How to make the Supernatural into Natural Thrillers

Making the Supernatural seem Natural?

Turning the supernatural into the super-believable? That, as I see it, is the challenge to all paranormal thriller writers. Making supernatural elements fit into a thriller story so seamlessly that the reader accepts them without question, is not easy.

After all the vast majority of readers who enjoy this kind of fiction are perfectly reasonable sane individuals who do not necessarily believe in ghosts, spirits and things that go ‘whooo’ in the night. But just like sci-fi readers, they want to wonder and ponder the unanswerable questions. Just for the time it takes to engage with the story readers will willingly believe if we give them a good reason to.

That’s not to say that once the book is read the reader will believe any of it but just for that book the reader suspends disbelief. This, of course must happen with all stories but it is so much more difficult when dealing with the paranormal.

Of course, making the world the characters inhabit detailed and colourful and having the characters themselves rich in human traits and emotions (even if they are spirits or whatever) helps. If the people in the story believe in the other-worldly elements and do so right from the beginning as a matter of course, then the reader will too. Events follow in a normal and accepted way and lo! - the supernatural becomes the natural for that story.

For me the furthest I will go into using the supernatural is to introduce elements of ‘what if’ into a story. What if someone’s soul/spirit does not die with them but carries on in someone else’s body? What if a spirit wilfully inhabits someone else’s body and makes them do things they would never normally do? What if someone has the power to read certain people’s minds? What if this power is hereditary and a child is unaware they have it? What if someone believes that if they preserve a person’s body after death they will gain power over life and death and eventually become immortal themselves? (See The Afterlife of Darkmares ). What if a person really does have a double and the double/doppelganger bends the person’s will to make them murder their own child?

I know, I know. All of these have been done before but not by me and my imagination. I had fun with these stories and will continue to use similar scenarios in my writing. But apart from the paranormal additions my plots have conflict, suspense and follow normal storytelling rules and my imagination, with the help of my muse, adds width, depth and a sprinkling of magic – at least I hope it does…

Happy Writing!

Do you read paranormal thrillers?

 

Raising Hell or Raising the Stakes?

To the Max

One thing that all thriller writers should have in common is the ability to take the suspense to the ultimate level. This is the difference between a suspenseful tale and a damn good thriller.

 I always associate reading a thriller with the experience of riding a roller coaster. The ride is full of scary ups and downs …

First we toil steadily upwards whilst the suspense builds. We giggle nervously because we know what will happen when we get to the top… Or do we?  We know (and expect) we will experience a rush of adrenalin but until we actually get there we do not know exactly what it will be like.  The anticipation is enough to get your pulse racing and your palms sweating as you hold onto the safety bar and stare upwards at the sky ( best not to look downwards…)

When finally we get to the top we hold our breath… Prepare for the downward whoosh… Then we are plunging downwards and most of us cannot help but let out a terrified scream! Yes, scary… We asked for it and we got it! But fear is not pleasant, you say… But it is when you finally get back to earth, realise it is all over and, crucially, you are still in one piece.  This is the thrill that many live for – the intense emotion of having survived.

For most ordinary people the roller coaster is a harmless way of experiencing that thrill. For readers of good thrillers that is what they too expect – perhaps in not such a dramatic way but the highs of a thriller story must be towering and the lows… Well, low...  The ride up must be full of incident and the tension and suspense should mount up as the plot gathers pace. Then, in my opinion, the suspense should be taken to the max and not wimped out on. When you think your character cannot take any more ( or things could not be more deadly )that’s when you need to up the stakes and max it.  You can always toss in the kitchen sink!

 

 

Do you think in terms of raising the stakes higher and higher in your novel writing?

 

Supernatural or Superbelievable

 Making the Supernatural Natural.

Today I am re-posting a blog article I wrote some time ago! I enjoyed writing this one and thought it deserved another outing...

Turning the supernatural into the superbelievable? That, as I see it, is the challenge to all paranormal thriller writers.

Making supernatural elements fit into a thriller story so seamlessly that the reader accepts them without question, is not easy.

After all the vast majority of readers who enjoy this kind of fiction are perfectly reasonable sane individuals who do not necessarily believe in ghosts, spirits and things that go ‘whooo’ in the night. But just like sci-fi readers, they want to wonder and ponder the unanswerable questions. Just for the time it takes to engage with the story readers will willingly believe if we give them a good reason to.

That’s not to say that once the book is read the reader will believe any of it but just for that book the reader suspends disbelief. This, of course must happen with all stories but it is so much more difficult when dealing with the paranormal.

Of course making the world the characters inhabit detailed and colourful and having the characters themselves rich in human traits and emotions (even if they are spirits or whatever) helps. If the people in the story believe in the other-worldly elements and do so right from the beginning as a matter of course, then the reader will too. Events follow in a normal and accepted way and lo! - the supernatural becomes the natural for that story.

For me the furthest I will go into using the supernatural is to introduce elements of ‘what if’ into a story. What if someone’s soul/spirit does not die with them but carries on in someone else’s body? What if a spirit wilfully inhabits someone else’s body and makes them do things they would never normally do? What if someone has the power to read certain people’s minds? What if this power is hereditary and a child is unaware they have it? What if someone believes that if they preserve a person’s body after death they will gain power over life and death and eventually become immortal themselves? What if a person really does have a double and the double/doppelganger bends the person’s will to make them murder their own child?

I know, I know. All of these have been done before but not by me and my imagination. I had fun with these stories and will continue to use similar scenarios in my writing. But apart from the paranormal additions my plots have conflict, suspense and follow normal storytelling rules and my imagination, with the help of my muse, adds width, depth and a sprinkling of magic – at least I hope it does…

Happy Writing!

So what do you think? Do you have a favourite genre? Do you read paranormal thrillers?

The Bomb Under the Table

I think I enjoy plotting and writing thrillers because I love reading a book that grips me from beginning to end with the ‘will he /won’t he succeed’ motif and the feeling that disaster is around every corner. Following the protagonist as he battles against what seem like unsurmountable odds and wondering if he could ever succeed in his ultimate goal... The dictionary defines supense as a state of uncertainty and this is certainly what is at the heart of all thriller stories. But the supense has to be maintained and in the case of a full length novel that can be difficult. This is why we have cliches about page turners and cliff edge endings - especially at the end of chapters. It is the delicate art of suspense.

Keeping readers on the proverbial edges of their seats is what I always aim for but I know this type of book is not to everyone’s taste but for me it is the bedrock of good story telling.

One of the best proponents of the art of suspense was Alfred Hitchcock and I seem to recall reading somewhere that he said one of the greatest ways to create really good suspense was to put a bomb under a table where people, unbeknowingly, are playing a dull game of cards. The audience of course would know the bomb was there and ticking but the players would not. What unbearable suspense for the audience!

Suspense in thrillers, in my humble opinion, is the key to success. A rising tension with lots of problems and conflict that the main character has to contend with is what keeps a reader guessing. But most of all it keeps the reader reading! A bomb under the table doesn’t hurt either!

Do you try to create bombs/shocks that put the reader into a state of uncertainty for the whole length of the story?

Xenophobia is scary!

X – Xenophobia

Fear of strangers or aliens is the dictionary definition of this word! And what a fabulous word it is to use when writing thrillers. I think it could almost be a spark for a damn good plot just on it’s own…

Fear, whichever way you use, it has been the engine for many a good thriller story. And it never matters whether the fear is real or imagined. If it is what the character feels then it is ‘real’. In fact, all the phobias are rich pickings for thriller writers. I can think of many stories where you never really know whether the character’s fear is justified or not until well into the tale or even at the absolute end.

What it actually means is that fear is an overwhelming emotion that we all recognise and indentify with. Who hasn’t imagined all sorts of creepy things when alone in the dark? And phobic fear is just as powerful to the person who suffers it. The outcome for both types of fear in a story is good old fashioned suspense! It is the stuff that keeps people turning the pages and biting their nails!

And keeping readers guessing is never a bad thing...

So do you have a phobic-type fear? Do you use it in your writing?



Fight, Flight or Freeze!

T – Terror

Terror, according to my dictionary is the feeling/emotion of great fear. I imagine it to be fear almost at the point of paralysis… A frightening place indeed. ..

No one word sums up the aim of thriller/horror writing as this one word does. All horror stories aim to engender this feeling of fear in the reader and the most successful stories do just that.  

Fear is one of the strongest emotions and it creates a powerful response; it is a fail safe for humans to alert them to danger and ready their bodies for ‘fight, flight or freeze’. You can see where this comes from in prehistoric man, when faced with a threat they either had to run for their lives, stood and fought, or froze to make themselves invisible to predators (rather like rabbits in the headlights).

The hormone responsible for this mechanism is adrenalin and we produce it whenever we feel scared or afraid. It readies our muscles for action (wobbly legs and shaking), it revs up our heart pump (pounding pulse) and increases our breathing rate ready to supply extra oxygen to the large muscles of the legs. Our eyes open wide ready spot the danger and our brains and senses become extra sharp. Skin tightens and pales as blood is diverted away to the major muscles and our stomachs contract down so as to not interfere with the process. All major organs of survival go on high alert. Adrenalin can even make the bowel and bladder muscles relax involuntarily. Fear is so powerful that it can be totally disabling in the wrong circumstance i.e when the body is not under threat but nevertheless the emotion is running amok and irrational fears/terrors are born. (Terrified people are generally those who are so disabled by fear that they literally freeze.)

It is also true that people can become addicted to adrenalin. They love the ‘high’ it produces and search for ways to initiate this response, for example, putting one’s life at risk by participating in dangerous sports.

But for most people, the way they get their thrills is by watching a high action/scary/ movie or reading a book that’s full of jeopardy and danger. They can imagine themselves in the risky situation and that is enough to produce the adrenalin response. This is why people watch and read thrillers – that is the thrill – but in a safe way. In other words people want to be scared!! Then, when they come out of the reading experience, they can feel relief that what they read was not real and return to their everyday world feeling safe and secure.

The way I see it, the fiction writer’s (or thriller writer’s) job is to increase suspense and ratchet up the tension to produce that feeling of fear, usually empathising with the main character. So the reader is in a steady state of fight or flight waiting for…. Whatever!

As Alfred Hitchcock said, “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

So, what do you think? Are you scared reading thrillers? Do you feel ‘terror’ or is your emotional response a little less scary?

"Any horror element is as much psychological as special effects."    Christopher Eccleston

Secrets, Lies and Masking Tape...

 

 

S – Secrets 

"We dance around in a ring and suppose but the secret sits in the middle and knows." Robert Frost 1874 - 1963 

The subject of secrets and undisclosed tales is, I find, quite fascinating. The fact that some of us would go to great lengths to discover what someone else’s ‘secret’ is simply says that we hate to be kept in the dark. For there is something about the human psyche that makes people want to make a secret un-secret!

Whenever anyone says something is a secret there is a deep longing- on the part of most of us – to know what that something is. It is an almost irrepressible need to know – even when it is nothing to do with us. I suppose it must be something to do with the nosey nature of human beings… But the fact remains that calling something ‘secret’ gives it an allure all its own.

That is why many stories that centre around hitherto untold ‘secrets’ can be so successful. I once read an article in a writing magazine that stated that if you had the word secret in your title or back cover blurb you would be bound to get more sales! I don’t know if that’s true but I do know that many blurbs are written that hint at secrets waiting to be discovered in a book’s pages.  Readers love a good tale with a ‘secret’ expertly handled and told in a convincing way. And there is nothing more satisfying than finally discovering (often at the end of a good story) what that secret is.

A secret can also be a good tool to use to maintain suspense – especially if it’s hinted at the beginning but not stated – it leads to guessing games on the part of the reader. So if for no other reason the reader must read on to find out if they are right!  Or even when the reader knows the secret but the characters do not.

Secrets can be the main thread of a story or a titillating subplot but whichever way they intrigue and fascinate which is exactly what you need to keep readers turning pages!

Do you use secrets in your stories? Are they the main plot or a sublplot?



The Manichean Struggle

M - Manichean

(The fight between the powers of good and the powers of evil e.g. God and the Devil)

 The world of horror writing is tied up firmly with the world of suspense writing. And, for me, every tale of horror should ultimately be about the struggle between the forces of good and evil. This struggle can be outside ourselves, as in the fight between the Devil and God (or whatever your beliefs deem him/her to be), or inside ourselves as in the fight between the good and bad in all of us.

In my opinion, this Manichean tussle is the essence of all supernatural thrillers and not the gore and senseless bloodlust you see with many ‘horror’ tales.

Some of the best horror writers in the modern era have used fear and suspense so skilfully that readers go to bed with one eye on the curtains! And yet they use no actual violence. Because ultimately fear (emotion), is in the mind of the reader. 

Horror writing, I believe, is more than mindless violence based on screams and monsters. It is the human experience woven into fear of the unknown and fetched up from the darkest corners of our minds. The world of horror writing for me is essentially the world of the everyday but with twists (maybe paranormal?) thrown in that seamlessly take the reader on a journey of ‘what if’s’ and hopefully scare the pants off them because somewhere in the deep primal subconscious we wonder ‘could it be possible?’ 

First of all horror writers must aspire to produce good fiction with all the requirements that entails, i.e. conflict, suspense, good characters, rising tension, meaningful settings, and proper resolution. Then the curtain can go up and the terror can start…

My latest book 'The Witcheye Gene' deals with the theme of good versus evil, in that the main character is fighting a very evil man who's only intention is to cause death and destruction to her family. He aligns himself with what he deems to be the devil, so he can ultimately gain more power for himself.

So what do you think? Do you prefer blood and guts or more subtle tales of terror?

Be Afraid - be Very Afraid...

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself”.

This was said by F D Roosevelt and it is never a truer saying.

Fear is one of the strongest emotions and it creates a powerful response; it is a fail safe for humans to alert them to danger and ready their bodies for ‘fight, flight or freeze’. You can see where this comes from in prehistoric man, when faced with a threat they either had to run for their lives, stood and fought, or froze to make themselves invisible to predators (rather like rabbits in the headlights).

The hormone responsible for this mechanism is adrenalin and we produce it whenever we feel scared or afraid. It readies our muscles for action (wobbly legs and shaking), it revs up our heart pump (pounding pulse) and increases our breathing rate ready to supply extra oxygen to the large muscles of the legs. Our eyes open wide ready spot the danger and our brains and senses become extra sharp. Skin tightens and pales as blood is diverted away to the major muscles and our stomachs contract down so as to not interfere with the process. All major organs of survival go on high alert. Adrenalin can even make the bowel and bladder muscles relax involuntarily.

Fear is so powerful that it can be totally disabling in the wrong circumstance i.e when the body is not under threat but nevertheless the emotion is running amok and irrational fears are born.

It is also true that people can become addicted to adrenalin. They love the ‘high’ it produces and search for ways to initiate this response, for example, putting one’s life at risk by participating in dangerous sports.

But for most people, the way they get their thrills is by watching a high action/scary/ movie or reading a book that’s full of jeopardy and danger. They can imagine themselves in the risky situation and that is enough to produce the adrenalin response. This is why people watch and read thrillers – that is the thrill – but in a safe way. In other words people want to be scared!! Then, when they come out of the reading experience, they can feel relief that what they read was not real and return to their everyday world feeling safe and secure.

The fiction writer’s (or thriller writer’s) job is to increase suspense and ratchet up the tension to produce that feeling of fear, usually empathising with the main character. So the reader is in a steady state of fight or flight waiting for…. Whatever!

As Alfred Hitchcock said, “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

So, what do you think? Are you scared reading thrillers? Do you feel the fear?

A ghostly Christmas...

Bah Humbug!

Christmas is almost upon us and the frenzy of shopping and socialising is building day to day like a good, page turning, suspense novel!

But before I get into my post proper I need to apologise for my ‘no show’. My blog has been on hold for the last two weeks because I have been away on holiday and not within reach of a decent internet connection. BUT now I’m back - so it’s full steam ahead from here on in!

So, back to a Christmas Carol, of sorts…

At this time of year I always enjoy reading (or watching an adaptation) of Dickens Christmas Carol. As ghost stories go, it’s got to be THE classic. I often wonder if writers like Dickens ever had any idea just how time-honoured their writing would become. Every school child has heard of the story and most have watched a version of it on TV. If you ask people who Bob Cratchett was, I think most would associate the name as synonymous with a poor working class family man who was bullied mercilessly by his penny-pinching employer. And the word ‘scrooge’ (from Ebenezer Scrooge) came into common parlance after Dickens wrote his story. The word has come to be used to describe someone who is mean and miserly.

The story is of course a morality tale and Dickens meant it as such. But the scenes with the ghosts must have been pretty scary to readers and listeners of the day and even today it ranks with many as an all time favourite and goes with Christmas tide nicely as we should all be more aware of those less fortunate than ourselves. I know it made a lasting impression on me when I first heard it as a child and alongside believing in Santa Claus, I also believed in the ghosts of Dickens tale.

Since Dickens’s time many have tried to write similar stories but none, in my opinion, come close to capturing the sense of fear about the hereafter that “A Christmas Carol” did.

Happy Christmas and happy writing everyone!

Do you have a favourite Christmas story?

Big Threats - Big Stories?

Big Threats, small threats.

Threats make up the stuffing in all good thriller/suspense stories. And threats came in many sizes and many guises. (Sorry about the rhyme – couldn’t resist!)

When I am putting together a plot one of the first things I think about is what is the threat (or potential threat) and who it’s to. I once thought that all thrillers have to have a big threat – i.e. the end of the world, Armageddon or extinction of the whole human race but having read many of those kinds of books I have realised that a massive threat does not, on it’s own, make a good plot.

What makes a good plot work, for me, is strong emotion and high stakes. For example a man who stands to lose his entire family - who mean the world to him - if he doesn’t overcome what is threatening him is, in my book, a big threat story. If, on the other hand, he is about to lose his job, that might be tragic for him but not necessarily a big thing for a reader to worry about and be emotionally invested in. But if losing his job meant he couldn’t pay his creditors and they were threatening to harm his wife and children then that would raise the stakes and readers would be concerned and worry about that.

Empathising with fellow human beings is the vital ingredient that allows readers to care deeply about what happens to a character and keep them reading to the rewarding (hopefully) end.

So big threats it must always be but only in terms of emotional effect and empathy. However, if a plot to blow up the entire world is foiled along the way, so be it!

So what do you think? Do big threats figure in your stories? Or do you think otherwise – I’d love to hear, if so…

To 'See' or not to 'See' - that is the ESP!

Second Sight



The Eyes Have it!



In supernatural thrillers and horror stories the parapsychologies will usually figure somewhere along the way.

Second sight or ESP is one of these ethereal subjects and it can be a particularly helpful plot device; remembering, of course, that we are talking about fiction and a willingness on the part of a reader to suspend disbelief.

The idea of being able to ‘see’ something that is not within the bounds of normal vision is not a new one. It has been used from the early beginnings of the written word and tales from the classics and mythology are steeped in them.

The main areas of second sight seem to be Remote Viewing, where a person can ‘see’ something that is happening a long way away, Precognition, where a person can ‘see’ and foretell something that is about to happen, and Visions where a person simply ‘sees’ something (it may only be a flash image) but has no idea if it’s from the future, past or present.

Telepathy, premonition and clairvoyance are also closely related to second sight.

Of course the scientific community does not accept any of this stuff as it requires proof that is just not available. The various researchers into the area are of the view that most of it is fraud, self-delusion and guesswork. But that doesn’t stop the believers and it certainly doesn’t stop the notion of second sight being fertile grounds for the imagination in fiction writing.

One does not have to believe these things to enjoy a good story that uses any these ideas. If you asked the population in general how many believed in the paranormal you would get a much lower number than those who read the fiction books and watch the films. This is what suspension of disbelief is all about; in that, just for the period that you are immersed in a good story, you are willing to step into a universe where all things are possible. This is the nub of all good plots and fiction in general. How else would we enjoy Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings?

The other interesting thing for me is that if you have one character who believes in the paranormal and one that doesn’t then that sets the story up for even more conflict and tension, quite naturally without having to work at it.

My recent book 'The Witcheye Gene' features a genetic anomaly (differing eye colour for each eye - called Heterochromia Iriditis - an actual recognised eye condition) which - fictionally speaking - allows the  character to have special sight and 'see' things in someone's future and present.

Admittedly this kind of story is not everyone's cup of tea but as it is a love story and a crime story too, I hope readers will suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy the story.

What do you think? If you make a world ‘real’ enough for the reader, can you suspend disbelief?