Romántica, romance, both are written with an “R”, but are they the same genre? Although it’s a juicy topic to open a debate, I’m going to foclus on the techniques for writing paranormal romance.

In fact, these techniques apply to romántica, romance, and any genre combined with the paranormal subgenre.

As you can tell, writing these genres and subgenres isn’t just sitting down, taking a deep breath and writing nonstop. I wish it were that easy!

I’d already have endless sagas written. Nothing would make me happier, however, I feel satisfied with my paranormal romance sagas, and horror; everything is combined with drama and intrigue.

But let’s get to what we came for, because you’re here to learn the techniques for writing paranormal romance. As my friend Gusmar Sosa would say: “Every kind of writing has its technique”. Although he currently focuses on commercial writing, I’ve stuck with the more artistic side.

Let’s move forward!

Techniques for writing paranormal romance: the meeting of two worlds.

If you asked me right now what the most important or standout event in a paranormal romance plot is, my answer would be: the meeting of two worlds.

And I’m not talking about the discovery of America!

(Although something like historical paranormal romance would be interesting, I’m jotting down ideas, and if you know an author who already writes it, you can leave it in the comments).

Meeting or crossing between worlds: What is it?

What I mean by the concept of meeting or crossing between worlds is that it’s always important, and essential, that the world of night creatures, of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters or any supernatural being you invent is in contact with the world of humans.

Now, if you don’t want to involve humans, you can choose to present a meeting or crossing between creatures of different dimensions, worlds, planets, planes, “infinite etcetera”.

However, I recommend involving the human world somehow, and this brings us to a second of the techniques for writing paranormal romance.

Techniques for writing paranormal romance: Ground your readers.

Come on, I’m not talking about “bringing your scatterbrained friend back down to earth”, although we’ll always have to do that. (I pause and remember my special friend who’s always distracted).

There has to be an element your readers can relate to. Yes, that’s why I recommend involving the human plane somehow.

Your story can take place in another dimension, where some human has burst in. Or it can take place on the human plane, where the creatures show up. “This is the most used one”.

Choose the story and decide how you’ll give your readers a point of reference, a “something familiar inside the unknown”.

Make the paranormal element digestible.

Turning to a point of reference when telling a story, a point that represents a universal culture, universal knowledge, sparks interest in the story and makes it digestible.

This is one of the techniques for writing paranormal romance that will help you write with your readers in mind, and therefore you’ll get them so involved that they’ll want to share your stories.

Build a fantastic story, with original paranormal elements, that amaze, that hit hard, that get your readers using their imagination, but also give them a point of reference.

An example:

In the Children of the Night Saga I describe beings who live in cemeteries and feed on humans’ sadness; at the same time there’s a paranormal race “that’s benevolent toward mortals” and they help them not fall into depression or die from being food for those evil beings. Ahhh, but in that “good race” there are men with powers who fall in love with human women while “caring for and protecting” them…! And boom, there’s a great plot for your novel!

Do you see it? It’s a paranormal story that has anchors in reality: in that case it would be “humans, feeding, sadness, cemeteries, falling in love, caring and protecting”. Many times readers have written to me:

• Every time I pass a cemetery I try not to feel sad so I don’t feed those beings.
• Kassi, I hope I run into a Child of the Night next time I go to the cemetery.

Everything fits with real-life experiences, as much as it’s a fictional story, having anchors in reality makes your brain remember it, and that way you can create a story that’s hard to forget.

Prepare before you start writing paranormal romance.

Discipline is the most important thing in any activity. And I don’t want to sound like a scolding teacher, but how do you expect to be a recognized writer if you don’t discipline yourself?

If you want to succeed writing paranormal romance, stop thinking about the dollars you’ll get from sales, or how you’ll travel on the royalties. Everything in its own time.

So follow these recommendations:

• Practice writing constantly.
• Make an exclusive schedule to sit down and write your story.
• Decide the human and paranormal elements of your story.
• Prepare, prepare and prepare. You’ll never stop learning.
• Read, don’t be lazy, reading will feed your imagination and keep you inspired.

The paranormal romance novel turns out to be one of the subgenres that demands the most preparation.

Give your story density: the result will be a paranormal romance saga.

In my career I’ve written a good number of paranormal romance sagas, and as I advance in knowledge I’ve had to edit and improve the ones already written and move forward with new titles.

If there’s something I’ve learned and that applies, it’s density in the story. This means you need to create a whole world, one where your story’s creatures have an origin, a past, a present and a future.

That’s how you’ll offer a whole “worldview”, and this will hook your readers.

Techniques for writing paranormal romance: read, study, dive into other stories.

If you think that locked in a bubble you’ll make your story original, let me tell you you’re badly mistaken.

Get involved in the paranormal romance subgenre scene, this is an important step in applying the techniques for writing paranormal romance.

And I’m not telling you to fall into the genre’s clichés, I hate clichés!, but I admit they’re a fucking necessary evil hahaha.

But you do need to read other novels of the subgenre.

But why should I read paranormal romance?

Reading romance or paranormal romance novels is necessary to know how other writers handle the topic we’re going to tackle and to find a differentiating factor.

By “differentiating factor” I mean a marketing concept (every good writer should know how to “market” her book).

Your romance or paranormal romance novel has to be different, have unique traits, present the story with a different style. And to be able to create that differentiating factor or surprise, you have to study the competition.

In fact, you can take a look at my paranormal romance sagas and, as an exercise, create an original story compared to mine.

Do you accept the challenge?

Last technique: break the rules.

Forget about googling “template for writing paranormal romance”. Don’t rely on templates, or on rules either, break the rules!

Create new stories, seduce with the charm of a unique story, use your own style, stay true to yourself, don’t copy anyone.

Present these elements with your style and under your rules:

1. Offer a romance between main characters, secondary ones count too, but never leave out love and drama. You know, always with a happy ending, otherwise it’s another genre you wrote.
2. Link different dimensions on the romantic plane.
3. Make your own outline or model of the world where the story takes place. Always specify where they live and how they survive.
4. Add a pinch of eroticism. (Sex sells, but I’m talking about sex scenes, not about the story being two porn rabbits who just fuck and fuck, don’t be crass).
5. Every hero must have an antagonist. If a story doesn’t have one, at least in my case I think it’s a boring novel. #wasteoftime
6. If you’re going to present coincidences between the protagonists, don’t make them forced. Differences are beautiful and complementary in a relationship, inconsistencies are not.
7. Don’t solve a book’s problem in two pages, that’s detestable.

Conclusion

I hope these techniques for writing paranormal romance help you develop your story with personality and originality.

Make your name ring out for your style, for your ideas and because you’re not a copy of other writers.

You’ll see readers will get hooked.

And if you know someone interested in writing this extraordinary subgenre, share the post with them.

I’m Kassfinol, a Venezuelan author of paranormal romance and horror published on Amazon KDP since 2012. Everything you read in this article isn’t theory taken from a manual: it’s what I apply in every book I publish. More than 24 novels later, these techniques are still the basis of how I build my worlds, my creatures and my romances. If you want to see the result in practice, start with the Invocation Series or the Children of the Night Saga, which I already mentioned here as an example. And if you want to go deeper into my specific writing process, I have a whole post about it: How I Write Paranormal Romance.

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