In an article for Writer’s Digest, Adam Rosenbaum shares his top five tips for writing paranormal fiction. They are:
- Take a trope and flip it. “When your story is stuffed full of the same tropes as every other novel, short story, and movie, it can feel stale and recycled,” Rosenbaum says. Instead, consider how other writers usually use ghosts or haunted houses and try the opposite. Examine how What We Do in the Shadows turned the vampire story on its head and ask yourself what you haven’t seen in the kind of story you’re writing.
- Develop the rules of your world…and stick to them. “Do you want to write a short story about werewolves that only transform after eating broccoli during a full moon? Sure, why not,” Rosenbaum writes. “Whatever rules you come up with for the world of your story, just make sure they’re consistent throughout.”
- Make the paranormal parts as visual as possible, as soon as possible. A slow reveal is ok, but lean into keen description as you reveal elements. “The more you can help your reader establish a baseline, the easier it is for them to take over and imagine the rest on their own,” Rosenbaum explains.
- Be specific. “Don’t be afraid to be specific when describing characters, especially the minor ones,” Rosenbaum writes.
- Ground your story. “You can cram as many bizarro, magical characters and locations as you want into a story as long as there’s something to connect the audience to them in a believable, relatable way,” Rosenbaum says. “Sometimes it’s as simple as describing the experience of a human character in a magical world or grounding a paranormal character with genuine human emotions.”
