Sarah Dieng's Blog, page 2
March 23, 2016
What does Paranormal mean?
The Oxford Dictionary online says that paranormal means “Denoting events or phenomena such as telekinesis or clairvoyance that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding”.
“According to the Journal of Parapsychology (a quarterly publication devoted primarily to the original publication of experimental results and other research findings as published by the Parapsychological Association), the term paranormal describes “any phenomenon that in one or more respects exceeds the limits of what is deemed physically possible according to current scientific assumptions.” The actual word is derived from the Latin use of the prefix para meaning “outside or beyond” what is considered normal. (http://www.milwaukeeparanormal.com/What-IS-Paranormal.html).
Wikipedia points out that “Paranormal romance is a literary subgenre of the romance novel. A type of speculative fiction, paranormal romance focuses on romance and included elements beyond the range of scientific explanation, blending together themes from the genres of traditional fantasy, science fiction, or horror.”
Paranormal can refer to many things outside the normal. I have read many paranormal romance novels, mostly young adult. Whether it be vampires, werewolves, moving objects with the mind, or being able to see the future or someones death. My novels are outside the norm as well. My main character has nightmares/dreams of the past lives she can’t remember when she is awake. Her soul is reincarnated into a new body eventually and the cycle starts all over again. A curse causes her and her soul mate to die. Until that curse is broken, they will continue this way.
Her soul mate remembers every life he has lived, over and over. He remembers every life he had with her and is compelled to search her out every time he is comes back. In most lives he has found her in time, others he didn’t. They don’t know why it keeps happening until this most recent life. Then the both of them and a close friend must battle time to try and find a cure before they die again.
The normality of it is, they are teenagers going to high school dealing with bullying and homework. The things that are not normal is that their souls are thousands of years old and they cannot catch a break.
March 13, 2016
Self-Pub vs. Traditional
Some people think that traditional publishing is the way to go, others say self-publishing is easier and gets your work out their a lot quicker. I guess it just depends on your preference. I have read a few articles on the subject and one points out that trying your hand at traditional publishing first is a good idea. Then self-publish later on. You may get turned down many times, but you will become a better writer in the long run and you will have submitted you work many times.
I debated on whether to go the traditional route. I had sent in a story a very long time ago to a New York City publisher and was turned down. Of course I don’t blame them, I knew nothing about the publishing world and I wasn’t a great writer either. Just because you get A’s in Composition and great comments on your writing, doesn’t mean that you will be a great author further down the road.
I did some research before I chose self-publishing. To me, eBooks were a new thing and I didn’t know much about them, other than you read them on a tablet or something similar. However, when I researched Amanda Hocking and read her story, I wanted to be a self-published author too. So that’s what I did and here I am. I also read another article explaining the disadvantages of self-publishing. You have to do your own editing, unless you hire someone. You have to pay to get them printed up, if that is what you choose and they have to be meticulously edited and formatted. Self-publishing does get your book out their a lot quicker, but there is a lot work behind doing it yourself.
I haven’t regretted self-publishing and I may contact a traditional publisher in the future, but for right now, I get to use my imagination, read and edit it myself, make changes and move on. It is hard work, but it’s worth it! Now you decide.
March 12, 2016
I found these on Pinterest and found them an amazing...
I found these on Pinterest and found them an amazing idea. Just reading these quotes I could see a book forming around them. It was is dark, a little disturbing, and mysterious. They could be turned into paranormal with little difficulty. I like these four in particular because they have a darkness to them, but also there is a novel hidden behind each example. These are the kind of stories I like to write. My books are a little different. They are Young Adult and they are more paranormal than murder mystery/thriller.
My books do bring out certain aspects of mystery and the need to find something that will stop my main characters death, but it all boils down to her past lives and those that she lives with her soul mate. Dreams and nightmares are a big part of my novels. It’s not really hard to add an element of mystery or some kind of action that draws the reader in.When you read these quotes, think about them in novel form. You don’t have to have much., just these quotes will do. Each quote has a separate novel attached to it. What do you see?
March 11, 2016
Inspiration
This saying is so right. When we, as writers begin a book and create the characters we do, they are a part of us, whoever that character may be. There are parts to hide and if we right about a strong person, we wish we were them. Each story is based on our life in some way.We may add some of our characteristics, what we do or are going through. When we are stuck in our life, we don’t travel, and we are always too busy, we become our characters in some way. Our characters do things that we wish we could, and go to where we want to go and live a different kind of life. That’s what writing is all about. We get to write those stories and live their lives with them.
March 10, 2016
Dark Deaths
I was trying to find inspiration for this post and came across an article on Goodreads about the deaths of famous authors and how their deaths were weirder than fiction. I did know about Poe’s strange death, which wasn’t absolutely conclusive. “Congestion of the brain” isn’t exactly a certainty. It’s been debated whether it was actually poisoning or some other catastrophe that befell him. I find it interesting, though I have never done any research on him. He was a dark author, so I wonder if he was schizophrenic, seeing things or hearing voices.
Jacqueline Susann, author of Valley of the Dolls, didn’t have a creepy death. She died from cancer. What her husband did though was had her cremated and her urn was made from bronze and fashioned into the shape of a book. He placed it on the bookshelf right next to her novels.Kind of romantic huh?
Another weird one is Percy Bysshe Shelley’s death. Not so much the dying at sea part, but when he was to be cremated, his heart didn’t burn into ashes. Someone thought the heart should go to Mary, his wife, so it is said that she received it. Romantic? A testament to love perhaps? The heart surviving death only to be reunited with it’s love? Truthfully, it is believed that his heart had been calcifying for some time and that is what prevented it from burning. Weird?
I guess any kind of death that has some kind of weird story after it, like what the survivors do or how they react after will tell the story and add to the weirdness. I think out of all of them, Poe’s death is the more fascinating. Unexplained, vague or unknown circumstances tend to appeal to readers. The more bizarre the better. The fact that Poe’s writing was dark and made him more famous only added to the appeal.
Writing paranormal novels is not a hard thing to do. It seems like everyone is doing it these days. There is so much to work with. There are horror movies, novels being written left and right about dreams, or powers, or any number of things that can be labeled paranormal. Readers and movie watchers alike eat them up. I know I do.
It wasn’t hard to write my books. I had an idea in mind. It took just one sentence that popped into my head when I was half asleep and I wrote a four book series on it. Just one sentence. Sometimes that is all it takes. A vivid imagination helps push that along. I have scenes and stories flitting through my mind all the time. You just have to filter them out and focus on the one that you are dealing with currently. Like my fourth book. It’s not easy, believe me I know from experience.
https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/625-6-famous-writers-whose-deaths-were-stranger-than-fiction
March 9, 2016
Writing that Readers Talk About
I thought I would post some of the book covers of just a sample of the books I have read. Most are YA paranormal, but a few are Adult. I am usually pulled in by the cover, although not all the time. The cover and the description together usually do or for me. I rarely read reviews. I would rather judge a book myself rather than base it on how well someone else liked it or didn’t. In all of the covers listed, I have read most if not the whole series of each. Some of the covers, like Lauren Kate’s covers, match my YA demographic. One of the main characters is female, it’s a dark type of paranormal and it involves a bit of romance.
For my own book covers, I looked on deviantart.com and Adobe Stock. It is not easy to find something that just pops out at you and fits with the type of book you want to write without spending hundreds of dollars for someone to create a cover. I didn’t want a photo, it’s too real looking, or a cartoon looking cover, because that is too fake. The photo-manipulation techniques these days fits the bill. It’s that in between grey area between real and unreal. Just the path I want to continue writing on.
I want everything about my book to appeal to readers. Not only the young crowd, but also the older. I want the description and the cover make a reader just give it a chance. Some will not like them, some will. It’s those that I write for, it’s those that I hope will give my book a chance. I am far from perfect as a writer, but I hope that in the future, my books will be talked about and remembered, like some of my favorite authors.
