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

by Harper, Steven

  THE LITTLE THINGS

  One vital part of an arc is small satisfactions. You can't plan to drag out an arc without resolving anything. Readers need something to cheer about along the way to the final ending. Each book should have its own satisfying resolution of some goal or conflict so the reader doesn't feel too strung along. In other words, each book in a series needs to have its own story that gets resolved, even if that story is part of a larger arc. To refer to Harry Potter again, the first six books in the series ends with Harry defeating an antagonist of some kind and wrapping up a major story, even though the ultimate goal of defeating Lord Voldemort remains unresolved. The reader is anticipating the next book, yet still feels satisfied with the current one.

  So how do you make sure the reader feels satisfied with the plot of the current book? Let's zoom inward a little and take a look.

  THE RULE OF THREE

  The number three rules. Seriously. How many paranormal stories can you name in which stuff comes in threes? You know — three wishes, three bears, Red Riding Hood notices three things about the wolf, and so on. And as I noted above, paranormal books oft en come in sets of three. In fact, let's do a quick exercise about this:

  EXERCISE

  On a piece of scrap paper, list all the instances of sets of three you can think of from myths, fairy tales, and other stories in sixty seconds. Go!

  SCORING

  0–3: You need to read three more books of myths and fairy tales.

  4–9: You've threed up some time for reading.

  10+: Threedom is yours!

  Even now that the exercise is over, more trios are probably occurring to you. They keep showing up the more you think about them. There's a reason for this: Humans like stories that come in threes. It's a natural rhythm. The first event tells you what's going to happen, or creates an event. The second event sets a pattern. The third event breaks the pattern and resolves the problem.

  Possibly no paranormal story illustrates this better than the German version of “Cinderella.” (The American version has been shortened considerably and made nicey-nicey.) In the story, we have three girls — two stepsisters and Cinderella. The first stepsister is cruel (this is the event), the second stepsister is cruel (set the pattern), and Cinderella is nice (breaks the pattern). The king announces three balls. Cinderella is forced to sneak out to go to the first one (event). She sneaks out to the second (pattern). She leaves her golden shoe behind at the third (break). When the prince arrives at Cinderella's house with the golden shoe, the first stepsister tries it on, but it's too small, so she cuts off her toes to make it fit, but the prince discovers the ruse and refuses to marry her (event). The second stepsister tries on the shoe and cuts off her heel to make it fit, but the prince refuses to marry her as well (pattern). Cinderella tries on the shoe and it fits, so the prince marries her (break).

  Adding another stepsister to the mix would overburden the story. By the third foot-chopping incident, the reader would be thinking, “Okay, we get it, we get it.” Removing one of the stepsisters wouldn't work, either — the events wouldn't build very far and the story would be cut too short, so to speak. Three is often Just Right. Goldilocks certainly thought so, too.

  In any case, this is why so many fictional events come in threes. It simply makes for fine storytelling. Not every set of events needs to come in threes, of course, but it's a good pattern to keep in mind, both when you're looking at the overall book and when you're looking at individual scenes.

  PLOT

  If you back up and look from a distance, the plot structure for a novel looks like a smooth mountain with one side shorter than the other. (Rising action, climax, and falling action, incidentally, come as a set of three.) Once you get closer, however, you can see that the structure is a little more complicated. It's actually a fractal pattern, a bunch of little mountains that form the slope of the main mountain, climbing steadily upward toward the peak. In other words, there are conflicts within conflicts, climaxes within climaxes, and resolutions within resolutions. We can take the structure from big to small.

  AT THE NOVEL LEVEL

  Every plot starts off with a main character who has a problem, called a conflict. It has to be a major conflict. Minor conflicts — paper tigers — aren't enough to hang a novel on. And since you're reading this book, it's going to be a supernatural conflict. If the character's difficulty has nothing to do with the paranormal, you've pushed the supernatural elements into the background and you aren't writing a paranormal novel. You should always be able to sum up the protagonist's conflict in a single sentence that uses action verbs:

  A girl from Kansas accidentally lands in a magical country and has to figure out how to get back home. (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum)

  A young man in the New World uncovers a magical conspiracy to destroy the colonies and must choose between his Loyalist fiancée and his own growing powers of witchcraft. (The Patriot Witch by C.C. Finlay)

  A high school teenager moves to a new town, where she unexpectedly falls in love with a teenaged boy who turns out to be a vampire. (Twilight by Stephenie Meyer)

  Take note of the prominent supernatural elements in all three of the above examples.

  Being able to create this active sentence grants you two advantages: It ensures your plot has focus, and it gives you a quick way to sum up your book to an editor or agent who asks, “What's your book about?”

  EXERCISE

  Sum up your novel's plot in a single sentence that uses action verbs. Be sure to mention both the character's conflict and the supernatural element or elements.

  Now that you've established your protagonist's conflict, you're going to spend three or four hundred pages showing us all the interesting adventures he has trying to solve it. And you're going to make it difficult for him. In fact, you're going to make him walk over metaphorical hot coals and broken glass to find the solution to his conflict. Characters need to earn their happy endings (those who are getting one), or it's not worth the effort to read about them. This idea is personified in Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi. (The book, a very paranormal novel, is quite different from the Disney movie of the same name. Pinocchio squishes the talking cricket in chapter four, for one thing.) Pinocchio wants to become a real boy, but he has to earn that position, and he goes through some pretty awful times to do it, including being turned into a donkey and getting swallowed by a mile-long shark. During this journey, he sees other people suffer and learns empathy for others. In the end, he gives all his hard-earned money to the hospital where the blue-haired fairy has fallen ill and hurries back to his basket-making job to earn more for her, at which point he's proven he's changed from a selfish marionette into a kind person, and he becomes a real boy. The blue-haired fairy always had the power to turn Pinocchio into a real boy, but that ending wouldn't have been at all satisfying because Pinocchio wouldn't have earned it. Your characters need to earn their endings as well. The more they work and suffer, the more satisfying the ending will be.

  This means that when you start plotting your book, Greg the Protagonist can't head out to solve his problem and then immediately do so. You need to throw roadblocks in his way and force him to work around or through them. There's a general pattern to this:

  Greg has a conflict.

  Greg tries to solve the conflict and fails.

  Greg tries to solve the conflict a second time and fails again. The conflict gets worse.

  Greg tries to solve the conflict a third time and puts everything he has into this ultimate, last-ditch solution.

  Greg succeeds (happy ending) or fails forever (tragic ending).

  You may have noticed that this pattern comes as a set of three also — Greg tries to solve his conflict twice, and the third time is when he finally breaks the pattern and wins through or fails forever.

  When you're looking at the overall plot for a novel this pattern becomes very broad, so be aware of it for your own book to keep the story from wandering. In Pinocchio, the patter
n runs like this:

  Pinocchio wants to become a real boy. (Conflict.)

  Pinocchio tries to earn humanity by going to school and learning, but allows the Fox and Cat to sidetrack him. (He fails.)

  Pinocchio wanders the world looking for other ways to become a real boy, but he only becomes less human, loses his father Geppetto, and learns his behavior has made the blue-haired fairy ill. (Conflict grows worse.)

  Pinocchio impoverishes himself to pay the blue-haired fairy's medical bills and rushes back to work to earn more money for her. (Last-ditch solution.)

  Pinocchio's compassion has made him into a real boy. (Happy ending.)

  You'll notice that number 3 above is actually longer and more complicated — it takes up most of the book, in fact, and encompasses dozens of scenes. But we're looking at the plot from a distance.

  This pattern also appears in Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job. (Warning: The analysis gives away part of the ending.)

  Charlie Asher, a shy single father, discovers he's become the new Death, but doesn't know anything about his position. (Conflict.)

  Charlie tries to learn how to be Death, but can't figure out how it works because someone else takes the instruction book. (He fails.)

  Charlie tracks down the book and learns how to be Death, but in the process he attracts the notice of several ancient gods of death who want to destroy him and his daughter. (Conflict grows worse.)

  Charlie overcomes his shyness and faces down the forces of darkness with his daughter at his side and gives his life — sort of — so she can live. (Happy ending — mostly.)

  You should be able to create similar steps for your own novel. Now, let's zoom in a little closer and look at the novel plot in its smaller pieces.

  RISING ACTION

  The upside of the plot mountain starts low and rises higher to meet the climax, and we introduce the paranormal along the way. It's divided into pieces.

  THE HOOK

  You're in a bookstore, just browsing. A title catches your eye. Idly, you lift it from the shelf and read the back cover. Looks interesting. You flip to the first page and start reading. Huh. Not bad. You set it back on the shelf with a mental note to get it later.

  Another title gets your attention. Back cover also seems interesting. You read the first page. And then the second. You're sprinting halfway down the third when you remember the dentist appointment you've been avoiding. A moment later, you've paid for the book and are looking forward to reading more of it in the dentist's waiting room.

  What was the difference between the two books? The second had a stronger hook.

  The hook, or opening scene, needs to grab readers from the first sentence and not let them stop reading. You do this by showing the readers something so fascinating the idea of putting down the book becomes unthinkable.

  Most novels arrange this with some sort of conflict. In fact, every editor I've ever spoken to has said that, with extremely rare exceptions, the author needs to introduce some kind of conflict in the first chapter, on the first page if you can arrange it. (It doesn't have to be the main conflict, but it does have to be a conflict.) You want this because conflict hooks readers more than description, character development, pretty language, or nearly anything else an author can use, and you definitely want to hook the reader at the beginning, before she has a chance to set the book down. The literary example everyone uses for this is Paradise Lost by John Milton — a paranormal story if there ever was one. Milton starts his story with Satan and the other rebel angels falling into Hell with their wings on fire. He starts in the middle of the action (called in media res, for Latin lovers), forcing the reader to keep reading in order to find out what the deal is, and his hook set the gold standard. Plenty of conflict, plenty of reason to keep reading.

  Lucienne Diver follows in his footsteps for her rather more modern novel Vamped. Her opening paragraph reads:

  I'm here to tell you, rising from the dead just purely sucks. I woke in a blind terror. Literally blind … my eyelids tried to flip upward like cartoon window shades as consciousness kicked my butt, but they got nowhere fast. Something was holding my lids shut.

  The conflict is clear and straightforward — the protagonist is rising from the dead in terror and something is holding her eyes shut. Three points of conflict in as many sentences. You'll also notice that Diver doesn't begin with Gina's (the viewpoint character's) actual death at the fangs of her vampire boyfriend. Starting there would force Diver to explain too much. It's much more interesting to show Gina come back to unlife and dig herself out of her own grave. The details of how she got there can wait until after the reader has become hooked on Gina and her situation.

  Christopher Moore opens A Dirty Job like this:

  Charlie Asher walked the earth like an ant walks on the surface of water, as if the slightest misstep might send him plummeting through the surface to be sucked to the depths below. Blessed with the Beta Male imagination, he spent much of his life squinting into the future so he might spot ways in which the world was conspiring to kill him — him; his wife, Rachel; and now, newborn Sophie.

  Moore has two things going for him in his very first sentence: humor and conflict. Humor grabs people with its own merits. Moore also nails the reader with some conflict: a simile that shows Charlie's fear and caution toward the world. What, the reader wonders, could make Charlie act this way? Moore follows up in the second sentence, hinting that the world is out to kill him, his wife, and worst of all, his newborn daughter. And what the heck is a Beta Male imagination, anyway? We've all heard of an Alpha Male, so we can probably guess something about a Beta Male, but the lack of information is a tease calculated to pull us forward. Works, too.

  Not everyone likes to hit the ground (or grave) running. Emma Bull bravely starts War for the Oaks with a one-paragraph description of a shopping mall. Fortunately, she ends the paragraph with the line, “But late at night, there's a change in the Nicollet Mall.” Two paragraphs later, she dives into a conversation between two supernatural entities, one with a voice like earth and one with a voice like water:

  “Tell me,” said the water voice, “what you have found.”

  The deep voice replied. “There is a woman who will do, I think.”

  Even though Bull starts with description, by the end of the first page we have some conflict — a mall that changes after sunset for unknown reasons, and a pair of magical beings involved in a mysterious conversation. It's quite enough to reel the reader in. Your own novel should start with a similarly strong hook.

  But starting with conflict isn't quite enough for a paranormal novel.

  CUE THE PARANORMAL

  Here's the other thing: Notice the presence of the paranormal at the outset. All three of the example books introduce or at least hint at some supernatural element within the opening conflict. Diver gives us someone who's come back from the dead. Moore shows us a world that's out to get one specific person. Bull hands us a pair of elementals. All these elements appear on the first page.

  You're writing a paranormal novel. Your readers picked up your book expecting the paranormal. It's therefore your job to deliver the paranormal. It doesn't have to be on the very first page, but it's not a bad idea. At the absolute latest, some sort of supernatural element should show up in the first chapter. You don't want readers to wonder when the show's going to start, yawn, and put your novel down in favor of some quality time with the PlayStation.

  BUILDING

  As any novel progresses, the conflict needs to build. By this, I mean the protagonist's problems need to get worse before they get better.

  One mistake I see among beginning writers is the linear plotline. The character encounters a problem, solves it, encounters a bigger problem, solves it, encounters an even bigger problem, and solves it. The writer thinks the bigger problems make the story climb a plot mountain when the book is actually traveling in a straight line.

  A better way to build the conflict is to force your character to multit
ask. Problem A shows up, and while the character is working on solving it, Problem B lands in his lap. He works on both and manages to solve Problem A and is halfway through Problem B just as Problem C smacks him. He juggles B and C, solves B just as Problem D arrives. Or maybe he doesn't solve B yet and he has three things going all at once.

  Here's where paranormal novels have an advantage — they have a builtin way to build that plot. The main character's normal life can be giving her difficulties, and then this supernatural problem intrudes, which only makes the normal life problem worse, which makes it harder for her to deal with the supernatural problem. And so on. Moore uses this structure in A Dirty Job. Charlie is dealing with the difficulties of raising his daughter and running a small business as a recent widower when he's forced to become Death. Before he can entirely get the whole Death thing under control, the demon attacks start up. Before he can figure all that out, a set of hellhounds appear and take over his house, which makes it difficult to run his business and take care of his daughter. And so it continues. Your protagonist should juggle multiple problems, too.