Advice for New Writers

I would like to recommend a website for writers who are looking for a community that will offer feedback and support for their work. Write and Share is a UK based website that has grown at an incredible rate during the last twelve months. I have been with them from the start, and I can't actually remember how it was that I connected with the owner, Naomi Chance. All I know is that she is a wonderfully supportive and enthusiastic writer who shares her passion with others.

I have become very closely affiliated with Write and Share, and now offer my own writers' advice corner. Here is the link: http://www.writeandshare.co.uk/category/author-catherine-greens-advice-corner/ Under my personal account I have posted some short stories and extracts of my novels, which you can read and review as you wish. This is the same for all members of the site. I encourage you to look at my writers' advice articles, especially if you are an amateur who is seeking guidance, or an Indie author simply learning more about your craft. I write from personal experience, and am confident in what I share.

Writing a good Redcliffe Conclusion

For the last week I have been mentally preparing the conclusion for my latest Redcliffe novel Love Kills. This follows the story of bookshop owner Jessica Stone as she comes to terms with the revelation that her lover is a vampire, his identical twin brother is a werewolf, and that she is a witch who must now learn to accept her heritage and embrace her newly discovered powers. The story is set on the rugged coast in Cornwall, England, and I have a host of vampire and werewolf supporting characters, with a few humans and witches thrown in for good measure.

The novel writing went very well until I reached the end. Then I began to struggle. I wanted to end the story at a point which leads easily into the third book in my Redcliffe series, but not so that it was too abrupt. While I was away on a short family holiday, I kept repeating the conclusion in my head, and every day it changed slightly. Tonight I finally managed to sit down and actually do the writing.

I was in for a surprise. Once I had settled my daughter in bed, I quickly became engrossed in my work. My fingers flew over the keys, the words appeared as if by magic on the computer before me. And my conclusion to Love Kills began to take shape with a surprisinly dramatic outcome. I still have a little more to write, and I have reached another brick wall of sorts. But I'm not worried. After a good night's sleep and a day of household chores, I have no doubt that my muse will be back on fine form tomorrow evening and I will write the perfect conclusion. Bring it on!

The Modern Paranormal Romance

When people hear the words ‘paranormal romance’ today they will most probably associate it with the popular Twilight franchise, and maybe even the HBO television series True Blood. It is strange to think that the original horror novel Dracula was actually a romance of sorts, although it was grotesque and evil to reflect Victorian values.
It is no longer acceptable to have a truly evil vampire who preys on innocent humans. We have evolved in our society to a point where we realise our arrogance in the face of such stereotypical views. In contemporary paranormal romance novels, vampires, shape shifters, and other non-human creatures are often treated as another race, a group of people that should not be discriminated against, but that are reviled for their supernatural abilities and nature.

I have recently finished reading Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris. It is the latest of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, and I really enjoyed it. There was a clever mix of supernatural activity, and everyday ‘normal’ human life. The heroine, Sookie, spends her evenings fighting manipulative and unpleasant vampires and shape shifters, and her day time hours are filled with household chores and paid employment. She struggles to fit in her human friends, and their baby showers and weddings, and all of the standard rites of passage that humans live by, and that are safe, happy events.

My novel Love Hurts follows this pattern, or at least that is what I intended. My heroine is a human (or so she believes), who runs a small business with her close friend. She is dating a vampire, and once she discovers his hidden secret (because in my Britain, supernatural creatures still remain hidden from society), she then struggles to merge her human life with her supernatural one.

This is where I am drawn in with the genre. I love the idea that mundane life can be livened up with a different cultural perspective, especially an apparently violent and volatile one. It makes life interesting. We need an escape from our daily household routine, and our regular pattern of work and play. That is what paranormal romance offers, and I love discovering new and exciting authors who weave their own perspective and experiences into their tales.

I hope that other people will read Love Hurts and will feel the same excitement and enjoyment that I did when I wrote it. And that those same people will follow my heroine Jessica Stone, as she stumbles through a relationship with a vampire and his identical twin werewolf brother, while supporting her human best friend with a new baby. Oh, and she has a gay best friend who is a werewolf too, just because I can!