Choosing a Species...
Melissa asked: How do you pick the sort of creature/being you utilize?
For me, the "species" I use and the mythology of the powers in a given book have to fit in some way with whatever non-mystical concept I'm playing around with. Usually, I try to match up mystical and ordinary concepts that I think go well together. For my first book, which just came out in July, I knew that I wanted to write about a girl who could see auras, just because I thought it was an interesting (and particularly believable) power. Then I spent a little bit of time trying to think about what part of teen life seemed to mesh with this concept. When would aura vision be a big plus? When would it be a drawback? Eventually, I came up with the same answer to both questions, and so I started the book with my teen narrator moving to a new school where she had to navigate an intense clique scene. Her aura vision gives her insight into what's really going on with both the popular and unpopular kids (ie it can help her see whether someone is being sincere or mocking, which is really handy when you're interacting with people who specialize in making it difficult to tell), but at the same time, it makes her different, and developments in her Sight make it harder and harder to fit in. For me, the power and the story fit together really well, and that's important to me.
I usually start with the paranormal aspect of the story and then decide what the everyday situation is like, because to me, that makes a lot more sense. If I'd just started with a character dealing with cliques, I could have gone in so many different directions- werewolf packs as the Mean Girls, a vampire as the outsider, faeries who just complicate the whole thing- but since I started with aura vision, I just had to think until I came up with one of any number of situations that I thought really worked in combination with the mythos I was using.
For my second book, I knew that I wanted to use a variety of psychic powers that I just happened to think were really cool (for example, transmogrification), and from there, I had to think of a mechanism to give my characters these powers. Since I'd gone with innate powers in GOLDEN, I wanted to do something different for my second book, and one day, while my friends and I were applying these really awesome, sparkly temporary tattoos, it hit me- temporary tattoos that bestow powers upon the person who wears them. It was perfect! From there, I decided that since I was dealing with multiple powers and multiple tattoos, I'd write a story about four best friends, except with awesome powers, an ancient evil, and tons of cool mythological concepts thrown in for good measure. Ultimately, I ended up using a couple of different mythologies for the tattoos' background (though I won't mention which ones, since I don't want to spoil the book), but once I started writing, those just came naturally. In the sequel, I'm dealing more directly with these mytholgies and a couple of different species, which I think will be really fun to write!
As for other species, I know I want to write a werewolf story some day, and I'm working on a couple of different potential vamp novels. For me, it's just a matter of figuring out which story is which and what aspects of real life are going to play really heavily in the books.
For me, the "species" I use and the mythology of the powers in a given book have to fit in some way with whatever non-mystical concept I'm playing around with. Usually, I try to match up mystical and ordinary concepts that I think go well together. For my first book, which just came out in July, I knew that I wanted to write about a girl who could see auras, just because I thought it was an interesting (and particularly believable) power. Then I spent a little bit of time trying to think about what part of teen life seemed to mesh with this concept. When would aura vision be a big plus? When would it be a drawback? Eventually, I came up with the same answer to both questions, and so I started the book with my teen narrator moving to a new school where she had to navigate an intense clique scene. Her aura vision gives her insight into what's really going on with both the popular and unpopular kids (ie it can help her see whether someone is being sincere or mocking, which is really handy when you're interacting with people who specialize in making it difficult to tell), but at the same time, it makes her different, and developments in her Sight make it harder and harder to fit in. For me, the power and the story fit together really well, and that's important to me.
I usually start with the paranormal aspect of the story and then decide what the everyday situation is like, because to me, that makes a lot more sense. If I'd just started with a character dealing with cliques, I could have gone in so many different directions- werewolf packs as the Mean Girls, a vampire as the outsider, faeries who just complicate the whole thing- but since I started with aura vision, I just had to think until I came up with one of any number of situations that I thought really worked in combination with the mythos I was using.
For my second book, I knew that I wanted to use a variety of psychic powers that I just happened to think were really cool (for example, transmogrification), and from there, I had to think of a mechanism to give my characters these powers. Since I'd gone with innate powers in GOLDEN, I wanted to do something different for my second book, and one day, while my friends and I were applying these really awesome, sparkly temporary tattoos, it hit me- temporary tattoos that bestow powers upon the person who wears them. It was perfect! From there, I decided that since I was dealing with multiple powers and multiple tattoos, I'd write a story about four best friends, except with awesome powers, an ancient evil, and tons of cool mythological concepts thrown in for good measure. Ultimately, I ended up using a couple of different mythologies for the tattoos' background (though I won't mention which ones, since I don't want to spoil the book), but once I started writing, those just came naturally. In the sequel, I'm dealing more directly with these mytholgies and a couple of different species, which I think will be really fun to write!
As for other species, I know I want to write a werewolf story some day, and I'm working on a couple of different potential vamp novels. For me, it's just a matter of figuring out which story is which and what aspects of real life are going to play really heavily in the books.