Playing God is fun

Last spring, after I finished writing my second book, Wren came to me with a book title, Life After Death. He thought I should write a book about a girl who had been dating Death but broke up with him.

I thought it was cute, but I wasn't overly fond of the concept. First of all, as much as I absolutely love reading paranormal romance books, I didn't think I could actually write them. Second of all, it sounded pretty boring to me. I needed more than just that general title and idea. And anybody who reads paranormal knows that I'd need a lot more action in it. It needed conflict and tension.

I kind of disregarded the idea. Then I brought the title itself back and thought maybe I'd just write a book about a girl who was dating some daredevil guy who went by the nickname "Johnny Death" or something. lol As you can see, the idea still wasn't there at all. I just felt like I needed to change the concept in order for me to be able to write it. After all, I'm no Katie Macalister or Mary Janice Davidson.

Eventually, though, I came back to the paranormal idea. This was all in a matter of days, of course, because once the idea was there in my head, I didn't want to let go of it. I wrote those first 3 chapters, then put it away.

But over the course of the last couple of weeks, while writing Life After Death, I realized something. Not only could I write paranormal, I really enjoyed writing it. One of the greatest parts of writing is being able to play God. It's like playing The Sims, really, and I love The Sims (which you could tell if you saw the sheer volume of Sims games and expansions on my shelf). I get to decide who the people are, what they do for a living, where they live, what their house looks like, what kinds of things they like, etc. And even more, I get to control everything they say and do. What could be better than that? Seriously, how many times have you watched a friend of yours screw up a conversation with a guy? Or watched your sister continuously go after guys who treat her like crap? Or seen your brother, who is a great artist, decide to go to school for accounting? (*Side note: I'm not saying there's anything wrong with accounting. If that's what you're into, I mean. It's just not a job that most creative people will be happy with. It's not like there are a slew of creative accountants out there who carve your taxes on slabs of marble then ship them off to the IRS. That would be cool, actually.)

Where was I? Oh yes. Any time you see somebody making the wrong choices in their lives, and it frustrates you....just write a story about them. Or turn them into a Sims character. Suddenly you get to play God and see what happens when they choose the path you wanted them to take.

But paranormal was different. Not only did I get the fun of controlling people, I also got to make up my own world. I got to create Limbo, which I could totally see in my head. It was like starting my own corporation in a lot of ways too, since I got to decide the business side of Limbo. And nobody could tell me I was wrong because this was MY world.

I think I'll stick to paranormal for awhile. It was certainly fun, and I'm looking forward to building on that world and expanding it outside of Limbo.