Crystal Jordan impressed me right from the get-go by her ability to create unique worlds, wonderful, fully-developed characters and outstanding eroticism all in the space of a novella. CARNAL DESIRES is her first solo volume, though an earlier, related story can be read in SEXY BEAST V.
*Keeping it Real: Using Your World Building to Develop Your Characters in Paranormal Romance* by Crystal Jordan
One of the most important parts of writing paranormal romance is putting your own spin on the genre. Let's face it, there are no *new* ideas--someone out there has written about every imaginable supernatural creature (and put those creatures in just about every imaginable setting). We can only tweak, futz, or tilt our heads sideways and squint until there's that special *
something* that makes our work different than anyone else's.
For me, the thing that I try to use to make my supernatural characters different is my world building. Regardless of genre, your world building and character development should support each other, but it's especially important when writing paranormal. However, world building shouldn't be info dumped all over your readers. Sounds contradictory, right? World building is what makes a writer's work special, but she shouldn't give it *all* to her readers.
Yeah, I never said it was easy, did I? The challenge is weaving my world building into my story smoothly and keeping people engaged. I think it's easiest to relate a unique world to the reader if I talk about how it relates to or affects my characters.
The *characters* are the who and what a reader relates to, so not only does the story need to be told through them, but the world building does as well.
I have a degree in history, and the one thing my professors drilled into me was that the most important distinctions of a society were its political, economic, and social/religious structures. So, if I want to build a new
(paranormal) society from the ground up, then I need to not only understand those aspects of my world, but also my character's place in those societal structures. (Though not all of that will make it on to the page) I ask myself what made the world the way it is. What made it develop differently than what a reader would expect?
Now, I firmly believe that I can make my world as unique (which really is a polite was of saying *weird*) as I want as long as I make it convincing. Part of that is making sure my characters are so embedded in their world that readers believe such a world would create such a person, and that such a person would really exist if the world were the way I explain it.
So, let's talk a bit more specifically about how to define a character in their world (or at least how I do it).
A character who lives in a small town is in a far different setting or "world" than one who lives in a large city. Is this person an only child, career focused, family focused, highly religious? If they are religious, explain how that affects their life or world.
Religion/mythology is an important part of most societies. If a culture is matriarchal, would the characters be more likely to worship a god or a goddesses…or both? How would a political structure effect world building? Would they be polytheistic or monotheistic because of the way their society operates? A character (male or female) in a goddess-worshipping matriarchal culture would be far different than one in our modern society.
But I think the biggest reason world building is so important to character development is *consistency*. Every world has rules and I (as a writer) cannot break them without explaining how or why. These rules apply as much to how the paranormal aspects of my world work as they do to the kinds of people that world would produce.
Two examples that pop up in my work:
*
The rebellious character:* what caused them to rebel? Was it a person they met, an event they witnessed? Nothing happens in a vacuum. What caused this person to be different than any other raised in a particular environment? This kind of character is fun to write, but I have to look out for the rebels without a cause.
*The conformist/traditionalist:* what made them never break out of the box? Was it an ideal they aspired to? A person who pushed them to remain on the straight and narrow? There's nothing wrong with this kind of character, but I need to avoid making them appear to be a sheep who blindly follows.
Both of these characters are constricted by their experiences in the world they live in. If they have no experience with or contact with an ideology, culture, or theology, then they can't have those things without a reason. How did the world allow them to be exposed to new ideas or people? How did that effect them and how they viewed/reacted to the world around them? What was the catalyst that made them who and what they are now? What made them hope or fear what they do now?
Holly Lisle (who has some amazing writing tips on her website) says to start every character off with this question: "My main character wants _____ more than anything else in the world."
The next concern for me is how my character's wants or needs spring from the world they live in.
Also try this question: "My main character fears/avoids _____ more than anything else in the world."
Again, how is this fear or need to avoid drawn from the world around him or her? These can be both emotional and physical fears. For example, if my character lives on a planet where there are large predators, he could fear being attacked and eaten every time he goes outside. Emotionally, he may have lost so many people to these predators that he fears getting close to anyone because he might lose them, too.
Don't laugh--this is something that's actually a part of my novella in *Sexy Beast V*! (Hey, I said it could get weird in my worlds, and I wasn't
kidding!)
People's fears are just as important and compelling as their hopes and desires--sometimes more so!--so I try really hard not to forget to include them in my character development and world building.
What makes a story special is not just the characters or just the unique world building, but how those two build upon each other to strengthen the whole book. The world and how it's built can help create or drive the conflict and characters, and it should all be woven together until a reader can't tell that "Here, There Be World Building." Do I always pull this off in my books? Nope, but it doesn't keep me from trying. Someday, I'll get it just right.
Thanks for having me!
Crystal Jordan
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Comments
Thanks for having me over, Lucienne!
It's that Librarian thing.
Jax
www.jaxcassidy.com
That's all. Carry on...
R
The one thing I think you forgot to mention, though, was that although your character is weird in that he's afraid of losing his loved ones to predators - it's an emotion readers can relate to in spite of the cause of it. How many people are really afraid to open up because they might get left? *raises hand*
I also like how your heroines tend not to let the heroes get away with that crap ;)
PS. I write "weird". You write unique. :P
P.S. I love that you write weird, Rowan! It's good stuff.
P.S. I love that you write weird, Rowan! It's good stuff.
Jenna Bayley-Burke
~Gemma
www.gemmahalliday.com
If you ever get an itch to try paranormal, you know who to hit up for a beta read. ;-)
Love the cover! It would look great on my bedside table. *wink*
Jeannie Lin