• The appearance of a ghost(s) exacerbates the protagonist’s dilemma, but, in the end, the ghost(s) helps solve the problem/mystery.
• The ghost(s) have a problem (usually their own murders) that the protagonist solves after having a nervous breakdown about believing in ghosts.
• An innocent protagonist discovers new creature(s) (vampire/poltergeist/werewolf/shape shifter) and may or may not be converted to the creature, but always retains universal humanist values while helping the creature(s) with a problem.
• An innocent protagonist wakes up (new take on “Metamorphosis”) to find themselves changed into a new paranormal creature and must find out how to live in their brave new world, making new alliances and fighting new enemies usually stemming from some leftover dilemma while human.
• Ghosts of history-past reveal themselves and the protagonist travels back in time to understand the reasons for the problem and then solves the mystery so that the ghosts may live in peace forever (bidding protagonist a “forever in your debt” wave) but then the protagonist’s own problem is mysteriously solved through their own efforts on behalf of the ghosts.
• Sensitive protagonist has vision of murder and helps detective(s) solve the case while building a relationship (of various kinds) with the detective(s).
• Human and paranormal creature have incredible sex while solving murder.
• Dead detective helps human solve murders, and by doing so, makes up for mistakes made personally and professionally while alive.
• Undead vampire detective solves murders and helps people while trying to figure out how to survive without killing people.
• Good ghost or creature teams with human protagonist to solve problem or murder, in which the perp is a bad ghost or creature.
If there are other paranormal storylines that I haven’t listed, please let me know by posting the log line in the comments section. Thanks!
I had no idea there were so many themes and story lines in paranormals. Since Charlaine Harris is the guest speaker at Crimebake this year, I'm going to start reading more of them. In my teens and twenties, I used to be interested in vampires and vampire books and movies so I thought the recent popularity of paranormals was age specific but perhaps the genre reveals much more.
ReplyDeleteWith so many themes to choose from (who knew?) does a prospective author use a Ouija board to choose?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Charlaine Harris, I finished the anthology Crimes by Moonlight a few weeks ago and loved it.
~ Jim
Paranormal not only has vast subject matter, it also has many different tones. Here are some recommendations by tone:
ReplyDeleteLight hearted good fun: Jana DeLeon's "Mudbug" series, Nancy Atherton's "Aunty Diminity" series, E. J. Cooperman's "Haunted Guesthouse" series and Mignon Ballard's "angle" series.
Part fun/Part suspense-Any Charlaine Harris, Madeline Alt's "Witch series", Michelle Rowan-separate paranormal books, and Alice Kimberly's "haunted bookstore" series.
Darker-Mary Stanton's "Beaufort and Co." series, Kat Richardson's "Greywalker" series, P. N. Elrod's vampire series, T. J. MacGregor's tarot reading sensitive, Chaz McGee's dead detective series.
Of course, this list just scratches the surface. The romance genre has it's own authors. The ones I've listed here are mainly classified as mysteries. Happy reading-they are fun-my reason for choosing paranormal!