You might as well ask me why I like black licorice. I just do. And I like Stephen King’s answer to that question. “What makes you think I have a choice?”
But why do I write paranormal stories?
As a kid, I had experiences I couldn’t explain and got few answers to my questions. So I went in search of knowledge, reading all I could find on the strange and usual. The Bermuda Triangle by Charles Berlitz pushed the needle in that grove for me. I was obsessed with what happened to Flight 19, and traveled through The Triangle several times. Nothing happened, as if someone saw me coming and thought it would be funny to order up the most perfect days on record. Not a white cap on the horizon or a cloud in the sky. But that didn’t make me any less addicted to the idea of experiencing something amazing and unexplainable.
I had written traditional stories for years, but none of them sold. The trending advice was: “write what you read.” I had trouble finding new fiction of interest outside the teen section. How did that happen? I wanted paranormal for grown-ups, not dreamy infatuation and delusional super powers. And I wasn’t alone. This need for more mature paranormal stories spawned a genre called New Adult.
I read literary works, and am painfully aware that serious literature gets better press. But when reading for recreation, who really wants to be mired in situations so steeped in reality? Where is the fun? Where is the escape? And I don’t mean the wrist-slitting kind. I enjoy intellectual book discussions as much as anyone, but I my hackles went up a little when a guy asked me with a crinkled face, “Why do you write that stuff?” He sounded as if he was spitting out a bitter slice of something only the Bizarre Foods guy would put in his mouth.
“People remember a good story,” I said, resisting the urge to pick a fight.
For centuries, people have passed their history and knowledge through oral stories. Never mind that the first written stories were pictorial.
Paranormal writing suffers the stigma of being viewed as dime novel or pulp fiction. Popular fiction isn’t necessarily written for the purpose of teaching, but it can. Although genre work might not garner the respect of literary fiction, escapist stories can heal and inspire while they entertain. Isn’t it more fun to be entertained without realizing that you might be learning through the relationships of the characters and their circumstances?
I like to think I’m attracted to the paranormal because I’m open to new ideas. There is so much we don’t know about the mysteries of the universe. I enjoy exploring what I think and believe about the unknown. Anything is possible, if not necessarily probable. The paranormal might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it can open a closed mind to a new world of possibilities.
I write that stuff. It’s what I enjoy.
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Sheila Englehart is the author of Warning Signs, published by Second Wind Publishing
When I was a boy, my dad hated that I read comic books. He later told, after I became an adult, that he feared I wouldn’t graduate to more literary reading. As if I’d still be reading Spiderman at age 50.
One man’s pulp is another man’s literary feast. Today we have sci fi, considered pulp, and science fiction, which is a step or two above sci fi.
I’m told that, today, there is a huge market for paranormal fiction, including stories about “the other side.” This should bode well for me and my forthcoming novel, A Retrospect in Death.
A fine post, Sheila. Keep writing what you’re moved to write and may your audience find you!
Thanks for that! I look forward to your book. People tell me I “deal in death” in my fiction. Another obsession I was born with. I think the dead have a lot left to say.
Sheila
Well, Sheila, I, too, have a fascination with death. Oliver Wendell Holmes perhaps said it best: “After sixty years the stern sentence of the burial service seems to have a meaning that one did not notice in former years. There begins to be something personal about it.”
I don’t fear death, it’s the dying part that scares me: the not knowing how or when. But then I remind myself death is not so much finality, a cessation of life, but instead a transmutation.
I have never feared death either. I’m not sure I even fear the how or when. I do fear leaving without having fulfilled “my contract.” Just never like to leave anything unfinished.
Sheila Englehart sheilaenglehart@aol.com
In the timeless words of Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.” Actually the recent publication of Eben Alexander’s book “Proof of Heaven” is making an exceedingly strong argument that the sort of phenomenon you write about, Sheila, is quite real and not beyond the scope of serious investigation. It’s important to remember, I think, that so much in the sciences we take for granted today was scoffed at in ages past. Quite apart from that, your work just drags readers in and doesn’t let them go. Have you been bragging, by the way, about being the first time winner of the Mother Vine Award for Paranormal Fiction?
Thanks, Mike. And yes, I am riding that award like a magic carpet.
Sheila Englehart sheilaenglehart@aol.com
Sheila, Paranormal is not my cup of tea. HOWEVER, you write with conviction and passion. I applaud your efforts that resulted in an award for you. Keep up the good work.
Thank you, Shar. Without passion it’s pointless, right?
Sheila
You are soooo right. I’m 64 and just starting to write short stories about my life. In my career, as a program evaluator/researcher, I wrote reports that fit boiler plate requirements. I knew I wanted to be free and write what I wanted to write. The passion and desire kept building over 20 years. Now I feel like I have a “new lease on life”! (If I don’t look in the mirror, I think I’m about 35!!)
Shar
We should write what we like. You have found a great niche and one with a hungry audience. I’ve always been intrigued by mysteries like the Bermuda Triangle too.