One Disadvantage of Not Writing Paranormal YA

   I’m considering doing something I have no business doing – writing a Young Adult Paranormal Novel.  But, I’ve always heard you’re supposed to write what you know, and I just don’t know about young adults. I won’t reveal how many decades ago I was one, but suffice it to say I could use the excuse that I’ve forgotten over the years. Truth is, at that age I was engaged in activities that promote memory loss, so if it was only yesterday I still wouldn’t recall. So if I tried to submerge myself in that world to write about it, I’d most likely fail.

   I shouldn’t even read the stuff, but I do. I was seduced into the genre last year by Richelle Mead, one of my favorite adult paranormal authors. I’d read all of her Succubus series and was waiting for the next Dark Swan book to come out. I needed some more Richelle, so I broke down and tried her Vampire Academy novels. A few chapters with Rose Hathaway and I was hooked. Now my kindle is full of YA books, read or waiting to be.

My friends think I’m a dirty old man. Okay, this is not the place to argue that point. The thing is, if you take a teenage girl, already crazy by definition, and imbue her with supernatural powers… heh-heh, you’re in for a wild ride.

   As a writer, it must be nice to have a character like that. Need her to go off half-cocked and do something to create some drama? Just have someone tell her not to. Need to create some romance? Just have another character forbid her to see the guy. Teenage girls are predictably unpredictable, which makes for exciting reading.

  My characters, on the other hand, are too damn mature. They’re likely to accept the advice of someone in authority and if a love is forbidden, they’ll consider why and accept it. They’re too logical and they have too much control over their hormones.

  Case in point, I’m on the third re-write of a scene where I’ve put two women interested in the same man together in an antagonistic situation. Cat fight guaranteed, right? Wrong. They keep talking it out and coming up with a workable compromise! I can’t have that. What am I going to do, have the gods intervene? Actually, that might work, but if they were both seventeen…

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 20, 2012 at 3:03 PM

    I think you'll do fine with whatever you write!! And that's what research is for and people can learn lol!! Ps you should add the option to follow via email so I can stalk you better hahahahaha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John HundleyMay 20, 2012 at 8:07 PM

      Thanks, Maghon. Follow by email, huh? Soon as I figure out how to do that, I will!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Deep-Seated Psychological Reasons I Write About Werewolves

Image
Christmas Day, 2012 5:30 pm    I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season. Myself, I’ve been working on this little blog post off and on for the last four days. It’s been hard to find time, what with all the feasting and family, but I’ve finally got all my obligations and ‘fun’ out of the way, a fresh cup of coffee made with my new French press I got for Christmas, and I’m ready to post! Holiday Giveaway    Several weeks ago I resolved to give a book away each week during the holidays to a lucky reader who left a comment on my blog. So far, I’m way behind. Only one person has left a comment out of all the folks that visit my blog each week. I can’t believe that you guys are willing to buy these things, but I can’t give ‘em away!    I’m starting to develop a complex. No, I already have one. The only thing I can figure is you’re not making it to the end of my long-winded ramblings and therefore not scrolling down far enough to read about the...
Read more

The Old Man and the Bike

Image
I’m the kind of person who can overdo anything and everything, good or bad. I have a long list of addictions to prove it. The acceptance of this about myself has made the last quarter century of my life an almost daily struggle for balance. I’m constantly striving for just the right mix of work, play, intellectual stimulation and down time, that will keep me from tipping the scales too far in any direction. Take writing, for instance. It has proven a mixed blessing. Over the last five years, creating the first three books in the Red Wolf Saga has been an eye-opening, soul enriching, life changing experience for me. It has also become an obsession. Whereas I once filled as much of my free time as I could with writing, my free time has become writing time , and my free time has, well…disappeared. Last weekend, while rearranging some debris in my apartment (what I call cleaning ), I noticed the rusting chain and flattened tires on my bicycle. I suddenly realized it had been nearl...
Read more

The Real Red Wolves

Image
    The term red wolf must have been floating around in my subconscious when I conceived of Clifford Crane, the supernatural werewolf protagonist depicted in my Red Wolf Saga . Crane (you can check out the “My Books” tab), whom I imagine to be a cross between an Irish setter and an eight foot grizzly, bears little resemblance to the coyote-colored canid that once roamed the eastern North American continent in large numbers a few hundred years ago.     But, yes, there are real red wolves! And it wasn’t until I was almost ready to publish The Draculata Nest that I discovered they are living practically in my own back yard.     Like its grey wolf cousin, which already haunted the dreams of European settlers, the red wolves were regarded as everything from a threat to domestic livestock to agents of Satan. The “new Americans” went about systematically destroying the wolves’ natural habitat and hunting it to near extinction. Today, Canis rufus can be f...
Read more