When I asked Michele Lang to guest blog for Paranormal Romance "Week," she went above and beyond, offering both a blog on "Speculative Fiction: What If...." and a short story from her NETHERWOOD world.  I'm sure you'll enjoy both!

Speculative Fiction:  What If…..

Where do you get your story ideas?

If you are a writer, you probably get this question all the time from non-writers.  And if you are participating in National Novel Writers’ Month right now, you may be asking yourself this question in desperation or despair.

For a long time, I resisted answering or even thinking about it too much, because I was afraid that if I considered the question too deeply, my mystifying muse would flip me the bird and take off on a Harley for parts unknown.

Fatal Error

By Michele Lang

<FATAL ERROR>

My handheld device blinked and blinked, trying its electronic best to warn me of danger.

I stood at the base of the huge oak tree towering over Petraeus Park on 23^rd Street, and I weighed the dangers of ignoring the error message versus abandoning my plan.  My thumb brushed the surface of my handheld’s screen, and the harsh, incriminating words disappeared in a cascade of shimmering cyberlight.

Far above my head, at least twenty feet up, I picked out the silhouette of a tree house looming in the fading light.  The tree’s trunk, smooth, had no rope or footholds to ease the way up – and, given the illegal stuff going on up there, I knew that inaccessibility was part of the design.

Michele Lang is a writer to watch.  Leisure Love Spell brought out her science fiction romance NETHERWOOD earlier this year and forthcoming from Tor is her historical fantasy trilogy set on the eve of World War II, in which a hereditary witch with the power to call souls fights to avert the horrors of her sister's visions; pitted against her are SS werewolves, wizards, and demons, including a willingly possessed Adolf Hitler.

Word Alchemy -- Writing Historical Fantasy by Michele Lang

First off, thank you to Lucienne and all of the other contributors for a thought-provoking and inspiring Fantasy week! Today we consider the dangers and delights of writing historical fantasy.

Writers of historical fantasy face so many pitfalls.  We have to get our historical facts right, and capture the truth of a place we can never visit – the past.  We have to build a believable world that incorporates both the historical setting and the fantastical elements we interweave.  We must create convincing characters that embody both the historical milieu and their own peculiar magic -- and most difficult of all, we must make this multilevel process look effortless or we lose our readers. 

By trial and error, I’ve developed some moves designed to balance the historical and fantastical in my work:

*Escape the Research Bog:  I am a history freak who would gladly stay stuck in the research phase forever, but I have to stop research at some point to write.  Some people recommend you do all of your research up front; others say that you should search for information only after you’ve dug your characters into a deep hole.  Why not do both?  Get oriented, and when you think you know enough, follow your characters.  And when you come up short, dip back into research to get clues that will help you advance.

*Secondary Sources:  History is written or other documentary evidence of past events.  Secondary sources of evidence – scholarly historical works, essays, biographies – will give you the best overview of a particular historical period.  To get up to speed quickly, I suggest starting with middle grade or YA histories – they tend to present the facts in a straightforward way. 

*Dig Deeper with Primary Sources:  Once you have a feel for the major events and geopolitical forces at play, you need to hunt out primary sources.  Diaries, newspaper articles, and letters will give you the voices of people who lived through the period.  Their biases and unspoken assumptions will tell you a lot more than a scholarly history, but remember that these individual voices are not objective.  It’s good to read a number of them, and see where they disagree.

Where to find good primary sources?  A well-researched history will list primary sources in its Bibliography; costume books and cook books can also give you some insights into the clothes and culinary delights of a place.