Suspense in the Paranormal

by Rita Herron

I’ve been writing romantic suspense for years, both category romantic suspense for Harlequin Intrigue, and romantic suspense books for HQN. As my love of heart pounding mystery/suspense grew, so did my infatuation with the paranormal.

Slowly I began sprinkling paranormal elements into my stories – a ghost, a psychic, a firestarter, a character with telepathy.

So when I first contemplated writing a paranormal series, I asked myself: how could it be different from the numerous paranormal romances out there?

The answer was easy. It had to be a suspense thriller!

The crime fighters, cops, FBI agents, and detectives that I usually write about and love would not only be solving horrific crimes and saving innocents but the villains would be demons. The crimes could also be unique to the type of demon in the story. And the plots could be even more twisted and layered!

In the first book in the series, Insatiable Desire, I introduce Pan, the god of fear. With one touch, he knows a person’s fear and uses it to kill the person.

In Dark Hunger, the Death Angel sweeps in to take innocent’s lives and claims that death is inevitable, posing the question: Can death be stopped?

But I also wanted to add another complication – I wanted the heroes in the story to not only fight evil, but to be evil.

Okay, that presented a challenge. If the heroes were completely evil, how could I have my heroine fall in love with them? How could they actually be heroes?

The character of Cole Turner in Charmed came to mind, and I had my solution. My heroes were going to be part demonic, born from a descendant of Satan. But they had to possess

some good, and that good would come from their mother, an Angel of Light.

Naturally, the parents had been forbidden to marry, but the Angel thought she could save the soul of her lover, and she did for a while. But eventually she failed and Zion completely succumbed to evil.

That realization brought another element of conflict to my series. Would my heroes fail as their father did and follow the darkness? Could the love of the heroines save them?

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Do you think the love of a good woman can save a man? What paranormal elements would you like to see that you haven’t seen in a story?

Leave a comment or question for Rita today and be entered in a contest for a copy of Rita’s first book in The Demonborn Series: Insatiable Desire. But don’t stop there! There’s a second contest for today’s readers.

Visit Rita at her website www.ritaherron.com and sign up for her newsletter to be entered in a contest to a copy of both books in The Demonborn Series: Insatiable Desire and Dark Hunger. And, by singing up for Rita’s newsletter, you will also be automatically entered in Rita’s regular monthly contests. You can also find extras on the Demonborn series at www.thedemonborn.com. And visit Rita on Facebook, Myspace.com/ritaherron, and Twitter.com/ritaherron!

Keep the suspense

Suspense is a tough thing to master. It is certainly necessary for a mystery.

The paranormal, also, lends itself to a certain degree of suspense.

Just the unknown makes things a little suspenseful, doesn't it?

I certainly enjoy suspense. If I didn't, I don't think I'd read as veraciously as I do -- especially since most of what I read are mysteries. And I certainly wouldn't write mysteries if I didn't enjoy the suspense aspect.

So how do you combine the two? How can suspense and the paranormal work together?

I think there is a tendency to let the paranormal be the suspense, and that doesn't work so well for me. I need my suspense to have an element of realism. Well, it needs to have the realism that works in that particular "world." Authors must follow the rules of the world they create. Sorry, anything else doesn't work for me.

So if your characters always do A, they can't do B just for the suspense value. It doesn't work! But, if you need to add suspense to your novel, how do you do it? I'm a firm believer of letting characters determine their course of action -- to a certain point at any rate. (As long as the author knows where the characters should end up, that is... but that's a whole other topic!)

I have no tips on writing suspense (hence the crazy rambling this morning!), but I know it's important. I know it's needed to keep readers interested in the novel.

It's a trick I'm working on perfecting.

Blessings!

Nichole

I'm sorry, Ma'am. Did you say Paranormal books?

Does that phrase sound familiar to you? No? Try going to your local bookstores and asking for the paranormal romance, mystery or suspense section and you're bound to hear it. All works paranormal are flying off the printers faster than you can say ghost. Unless you KNOW who you're looking for on the shelf, then you'll be out of luck. How can you discover new authors with a golden pen for ghouls if you can't find the genre?



Sure, publishers know a potential for big sales when they see it, but can't they petition the bookstores for a section all its own? So that the loyal readers and writers of the genre can find them?



Sci-Fi and Fantasy have their own sections, why not paranormal, huh? Where's the justice? What would it take? The cost of another shelf? The excuse I hear most often is "We just don't have enough customers with interest to specialize in that category." Oh, really? You would if we could find them.



With so many different sublabels under paranormal, you could probably fill two aisles. I write paranormal suspense and paranormal romance. How much easier would it be to publish and sell your book if the reader didn't have to sort through all the romance, fantasy and suspense novels in the store? Imagine going in and finding a whole aisle of paranormals full of new promising authors! Wow! You'd have to tear me away from the store and my purse. My fondest dream is to walk into Books-A-Million and find my novel on the paranormal shelf. It'd be great to see Barbs, Nichole's, Heather's and J.K.'s right beside mine too.



I'll start a petition ....Who's next to sign?



*waves*



Beth