Wicked Wednesday - paranormal romance cliches

Paranormal romance is a genre with infinite possibilities. Yet we seem to see the same situations and ideas played over and over again. I've heard a lot that the market is over-saturated, but it is still doing good business. Publishers are looking for original ideas. If you're writing a new book, here's a few tips on what to avoid.

1. Predestined soulmates. We want to be loved for our intelligence, charm, and personality. Do we honestly want love to be based on some supernatural and irresistible compulsion? Apparently many people do. This is one of the most popular cliches in paranormal romance. I'm guilty of using this one on a few occasions.

2. I hate you/I love you! Yes, the extreme emotional conflict. The protagonist hates everything about that arrogant man, yet falls in love with him at the same time. It might have to do with the aforementioned compulsion, or maybe with the fact that some of the women don't seem to know their own minds. There has to be something for the protagonist to fall in love with, something for the reader to sympathize with, or else it's silly supernatural nonsense.

3. The hot man that makes the heroine speechless. It seems that too many otherwise strong women are made into drooling schoolgirls in the presence of a gorgeous guy. You would think that all the paranormal romance worlds are filled with such awe-inspiring men.

4. Vampires, werewolves, and angels/demons, oh my! There are other paranormal creatures out there. I'm a sucker for this cliche, though. Overdone as they might be, I still love a good story with any of these creatures.

5. The virgin or the whore. We usually see one extreme or the other with the protagonists. What's wrong with a woman who's had a few boyfriends over the years? She's experienced enough, but not slutty by any means.

What cliches do you hate in paranormal romance? Which ones do you love?

Wicked Wednesday - emotional conflict

There's no doubt that one of the key aspects of a paranormal romance is emotional conflict. A story can't be built around that alone, but without it, there would be no love story. Emotional conflict arises from something within a person which sometimes seems irrational and utterly insane. Okay, maybe not sometimes, but most of the time!

To create emotional conflict for the protagonist and their love interest, it must arise out of something apart from the plot. It must be something inside of each of them that would create the same conflict no matter where or how they met. Of course, it is intensified by the situation and the only way to resolve it is by working together.

Do not confuse emotional conflict with intellectual conflict. Intellectual conflict always starts in the mind. It's a conflict of ideas. A character might try to reason out their emotional conflict and make it intellectual, but it doesn't make it so. An intellectual conflict can be argued and the character can be persuaded to change their mind. Emotions aren't so reasonable. They simply are. There's no logic to them. Remember in a paranormal romance, the goal is to win the heart of one's love not the mind.

Do not confuse emotional conflict with external conflict. External conflicts arises outside of the character through plot and circumstance. Emotions make up internal conflicts and they arise within the characters themselves. Where emotional conflict make-up the heart of the novel, external conflict drives the plot. You can't have one without the other.

The key to writing a great paranormal romance is to meld the intense emotional conflict with an equally as exciting external one. If either aspect is lacking, the story will flop.

Who are your favorite authors in terms of emotional conflict?