What’s your reality? No really. Your reality may be quite different from your co-workers, neighbors or even family members. (as a paranormal romance reader or writer, I’d bet good money on it). Knowing your personal world view is key when you’re world building for your paranormal romance novel.
Think about it: for a child, it takes forever for the days, weeks, and months to tick by until the last day of school, a birthday, or Christmas arrives. For the parent of that child, the days slide by almost too fast between annual milestones. Two completely different realities.
It’s perspective, experience and world view that affects how we perceive what happens around us. Insurance adjusters and cops will tell you how rare it is when two ‘eye-witnesses’ agree on details. What I count and celebrate as success, (a walk around the block without pain) you might consider an average accomplishment, unworthy of a champagne toast. (for which I’m only mildly jealous, by the way).
Eventually we infuse that perception into our world building for the paranormal romance novel: in the stories we choose to tell, the point of view character telling the story, and the way our voice translates the story to the reader.
While writing Invasion of Justice I was recuperating a shoulder injury and didn’t realize until the editing stage that my hero, Gideon, suffered and dealt with shoulder pain in his efforts to help his counterpart, Petra. It fit the world building and plot for that paranormal romance novel, fortunately, but it still amuses me that it slid into the story without any conscious effort on my part.
Having a daughter with complex orthopedic issues, I’ve often vowed to write a ‘handicapped’ super hero. Something along the lines of wheelchair by day, and amazing flying girl by night. It’d take some world building (and plotting) for a solid story to come together, but I know all the ins and outs of crutches, chairs, surgical recoveries, etc. which would give my voice and story a fresh reality for the reader – if and when I do the world building for that novel. (really, it’s her world to build and her story to tell…)
Live the adventure!
Stay tuned for fresh, new cover art as I launch the second editions of Justice Incarnate and Invasion of Justice!
