Paranormals vs Historicals
I’m not really a fan of paranormals, and I used to think it was because of the world-building. I want a book to take place in my world.
However, I write historical romance, which is just FULL of world-building.
My perception of the 19th century is that of a twenty-first century woman. I suspect that a Victorian woman could lecture me on all the stuff I got wrong about her world.
Maybe I don’t like paranormals because I like my heroes to be…human. Were-lions, were-bears, oh my. Let’s just stay with alpha males, okay? And there were plenty of alpha males in the 19th century.
What fascinates me most about the 19th century, however, is the men who dared to believe in something that hadn’t yet been proven. They risked their own fortunes and their reputations in a search for scientific and technological advances.
Each time I read about one of the unsung heroes, like Charles Wheatstone and Sir William Cooke, who constructed the first commercial electrical telegraph, or Robert Koch, who showed how germs cause disease in humans, I’m amazed.
These men – ordinary on the surface – are true heroes, and not a were-anything among them. I guess I’m just in love with the ordinary, which turns out not to be that ordinary at all.
Doesn’t it depend though to a degree on the type of paranomal? I don’t like all the vampire, shapeshifting elements of many of today’s pararnormal romance but what I do enjoy is genetic memory and cross over of time and space. An author who does this with incredible ease and maybee she is more a straight historical writer, is Barbara Erskine. Almost all of her books have a dual storyline where the people in the present are connected with the historical ( often real people in history) characters of the past. And its the merging of the two worlds that cause the conflict and later resolution. Maybe its because I love a big dose of history with my romance but like you I want a world that feels normal to me and all the vampires and were-people are just normal in my world. But then I am a bit weird in my taste as I love a beta hero.
Honestly, I have to be in the mood to read a paranormal. For example, I love Jim Butcher’s Dresden series. Love them! But when I open one of his books, I expect fairies and wizards, trolls and what-all. I would be very surprised if Harry Dresden became an accountant and had a “normal” life. He’s probably the only example of a paranormal that I could read all day. I think one of the reasons is that Harry Dresden, as a character, is so blessedly human. Despite having magical powers, he’s also equipped with human foibles, can feel emotional pain. In fact, one of the greatest descriptions of emotional pain I ever read was from one of Butcher’s books.
Perhaps we’re saying the same thing. In order for a paranormal to appeal to me, the humans have to be more than human. That’s what a lot of paranormals don’t do. They go off the deep end with the fangs and the fur. What connects me – as a human – to a book is sharing my humanity. I can do that in a Butcher book. Maybe I could in an Erskine (haven’t read her yet).