Karen Wiesner: I Have Dreamed a Little Dream (Authors and Dream Inspiration), Part 4

I Have Dreamed a Little Dream, Part 4

by Karen Wiesner

"Believe in your dreams. They were given to you for a reason." ~Katrina Mayer

As a writer, the question I get most often is where my ideas come from a lot. While I can honestly say everywhere, more often than not, dreams play a huge role of my fiction writing. Something about that twilight between sleep and dreams is a veritable playground for imagination! Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series is one of my series, in particular, in which many of the stories within it stemmed from a fragment of a dream that I was able to develop into a story. In a series of posts, I've revealed how these nightmarish gifts from the ether came to me. 

This is the final of four posts focusing on my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series and the vivid nightmares or ideas that inspired the titles.

Karen Wiesner's Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series

** Nestled on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin is a small, secluded town called Bloodmoon Cove with volatile weather, suspicious folk…and newly awakened ghosts.

Don’t close your eyes… **

What's coming up next in the series:

One of the things I love the most as I'm developing this series is that the characters from previous books make solid (i.e. not simply "glimpses" from one book to the next) appearances in later books. Considering how small Bloodmoon Cove is and how involved they are in each other's lives, it makes sense that the developing characters would be seen all through subsequent stories. I can hardly wait to write each one of these books in order to expand the world I'm creating with them. I hope readers will also be just as excited in seeing more from this series as I am.

BONE OF MY BONE, Book 7 

(release date estimate: April 2022)

** When Bennet was eight, he fell for Ice despite how she concealed who she was and where she came from. When they were 19, she disappeared. Still grieving a year later, he's floored at her return. Her comment about "how to bury what won't stay dead" compels him to solve her mysteries. But how does a mortal fight creation's first murderer when the entity bears an immortal seal and made a pact with the devil? **

I've outlined and I'm currently writing this novel. This is a newer idea I had for the series. At the end of 2020, I couldn’t stop coming up with notes for after a very vivid dream I had of the first “scene” in the story. I already had the title and had some very loose ideas about the story before I had the dream. At that point, I was sure that, with this much material, I could move right into outlining it. Past experience has taught me that, if I can complete an outline, I always know I can write the story. If I can't outline it, I'll either take it off my list of Works in Progress or simply reschedule the release date and work on it at a later time, when hopefully I'm more inspired after a great deal of time trying to brainstorm new ideas for it.

LOST AND FOUND, A Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series 2-in-1 including "Lost", Book 8, and "Found", Book 9 

** "Lost": Damaris remembers nothing of the past 48 hours. A retired couple found her in their woods. Their remodeling efforts uncover a hidden enclosure that cages what they don't dare set free.

"Found": What does a lifelong bachelor do when the woman of his dreams steps into his sanctuary and he finds all he's been missing…but revealing the truth behind their meeting could tear them apart for all time? ** 

The main characters in both books (I'm unsure whether they'll be novellas or novels at this point) will work for the library, so LOST AND FOUND was a great title that played on that. The idea for "Lost" came from a nightmare I'd had about a woman whose car broke down on the edge of the woods and she woke up in a cabin deep in the woods owned by an older couple without technology who are digging up something in the basement of their home. The idea for "Found" came about when my sister was talking about a story she wanted to write about a ghost in a library. 

HELL HATH NO FURY, Book 10

(release date estimate: April 2023)

** Eager to get a cake decorating business up and running, Isabelle inherits an old house in Bloodmoon Cove that seems like a boon…until she pieces together the tragic story of a poor immigrant who lived in this house and the woman he scorned. When Kesara committed suicide over his rejection, her heart-broken mother plotted revenge. Newly awakened to the legacy Isabelle has inherited, two ghosts plan to finish what they started a hundred years before. **

This story came from another dream I had about a young immigrant who came over to America because of lack of opportunity in his own country and fell in love with the daughter of the man who employed him. The bakery angle with the man's ancestor being willed the house the immigrant and his wife lived in wove itself into the story, given my love for TV shows focused on baking.

 

HAUNTED LEGACY, Book 11

(release date estimate: October 2023)

** After a teenage pregnancy, Danielle and Andy unsuccessfully made a go of marriage. After the split, Andy started a business while Dani’s art career took off with the help of Douglas Marx, whose reputation is spoken of in the same hushed tones as black magic. When Doug invites her to join him in Bloodmoon Cove, Dani notices a painting that haunts her as the figure in the painting becomes familiar—more and more like her own… **

The idea for this story has been with me for many, many years, titled for most of that time GILDED PROMISES and a contemporary romance without any supernatural aspects. I had the idea to make the story a suspense with Dani’s art agent being a villain. A little later, the painting I had in the outline I'd started (though never finished) made me wonder how I could make this a supernatural kind of story. I love Susan Hills THE MAN IN THE PICTURE, and who isn't deeply disturbed by Oscar Wilde's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY? I wanted to put a paranormal spin on my original idea, and merging it into my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series seemed natural. The title changed, stemming from the concept that not only would Dani’s agent be a villain but he would have a supernatural aid in his villainy—a painting handed down from father to son for generations that “captures” and drains the life from a victim, thereby transferring it to this creature.

ELDRITCH JUSTICE, Book 12

(release date estimate: January 2024)

** Rafe Yager (of CROOKED HOUSE, Book 3) has settled in Bloodmoon Cove with his wife Corinne. Given his former ghost hunting, he can't put aside his paranormal past as easily as he'd like to. He's been following the trail of a law firm that caters to the dead with unfinished business. His quest leads to the sinister Thoth, scribe of the underworld and Ma'at, justice personified …and the weighing of his own heart on the scale against the feather of truth. **

Rafe and Cori's story started in CROOKED HOUSE, but I wasn't ready to let go of them when I was finished with that tale, nor of an intriguing plot thread that actually started earlier in the series about a lawyer that caters to the dead with unfinished legal business (RETURN TO BLOODMOON MANOR, Book 4).

GHOSTLY TALES FROM ERIE COUNTY including "Bad Blood", "Dead Man's Road", "The Haunting of Desolation Cottage", "Keeper of Grimoire", "Cappy's Cupid", and "The Ancient One"

(release date estimate: October 2024)

** Short, haunted stories set in Bloodmoon Cove and Grimoire, Erie County, Wisconsin. **

I knew as soon as I conceived of Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series that I'd want to do a collection of ghost short stories with the volume covering some of the early years of the town as well as following up on the previous novels. The characters--main and secondary--introduced in all that came before will make appearances in the shorts.

Dreaming fragments of a story has happened to me so many times now that I've taken to having a tablet and pen in my nightstand so I can write down everything I remember immediately after waking up. The longer I wait, the more chance I'll forget something that will drift back into the twilight, never to be grasped again. I never know when these pieces might become full-fledged stories. Sometimes it feels a lot like I'm making lemons into lemonade with these gifts from the ether, but isn't that the essence of what being a writer is?

Do you have a pen and paper by your bedside just in case you wake from a compelling dream and need to write it down fast, before it floats away? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Find out more about Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series here:

https://www.writers-exchange.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBJ7XP

Happy reading!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner

Karen Wiesner: I Have Dreamed a Little Dream (Authors and Dream Inspiration), Part 3

I Have Dreamed a Little Dream, Part 3

by Karen Wiesner

"Believe in your dreams. They were given to you for a reason." ~Katrina Mayer

As a writer, the question I get most often is where my ideas come from a lot. While I can honestly say everywhere, more often than not, dreams play a huge role of my fiction writing. Something about that twilight between sleep and dreams is a veritable playground for imagination! Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series is one of my series, in particular, in which many of the stories within it stemmed from a fragment of a dream that I was able to develop into a story. In the course of the next several posts, I'll be going over how these these nightmarish gifts from the ether came to me.

This is the third of four posts focusing on my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series and the vivid nightmares or ideas that inspired the titles.

Karen Wiesner's Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series

** Nestled on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin is a small, secluded town called Bloodmoon Cove with volatile weather, suspicious folk…and newly awakened ghosts.

Don’t close your eyes… **

RETURN TO BLOODMOON MANOR, Book 4 {sequel to THE BLOODMOON CURSE, Book 2}

** Back into the mouth of hell… Daniel and Hannah are newly married with their first child on the way when Hannah is bequeathed Bloodmoon Manor. After a lifetime of poverty, the wealth associated with that house appeals to her despite that she’d barely escaped it last time with her life. Daniel’s worst fears are justified. They’ve been lured here deliberately, and the horrors that haunt the manor aren’t willing to let Hannah leave ever again… **

Late into the night, I was revising THE BLOODMOON COVE for reissue as Book 2 of my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series, and I had some pretty disturbing dreams. When I woke up, I knew I had to write the story of the secondary characters, Hannah and Daniel, from that book. The sequel, RETURN TO BLOODMOON MANOR, was born. I always adore stories where the characters are trapped in a location that lends itself to horror and fright.

Reviews and Honors for RETURN TO BLOODMOON MANOR:

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

5 star review from Huntress Reviews

5 star review from Readers Favorite

5 star review from author Barbara Raffin

REUNITED, Book 5

** Twyla has spent the last three years suffering under the hands of her husband Dominic. His death gives her a new lease on life: Freedom and the chance to fall in love with her old friend Gray, now the Erie County sheriff. But her happiness isn't meant to be. Dominic's vengeful ghost followed her home and he's determined to reunite them in death and the afterlife so she never again forgets who she belongs to… **

The idea of having an abused wife whose husband comes back from the dead to haunt her came to me first. After kicking the idea around inside my head for a few days, I got a lightbulb about how to blend this into the Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series. In Book 1 of the series, BOUND SPIRITS, the hero John Kotter has a cousin he hung out with in Bloodmoon Park (which belonged to his family). Then I wondered who would best help his cousin Twyla deal with her vengeful, dead husband. I’d already written a sheriff into BOUND SPIRITS and I decided to develop Graham "Gray" Mecham into the hero of this book. When I wrote the first draft, all these things were in place, setting up for REUNITED.

When it came time to write, the story took a turn for the very disturbing, but it works in this story so well. The dark content involved an aspect of life I hope to never be truly familiar with. Honestly, while researching and outlining this book, I didn't want to do too much research. I only did what was absolutely necessary and those few items didn't take me to places I could never erase from my own mind. This is my only book that actually has a content warning on it: Contains mature content that may not be suitable for sensitive audiences. 

Reviews and Honors for REUNITED:

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

5 star review from Readers Favorite

4 star review from Huntress Reviews

HIDDEN, Book 6

** What you don't know can hurt you…

Sybilla marries her much older entrepreneur partner Tobias. Their publishing house produces a book series focused on unusual homes. After suffering memory loss about his past, Tobias inherits an isolated estate at the top of a mountain. Uncovering its mysteries becomes their next project.

The voice of a ghost urges, Find me, leading Syl to hidden rooms and the skeletons of a family desperate to escape its demons… **

HIDDEN is based on a scary dream I had over and over in the course of years, since I was a teenager. Kind of like the Vermeer's painting within a painting, in my dream the heroine has a recurring nightmare over the course of years about moving into a house where there are hidden rooms in which horrors have taken place. In this case, the house she's moving into is Howling Halls, which has been mentioned a few times in previous books in the series. It's one of the only two estates built on Bloodmoon Mountain. (The other was Bloodmoon Manor, featured in Books 1 and 4.)

In the dreams I'd had myself, we were moving into a brand new house, and as I'm unpacking, I realize that the house has so many more rooms than I remembered from when we were touring it in anticipation of buying the house. There's also a terrifying feeling of something evil in some of the new rooms. I also had some dreams about a ghostly child throwing temper tantrums and her grandmother trying to soothe her that I incorporated into this book.

I admit I was wary about writing this story. It’s the first one that I scared the crap out of myself while outlining it. I barely got any sleep those two weeks. It’s a horror, so it makes sense, but when I told my son this, he wanted to document how often horror writers actually scare themselves, lol. I figure, how can you scare anyone else if you can’t scare yourself? But in truth everyone has different levels of what scares them.

Review for HIDDEN:

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

Have you ever a recurring dream? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Find out more about Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series here:

https://www.writers-exchange.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBJ7XP

Happy reading!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner

Karen Wiesner: I Have Dreamed a Little Dream (Authors and Dream Inspiration), Part 2

I Have Dreamed a Little Dream, Part 2

by Karen Wiesner

"Believe in your dreams. They were given to you for a reason." ~Katrina Mayer

As a writer, the question I get most often is where my ideas come from a lot. While I can honestly say everywhere, more often than not, dreams play a huge role of my fiction writing. Something about that twilight between sleep and dreams is a veritable playground for imagination! Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series is one of my series, in particular, in which many of the stories within it stemmed from a fragment of a dream that I was able to develop into a story. In the course of the next several posts, I'll be going over how these these nightmarish gifts from the ether came to me.

This is the second of four posts focusing on my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series and the vivid nightmares or ideas that inspired the titles.

Karen Wiesner's Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series

** Nestled on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin is a small, secluded town called Bloodmoon Cove with volatile weather, suspicious folk…and newly awakened ghosts.

Don’t close your eyes… **

BOUND SPIRITS, Book 1

** As a child, Esme was kidnapped and locked in a cold, dark basement. Her friends were rodents, insects, and the changeable terror that held her hostage. The only thing that kept her sane those nightmare years were her books. She’s been on the run since her escape a few months ago, never expecting to find another bound spirit come back to life. **

I’d wanted to write a ghost story for a long time—inspired after reading THE WOMAN IN BLACK and THE MAN IN THE PICTURE by Susan Hill (actually, nearly any ghost story written by her). I love that atmospheric kind of story with almost a gothic horror edge. After brainstorming over the course of many months, I came up with the idea of having the ghost story in a very unlikely place—a campground/county park. As soon as the setting was established, I thought, In fiction, what is a ghost but a bound spirit? Well, that gave me a great idea about having a heroine who’d been kidnapped as a child and held captive for most of her life until her escape. So…another bound spirit.

Reviews and Honors for BOUND SPIRITS:

5 star review and Reviewer's Top Pick from Readers Favorite

5 star review from Huntress Reviews

5 star review from Harriet Klausner

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

5 star review from author Jenna Whittaker

5 star review from author Barbara Custer

4 star review from RT Book Reviews

4 star review from The Romance Reviews

4 star review from author Marilyn Byerly

THE BLOODMOON CURSE, Book 2

** An unsuspecting nurse is lured to an ancient family mansion said to hold both ghosts and horrifying secrets in order to care for three orphaned children. Amberlyn was brought to Bloodmoon Manor to uphold the family legacy. Either she finds a way to escape with the children…or she becomes the next bloodmoon bride. **

Way back when I first got the idea for writing this book, my intention was to write a “modern gothic”. Everyone laughed at this because it’s like an oxymoron. But I wanted to write something with the palpable atmosphere you find in old fashioned gothics, only I wanted to put it in a more modern setting. I also loved the idea of putting the heroine in a place where she was basically trapped, no way in or out.

Reviews and Honors for THE BLOODMOON CURSE:

2006 Dream Realm Award Finalist

2006 eCataromance Reviewer’s Choice Award Nominee

2015 BTS Red Carpet Reader's Choice Award Nominee

5 star review from Huntress Reviews

5 star review from Fallen Angel Reviews

Fallen Angel Reviews Recommended Read Award

5 star review from EuroReviews

5 star review from Sime~Gen

5 star review from eCataromance

5 star review from Gotta Write Network

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

5 star review from The Romance Reviews

4 1/2 star review from Once Upon a Romance

4 1/2 star review from The Romance Studio

4 star review from BTSemag

CROOKED HOUSE, Book 3

** Some doors, once opened, can never be closed again… Corinne has become the heir of her dead husband's family estate. Crooked House lives up to its disturbing name, as does the last of the line who disappears so often she could believe he's a ghost. But to believe is to accept the claims of ghost hunter, Rafe Yager: The longer she stays in Crooked House, the less chance she'll ever leave. **

The basis of CROOKED HOUSE, Book 3 of my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series, was formed when, in a dream, I saw a woman visiting some obscure relative of her brand-new husband. The house was weird and creepy, to say the least. When I woke up, I decided to merge bits of this with an idea I'd been toying with them about having the hero's sister in THE BLOODMOON CURSE be the heroine in another “modern gothic”. I was going to send Janine to some obscure relative, kind of like in Naomi A. Hintze’s novel YOU'LL LIKE MY MOTHER, a favorite story when I was a teenager. I’d planned to name it THE FAMILY or CROOKED HOUSE, both of which inspire something menacing in the right genre. I was also playing a horror video game around that time that gave me some ideas about getting stuck in a house inhabited with ghosts and other menacing supernatural creatures sucking out human physical energy.

CROOKED HOUSE has a lot of the classic elements of a ghost story--vengeful ghost, haunted house, tough-guy hero and vulnerable heroine--with some unique twists and turns in the form of a cursed ring, a novice white-witch best friend who literally has no idea what she's doing, a ramshackle house in Bloodmoon Cove serving as a portal into the spirit world, along with a reluctant ghost hunter that's one of the last descendants of the (fictional) Mino-Miskwi Native American tribe whose elders disappeared during a ritual at their sacred place at the top of Bloodmoon Mountain a hundred years ago. That ritual ripped a hole in the mountain and let loose a flood of spirits that haunt Erie County.

This is funny and a little creepy real life event, but I live in an old Dutch Colonial style house (think “Amityville Horror”). Since we moved in this house, we've had what we call demon flies (which are something I wrote into CROOKED HOUSE). Literally, we’ll kill one and another one…or a dozen…will appear a second later. I once closed myself into our small sunroom, closed all the windows, and put towels under the door to prevent the flies from escaping. Then I proceed to kill them one right after the other. This went on for ten minutes or so, and I must have had a hundred dead flies in the room with me. I suddenly got freaked out because this was completely unnatural and terrifying. I fled the room and didn’t go back into it for a long time afterward. Incidentally, we're said to live in the most haunted house in our town and the unexplained spirit(s) that keeps messing with our electronics could be the reason why. I'm only mostly joking there.

Reviews and Honors:

5 star review from Linda's Reviews

4 star review from Readers Favorite

4 star review from Huntress Reviews

Have you ever been in a house reputed to be haunted? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Find out more about Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series here:

https://www.writers-exchange.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBJ7XP

Happy reading!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner

Karen Wiesner: I Have Dreamed a Little Dream (Authors and Dream Inspiration), Part 1

I Have Dreamed a Little Dream, Part 1

by Karen Wiesner

"Believe in your dreams. They were given to you for a reason."

~Katrina Mayer 

As a writer, the question I get most often is where my ideas come from a lot. While I can honestly say everywhere, more often than not, dreams play a huge role of my fiction writing. Something about that twilight between sleep and dreams is a veritable playground for imagination! Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series is one of my series, in particular, in which many of the stories within it stemmed from a fragment of a dream that I was able to develop into a story. In the course of the next several posts, I'll be going over how these these nightmarish gifts from the ether came to me. 

This will be the first of four posts focusing on my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series and the vivid nightmares or ideas that inspired the titles. 

Karen Wiesner's Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series

** Nestled on Lake Superior in northern Wisconsin is a small, secluded town called Bloodmoon Cove with volatile weather, suspicious folk…and newly awakened ghosts. 

Don’t close your eyes… **

While writing up the proposal for BOUND SPIRITS, which became the first book in my Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series, I had an idea about writing a series of ghost stories. I love scary, terrifying ghost/spirits stories as well as fun or playful ghost ones, but I also like the idea of exploring well beyond the boundaries of what a typical ghost story is considered to encompass. I intend to delve into the depths of supernatural elements with haunted places, cursed objects, portals to other worlds and/or time periods, and even unfathomable creatures from those other realms that have crossed into ours on Bloodmoon Mountain.

At the time I was working on this spark of a series concept, I was also strongly considering pulling a standalone novel I've written, THE BLOODMOON CURSE, from its publisher at time, as it'd been lagging there for quite some time. THE BLOODMOON CURSE was very mildly a ghost story, so it certainly fit the theme. Also, the book featured a small (fictional) town called Bloodmoon Cove, and I thought that would be the perfect setting for an otherworldly series. The Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series was born.

In late 2013, I got the rights back to THE BLOODMOON CURSE. I'd already finished BOUND SPIRTS long before that time and didn't want to wait around for it to be published, so I decided to make BOUND SPIRITS the first book in this new series. THE BLOODMOON CURSE became the second.

The (fictional) county the Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series is set is Erie County--what I think is a clever play on Lake Erie, which is one of the nearby Great Lakes (named for a Native American tribe in the area), and also because the town and those surrounding it (including the fiction city of Grimoire that's been featured often in the series) are “eerie”.

Have you ever dreamed something that became the basis of a story? Leave a comment to tell me about it!

Find out more about Bloodmoon Cove Spirits Series here:

https://www.writers-exchange.com/bloodmoon-cove-spirits-series/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MLBJ7XP

Happy reading!

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

https://www.goodreads.com/karenwiesner

http://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

http://www.writers-exchange.com/blog/ 

https://www.amazon.com/author/karenwiesner

Worldbuilding For Multiple Alternate Universes Part 4 How To Make Ghosts Vampires and Demons Real

Worldbuilding For Multiple Alternate Universes

Part 4

How To Make Ghosts, Vampires, and Demons Real 

Previous parts in this series are:

Part 1 - Star Trek Fan Fiction

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2021/01/worldbuilding-for-multiple-alternate.html

Part 2  - Find Some Crazy Ideas

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2021/01/worldbuilding-for-multiple-alternate_19.html

Part 3 - What Makes and Idea Too Crazy

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2021/02/worldbuilding-for-multiple-alternate.html

Here is an article from 2020, targeting the Halloween readership -- about ghosts, and the scientific explanations for what people are "really" seeing or feeling but interpreting as "supernatural."  You've read a lot of these, I'm sure.

https://www.grunge.com/162385/why-people-see-ghosts-according-to-science/

The multiple universe worldbuilding for very long series of very long novels is usually done "on the fly" by authors who accidentally write the first book in a series thinking it is a stand-alone -- only to have it sell so well that the editor asks for another book.

This has happened to me. It's REAL.  

It happened to me also on submission.  Here's one story:

My Agent told me I needed to establish another byline, so I thought about it, and found I could write one of the action-action-action novels such as we discussed in Part 3 of Worldbuilding For Multiple Alternate Universes.

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2021/02/worldbuilding-for-multiple-alternate.html

So I submitted a very short novel to my Agent which he said was too short for the market he had in mind, and I should make it longer.  So I added more action scenes - combat, unarmed combat, space-battle, but that didn't satisfy my standards for story.  So I added more story, more Relationship and Character to bring it up to the length he wanted.  He liked it, and submitted it. 

My Agent called me back shortly thereafter with good news and bad news.  He had an offer from a Mass Market paperback original editor, but they wanted a sequel.

There was a chance for even more books in the series, so I needed to add more worldbuilding - creating a sprawling galactic war backdrop that could support many sequels if needed.  

As it turned out, the publisher and editors all shifted jobs (as happens constantly in Manhattan Publishing) and the third book was never sold, but the two hit the stands and sold very well.  I retrieved the rights, and posted Hero and Border Dispute,  on Amazon Kindle as a single volume because they are very short novels by today's standards.  You can read free on Kindle Unlimited.

https://www.amazon.com/Hero-Border-Dispute-Jacqueline-Lichtenberg-ebook/dp/B002WYJG0W/

By expanding the world building behind the story of HERO I  learned a lot about how the Setting and the Story interact with the Plot of a novel, or a Series.

Hero and Border Dispute both occur in a single level of reality, no alternate universes, no "supernatural."  But those elements are in there, behind everything, hidden, and easily to be revealed if necessary.

The structural integrity of the world building behind the Setting bespeaks the author's intentions, values, understanding of Real Reality, and scope of Imagination.  

The world you build reveals more about you than what you wear, how you speak, what makes you smile, or whether you believe in God.

And most of the time, as you write, as you cast the outline of a story into a sketch, you have no idea just how much you reveal.

Are you precise, organized and goal directed?  Are you helter-skelter, mess churning, haphazard, and amateurish?  Are you an artist or an artisan?

Are you able to see the paranormal dimension in your own everyday reality?  And if you can see it, can you explain it? Do you understand it? Have you studied it? Are you master of the state-of-the-art material all humanity has generated over centuries of study of the Paranormal?

The answers to those questions are the bare bones of any fictional world you build to tell a story against.

Who are you? 

That is the essence of Worldbuilding -- building a world broad enough, strong enough, coherent enough, deep enough, and variegated enough to support a long series of long novels -- or a series of long stories broken into shorter novels, shorter books, books designed to fit into any publishing environment.

I like to depict "Aliens" -- people who maybe aren't very human, but have enough in common with Earth's humans to be recognizably people.

The question that generated the premise behind the novel HERO -- was simply, "What if an Alien species, allied to humanity to fight a vicious war, regarded heroism as a horrendous crime against their species?"  

What if heroism was a stigma?  

What if well meaning, big hearted, humans awarded such an Alien some supreme accolade for heroism? And what if he/she/it then went home?  

That's the story.

What's the plot?  Well, there has to be a common enemy and it has to be righteous and proper to slaughter them, maybe even to the point of genocide.  And there has to be a reason it's not easy.

What traits in an alien species could qualify them to be exterminated?  (Yeah, I know, so I'm a Star Trek Fan with a lot of Doctor Who included.)

So in this case, the book idea started with a Character feeling horribly embarrassed about something the reader would regard as an Honor.

And the plot, and the world (and other Characters) unfolded from that overwhelming embarrassment.

But if you look closer, you'll see that the World (the galactic war situation) these characters live in make a thematic statement you find you most of my other work -- what if what you think you see isn't actually there?  

What if you think you see ghosts -- but actually they're just real people living in another dimension?

What if Vampires (complete with blood lust and apparently magical powers) are just Aliens from another Planet stranded on Earth and struggling to get home?  

I wrote that as THOSE OF MY BLOOD and the

parallel novel DREAMSPY, and was pleased with the hardcover editions, except for the covers. The subsequent publishers took a little of my advice, and I ended up with these covers, that at least show it's a Relationship Story.   

https://www.amazon.com/Those-My-Blood-Tales-Luren-ebook/dp/B00A7WQUIW/

https://www.amazon.com/Dreamspy-Tales-Luren-Book-Two-ebook/dp/B00BFGG1RO/

What if Demons are REAL???  What if a Vampire's human friend was haunted (and viciously targeted) by a demon?  I have a series of Vampire short stories about a human/Vampire pair who have demon problems -- reprinted here:

https://www.amazon.com/Through-Vampirism-Jacqueline-Lichtenberg-Collected-ebook/dp/B004MPRUZM/

I've rarely used the "demon" character in my own work even though I have followed with rapt attention the way other writers, especially Romance genre writers, have developed the common, ordinary, symbol of pure Evil, the threat to the humanity of a human, into a varied and unpredictably almost-good-sometimes Plot Moving Character (i.e. a point of view Character).

And in the series we looked at in Part 3, the Cassie Palmer series about a time traveling guardian of the timeline titled a Pythia, we have a fully rounded depiction of demons, gods, half-breed god/demon and human/demon and god/human mixes as people trying to just live "normal" lives, and having to morph into Heroes.

The Demon, Ghost or Vampire -- the Evil One -- as the best of the Good in humanity, is actually what Science Fiction and Romance are really about.

You will find that in all my novels -- the world building is predicated on the assumption that the universe is rooted in the Fountain of Love in such a way that LOVE DOES CONQUER ALL.  

The essence of solving any problem humanity might encounter will always be the emotional bond between one human and another -- no matter the details of the species each human belongs to.

In other words, the essence of my worldbuilding is a philosophical idea about the nature of reality -- that all the universe we call "real" is fabricated from the musical note of Love.  

But to solve problems, we have to figure out what is really happening, and ride the wave of reality by understanding what is "right" and what is "wrong" in the situation we are in -- do righteously, and Love will bring an optimum solution to the problem.

So that science article about Ghosts cited above is in hot pursuit of the solution to some problems.  It poses the question gnawing at most of us -- if Science can't analyze it, then is it actually Real?  Or put another way, "What exactly is Reality?"

When you build a world to house multiple alternate Universes where the same Characters live through different plots - becoming different people because of their choices and the results of their actions - you, the writer, must know what is "right" and what is "wrong" in each of the universes and why that is so.

What property of each of your alternate universes (pocket realities, or whatever) determines the laws and rules of righteousness?

The answer to that will depend on your take on what property of our everyday reality determines what the laws of morality and ethics are.

For example: if God is real, and has revealed his Rules of Order in the Bible, then the rules of this Earth's reality are known to most of your readers (or they can Google it).

If your world uses different Rules - how does God manifest in that Reality? 

Whether the Characters know it or not, there has to be a "scientific" explanation that you know for the existence of these various orders of beings in your various alternate universes - Magic Users, gods, demons, vampires, ghosts, hostile and friendly -- for reasons.  Everything that shows on the surface of your narrative has to be consistent with those premises.  Just as in Mystery Genre, you must play fair with the reader and be sure there is a way for them to figure out what the "reality" is even if the Characters don't know it (well, especially if the Characters are clueless.)  

If God is not Real, and was just made up by bossy humans who wanted control over others, then who made up the Rules of your well built world?  What would the Rules of morality be in a world created by "Demons?" 

What do the peoples of your built world think sets the Rules, and what Rules do they argue over? (very hot wars can ensue from such a premise).

As a writer, you don't need to know the answers to these questions consciously. Most of the synthesis of all these variables will be done by your subconscious - but the resulting novels will be incoherent and incomprehensible to readers if you don't train your subconscious and fill it with the Collective Wisdom of Humanity.

You can find a whole lot of different Collective Wisdoms recorded throughout History (and pre-History) and around the Globe.  Set them against one another and you have Conflicts vast enough to support a long series of long novels.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Stubborn Skepticism Versus Indiscriminate Gullibility

Working on a paranormal romance novella, I'm presently dealing with a recurrent problem in fiction of the fantastic: How long should a character keep rejecting the possibility of the supernatural before admitting it exists? How do you find a balance between jumping to the conclusion that every anomaly proves the existence of a vampire or ghost and clinging to adamant disbelief in the face of overwhelming evidence? Most people who discovered a century-old photograph that looked uncannily like a present-day acquaintance wouldn't think he must be a vampire, after all. They'd say, "Wow, what an amazing family resemblance." On the other hand, if they saw their friend turn into a bat or a cloud of mist, it would be only sensible to entertain the vampire hypothesis.

In DRACULA, Dr. Seward at first quite logically rejects Van Helsing's pronouncement that Lucy has risen from the dead as a vampire. After all, Seward is a man of science, running a "lunatic asylum" according to the most up-to-date precepts and practices. Of course he's aghast that his revered teacher, with advanced degrees in multiple fields, would embrace outmoded superstitions. Even when they find Lucy's coffin empty, Seward falls back on the obvious explanation of grave robbers. Only when he witnesses the undead Lucy walking in the cemetery does he open his mind to the horrible truth. After that, though, he drops his objections; he doesn't try to insist she's a hoax or hallucination.

Right now I'm reading THE HOLLOW PLACES, by T. Kingfisher, an outstanding horror novel featuring an alternate universe. It offers a skillful treatment of the characters' shift from skepticism to belief. When the narrator finds a hole in a wall of her eccentric uncle's combination home and novelty museum, she assumes a visitor must have damaged the drywall and left without mentioning the mishap. Upon starting work on a patch, she and her friend Simon discover a large open area behind the wall. Naturally, they first believe they've stumbled into extra space that was walled off for some reason. As they explore, they see that it's much larger than the dimensions of the building should allow. Even then, they don't think they've fallen through an interdimensional portal. They discuss ideas such as a tunnel constructed by illegal alcohol dealers during Prohibition and try to rationalize the fact that they don't seem to have gone up or down a level as they should have. When they open a door onto a fog-shrouded river dotted by numerous small islands, though, they realize they've entered an alternate world, an "anti-Narnia," as the narrator says. Despite Simon's joking remarks about being poisoned by black mold, they don't seriously waste time on the possibility that they're hallucinating.

My work in progress features a ghost child who performs poltergeist-like tricks. At first, the protagonist does her best to attribute the odd events in her house to the cat, her seven-year-old son, or even herself in absent-minded lapses. Further along, she contemplates whether she might be sleepwalking and moving things around or whether she dreamed the strange singing she thought she heard. The sight of the little girl vanishing before her eyes forces the heroine to accept the supernatural as real. I consider it plausible that an otherwise normal, stable person would believe in a ghost rather than assume she's suddenly gone crazy with no provocation. The latter happens in vintage horror movies, not ordinary life. For the same reason, her highly skeptical boyfriend converts to the ghost hypothesis when he, too, witnesses the child disappearing into thin air.

Where should the creation of a character in fantastic fiction draw the line between the extremes of hardheaded materialism and softheaded gullibility? The former can make a character very annoying, but the latter can lose the reader's sympathy, too. The main reason I never cared for the SCOOBY-DOO cartoon series when our kids used to watch it was that, no matter how many times the gang exposed a haunted house as a hoax, when they investigated the next "ghost" Shaggy always believed in it as uncritically as ever.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt