happened to Seth, informing both her and the reader. Notice also how Kendra reminds the reader in her own dialogue that fairies theoretically can't use magic against humans (and that Mull stays within the limitations he set up for magic — fairy magic can't hurt mortals, but Seth changes the fairy into an imp, and therefore all bets are off).

  This method works very well, but it does walk a fine line. You have to make sure the people who do the talking have a reason to discuss the topic. One of the bigger sins a paranormal novel can commit is an As you know, Bob moment. This is when two characters have a conversation about something they have no reason to talk about for the sole (and obvious) purpose of informing the reader. The term As you know, Bob got started in science fiction pulp magazines, but it's bled into other genres. It's a reference to bad dialogue that started with As you know:

  “As you know, Bob, we now bring the automobile to a complete stop.”

  “Right, Dr. Zinger! Because the light turned red!”

  “And after a suitable time has elapsed, what will happen?”

  “The light will turn green and we'll be able go.”

  “That's correct. Oh look — it has done so. Now, as you know, when I press the accelerator …”

  These characters have no reason to say any of this, and such scenes are nothing but blatant and bad attempts at exposition. At least one character in such a conversation needs to be ignorant of whatever it is the other character is explaining, or it turns into As you know, Bob.

  Another method is to have characters find or stumble across reading material — books, diaries, magazine or newspaper articles, even Web sites — that you reproduce on the page. This can work well if it's not overused and if you have a nonfiction bent. Some writers like the chance to use a different writing style for a bit. J.K. Rowling pokes gentle fun at this method several times in the Harry Potter series. Hermione gleans enormous amounts of expository information from the book Hogwarts, A History. She relates the information to Harry and Ron (and the reader), and then grouses that the two boys could just as easily read it themselves. “What's the point?” Ron says. “You know it all by heart, we can just ask you.”

  You can also dip into a character's memory for exposition. This isn't quite as involved as a flashback (see below), but it works. Something conveniently triggers a memory about facts the reader needs to know. The technique shows up in Fablehaven:

&
nbsp; [Kendra] had overheard when Mom had approached Grandpa Sorenson about letting the kids stay with him. It was at the funeral.

  The memory of the funeral made Kendra shiver. There was a wake beforehand, where Grandma and Grandpa Larsen were showcased in matching caskets. Kendra did not like seeing Grandpa Larsen wearing makeup. What lunatic had decided that when people died you should hire a taxidermist to fix them up for one final look?

  Here we learn that Kendra grandparents are dead and that her mother hit up Kendra's other grandfather about child care arrangements at their wake. We also get a bit of Kendra's reaction to the event, and that tells us something about Kendra.

  Which brings us to the final bit about exposition — whenever possible, put it in terms of the viewpoint character. In other words, be sure your exposition shows up with the character's thoughts and feelings woven into it. Above, the wake and funeral are unpleasant for Kendra, and those feelings are part of the memory. This adds a human element to the infodump and makes it more interesting to read.

  You may have noticed that I've spent an enormous amount of time telling you how to avoid expository lumps. This demands the question, “Can a straight infodump ever be done well?” And the answer is, “Certainly.”Or rather, “Certainly, but …”

  Imagine a group of a thousand professional actors. The vast majority of them could handle a role in an Agatha Christie murder mystery play. A minority could play Shakespearean leads like Hamlet or Julius Caesar. And maybe two could enthrall an audience just by reading the phone book aloud. Writers are the same. Most are pretty good at their craft and can keep a decent story going, while a very few could write a bestseller about the history of sawdust. Until you know for sure that you're part of the tiny minority, you're probably best off avoiding as many expository lumps as possible.