Paranormal romance novels are a wide open playground for paranormal romance writers and readers. In my opinion it comes down to the boundless elements available for paranormal romance novels. From science, to telepathy, to mythology, there’s a tremendous amount of inspiration and the genre has room for anyone with a vivid imagination and a penchant for spinning a tale.
When I’m starting a new book, or brainstorming a series of ideas, I often look to real world advances in technology – especially for my futuristic paranormal romance novels. I also look back – as the speed of tech advances is astonishing. When I was imagining an electronic notebook and cell ‘cards’ for Justice Incarnate, the iPad wasn’t even in development. Looking back helps me gauge just how fast things might move in the future for those techie elements of my paranormal romance novels.
Telepathy is an element of paranormal romance novels that just fascinates me with the endless variety of applications. Anna DeStefano applies her own version of mental powers in the worlds of dreams, Monica Burns has telekinetic heroes who despise their telepathic, villainous opponents. Some might consider telepathy part of the real world, while others scoff, but the powers of the mind are vastly untapped in the current population.
I enjoyed my characters with telepathic and telekinetic powers in both Invasion of Justice and Veil of Justice paranormal romance novels, because they came by those powers courtesy of a rather mad and completely unethical geneticist who preyed on infertile couples. A real world situation – infertility – means people must trust researchers and progress to do the right thing. My evil doctor took advantage of a delicate situation to genetically enhance the children.
The deep history and storytelling traditions available from mythology is another element of paranormal romance novels that can be creatively adapted to serve the story or growth of the characters. Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunters are a prime example of adapting mythology to create a unique new world but Virginia Kantra’s use of Welsh sea folk legends has given readers a delightfully fresh series of paranormal romance novels.
No matter which elements of paranormal romance novels you prefer, the real world offers wonderful inspiration to paranormal romance writers and readers alike.
Live the adventure!
