Archive for April, 2010

              It’s my favorite day of the month!

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published
books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t
have to be published to participate–just a writer with an excerpt you’d like to
share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday
site! or click on the banner above.

April’s excerpt is from a WIP that I started a few years ago. It started as a paranormal adult romance, but recently, it’s turned into a YA paranormal.  I hope you  enjoy it.

*****

          Callie never believed in magic.

          Even as a child, she lived and breathed the cold, hard facts of science. Her philosophy was if she could touch, taste, see or feel it then it was real to her. She didn’t deal in the abstract of art and literature, but the objective and theoretical of science. Under any normal circumstance, she would have never agreed to be subjected to the flights of fancy her best friend Mattie was prone to. But the circumstances were out of the ordinary. Callie just caught Alec, her super-hot captain of the baseball team boyfriend, cheating on her. Mattie had insisted on girls’ night complete with a sneak trip to her mother’s liquor cabinet.

          A box of half-eaten pizza, provided by June, littered the dining room table, forgotten for the moment. They had moved to the living room to dance wildly to Lady Gaga and steal more nips of the Grand Marnier.

          Callie flounced in an overstuffed leather chair. She’d picked at her food and took larger sips of the nostril burning liqueur. Tonight, her heart wasn’t in the fun, and the way she felt, it might not ever be again. Hanging out was supposed to take her mind off Alec; it only perpetuated her misery. She couldn’t bring herself to tell Mattie what she had discovered Friday night. She knew if she mentioned catching Alec in bed with Lizzie during the Halloween party, well, the focus of discussion would be about poor Callie. She kept the information to herself, and it had festered all weekend long, putting a damper on her spirits. Not that they weren’t all ready soggy with heartache.

          The front door burst open, and Harriet Kildare blustered in, carried on the whipping wind. The door banged several times as Mattie attempted to shut it. Harriet reminded Callie of Dorothy in the middle of a tornado, and she stifled a grin. Harriet wore glasses and her hair pulled in ponytail, making the sixteen year old look more than fifty years older and constantly frazzled. Tonight, her hair was at extreme odds and had managed to capture a few twigs and leaves. June rushed over and took Harriet’s fuzzy red scarf and old army jacket. Harriet was the epitome of eclectic. She even talked sometimes like she was a fifty year old woman. Callie gave a weak smile and then returned to the pages of the magazine she flipped.

            “What took you so long?”  Mattie asked as she took Harriet’s coat and threw it over the arm of the sofa.

            “Have you eaten? There’s still plenty of pizza left.”  June scrunched her face at the site of the cold pepperoni and cheese. 

            “I’ve no time to eat. And this is what took so long.”  Harriet pulled an ancient, leather bound volume from the knapsack slung across her chest.

            “What is that?”

            Intrigued, Callie sat up. The silver embossing that slithered across the book flashed in her eyes. She had never seen such artistry, and the way the silver caught the light made it appear like mercury slipped across the binding.

            Harriet beamed with pride. “What girl’s night would be complete without this!”

            “But what is it?” June stood over Harriet’s shoulder and tried to read. “What kind of writing is that? I’m only in third year French, and that’s not French.”

            Harriet snapped the book closed and a poof a dust escaped.  She stepped away from the other two girls and stood before the fire as it cast an eerie glow.

            “Not yet, my deary. First we must prepare the room for what I have planned.”

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“Links to other Excerpt Monday writers

Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and
be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.

Having Fun With Building Your Characters’ Paranormal World.

What’s on my iPad (that’s right I got one!) : Everlong by the Foo Fighters

          I’ve been so busy the past month with revisions on my requested manuscript that I haven’t been able to post. So today, I thought I would throw up my experience with world building since I’ve done quite a bit for BROKEN and REDD and because there’s a boon in paranormal both romance and young adult.

          When I decided that my first YA novel would involve a hero that was an angel, my mind went to work recollecting all the mythos, movies, and books I’d read. And the majority of what I pulled from came from movies, perhaps because the characteristics were more secular and that’s what I wanted.

          So when you first set out to create your own characters’ world, pull from what you already know. I think it’s easier to start there for two reasons : you’re already familiar with it, and more than likely it’s ingrained in your chosen markets’ heads (the readers of paranormal)

          When I started writing BROKEN, there were very few novels with angels as protagonists (now it’s a growing trend). And as writer, I wanted to steer clear of those novels as not to be influenced in my own world building. With say vampires, the lore is pretty much well established – it’s hard to escape it. But that’s not to say that as a writer you can’t get creative. In fact, agents and editors are looking for the more ingenious worlds because, sad to say, they are seeing TONS of vampire stories.

          As you sit down to put to your world on paper, write down those preconceived myths. For instance, with BROKEN, I knew a little about The Fallen (angels that fell when Lucifer did, ect) and the general assumption is that Fallen angels have been stripped of their wings. But my hero, Caleb, had his wings. The second scene I ever wrote was the hero revealing those wings to the heroine. And I also knew how he kept those wings hidden (no spoilers :>) So with that idea I had the first part of my world created, and had to come up with a reason that an angel would be in hiding on earth if he wasn’t one of the Fallen. So I created a new distinction among the angels called Renegades. They are hunted, and most likely if they are caught by Heaven they’ll be stripped of their wings, and if caught by Hell, they’ll burn in eternal damnation. <— more world building there. 

        So, the next step is write down a list of what is all ready out there. Then take those ingrained concepts and twist them to your benefit. The first prime example, from two VERY popular vampire series TWILIGHT and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, is the sunlight myth. Both Smith and Myer had to creatively get around the traditional myth of sunlight burning a vampire/ staying out of the sunlight/ only coming out at night but still get their high school age vampires in to high school. I actually prefer LJ Smith’s version. She uses rings with a special gemstone that Damon and Stefan wear. And on the TV show I love looking for new characters to see if they are wearing some piece of jewelry to give them away. Of course, Myer went out in left field, creating an anomaly where vampires sparkled in the sunlight. Still what a creative way to twist around a well conceived vampire myth and make it her own. It sold – gazillions! Another myth that both authors twisted to fit their worlds was the blood drinking. This is one of those myths that just can’t be fooled with too much. The whole point of a vampire is that is what he does – drinks human blood. The idea of vegetarian vampires, hillarious, actually worked – first for Smith because Stefan feeds only on animals while his brother Damon is more the monster and feeds on humans. And Myer took this concept and expanded it, making the Cullen family outcasts among all vampires for their odd eating practice. Even Charlaine Harris took a spin, her vampires drink synthetic blood that just like the real thing.

         Enough about vampires. But once you have plucked the myths and concepts to create your world, twisted them, used them, abused them for your benefit. Now it’s time to test those new theories.

         What I discovered while revising BROKEN is that my world kept shifting slightly. As I learned more about my characters, I found that they revealed things to me that had to be fit together a little bit differently. And then I had to create the other half of the spectrum, the world of demons. In essence, I was still adding to my world up until the day I sent my revised manuscript off.

          Finally, several thoughts. Always remember no matter what, this is your world that you created. If your vampires live off syrup, so be it. Just remember that part of creating your world is providing the back up evidence to support the why and how. Second, take notes, lots of notes. And research. You’d be amazed if I told you that a large chunk of my world, some of the terms and how the heirarchy works, came from a Role Playing Game. I was lucky I found it, but I learned a lesson. Always bookmark, jot down, copy and paste the info to a Word doc, because you may not find the site again. But you can find some very interesting ideas in the most random places. Never rule out anything.

So to summarize :

1) start a list of what you already know about your world, the myths, legends you already know

2) research those myths, legends, ect and take notes. Be sure to keep a hard copy or favorite the sites you visit for later reference.

3) take those theories and twist them for your benefit to create a new and exciting world

4) write and listen to what your characters tell you, as they will reveal things you had no idea about