Writing the Paranormal Novel: Techniques and Exercises for Weaving Supernatural Elements Into Your Story. by Steven Harper Read Free Book Online Page B

Others simply need a lot of food. Feeding the dragons in Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon and its sequels, for example, turns into a major problem. Will Laurence spends considerable time figuring out how to feed a growing — and ravenous — baby dragon when the infant Temeraire hatches unexpectedly at sea.
    In the same book, we learn that English dragons eat their meat raw. Later in the series, Temeraire discovers that Chinese dragons enjoy meals prepared by high-class chefs. He acquires a taste for foreign cuisine and ultimately begins to realize how badly British dragons are treated compared to their Chinese counterparts. This leads him to try and start a revolt among English dragons, with Will Laurence as a reluctant cohort. And it all begins with food.
    Your own book can benefit from addressing this issue. It goes beyond what paranormals eat. How the food is acquired is equally important, especially if the food is rare or valuable or considered strange by others. And some food (such as human blood) is illegal. Once food is acquired, someone must prepare it. Who? In human culture, women are largely in charge of food preparation. Is it the same among elves? In India among the Hindu, eating food prepared by someone from a lower caste makes the consumer impure. Do the fairies feel the same way about food prepared by humans? And, of course, many stories mention the hazards of eating supernatural food. Persephone is forced to stay in Hades after eating six pomegranate seeds, and mortals who consume food in the realm of the fair folk are doomed to remain there forever.
    Eating has a culture all its own. Among humans, people consume their meals seated at low tables, perched on high stools, and lounging in front of a television. Formal meals of state are different from casual meals with family. Festival meals are special, with their own foods and traditions. And some foods are forbidden. Exploring the food rituals of your supernatural characters will enrich them, make them seem more real — and can also help move the plot forward.
TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY
    Okay, so you worked out what magical powers and limitations your weretigers have. You know they're powerful hand-to-claw fighters, they have to transform into tiger form once a month during the full moon, and can change into a man-tiger form the rest of the month, but only after sunset. You know that they're waging a constant underground war with an ancient clan of mummies that have secretly taken over New Haven, Connecticut, and there's going to be a major turf battle tomorrow night. Your weretiger protagonist, an information tech geek recently turned into a sexy werecreature, is both psyched and nervous because this fight will be his initiation into the Blood Stripe Clan.
    So the question is, do the weretigers have grenade launchers?
    Seriously. If the weretigers have underground contacts and they really want to take out the mummies once and for all, what's stopping them from getting their claws on a few well-placed grenades and wiping them out from a safe distance? Yes, I know you want to create tension, put your protagonist in danger, and move the story forward, but you've got a serious plot hole here. The technology for long-distance combat is widely available on modern Earth, and you've established the weretigers operate an underground war, meaning they'd have access to all kinds of illegal stuff. Giving them grenade launchers would only make sense. Or maybe the weretigers could hack into the mummies' computers and wreak havoc on their financial records, destroying their stranglehold on New Haven's government and rendering them vulnerable. Your information tech protagonist would certainly have the know-how. Why are your weretigers heading into an iffy face-to-face fight when modern society presents them with so many more surefire options?
    You'll need to decide what technology your supernatural people have access to, either because they developed it themselves or because