Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Foray Into Ghosts

I'll tell you right upfront I do not write paranormals or fantasies. I tend not to read paranormals or fantasies. This does not mean that people who read/write these kind of books aren't fabulously intelligent people, it just means that world building, vampires, werewolves etc. don't do it for me. And yet ... about a year ago I got an idea. From a song actually. Sugarland's Fly Away. One line in particular ...

"I could walk away and leave behind my family or get buried alive in this legacy."

... just hit me the right way and suddenly I had a character in mind with a solid back story and possible scene ideas bubbling up in my brain so fast I couldn't keep up. And of course I was in the car going 50 in a 35 so I couldn't exactly write everything down. Once I got home though, thankfully, most of the things I had thought up were still with me and I quickly jotted down a rough outline. At the time however, I was working on another manuscript and was at a point that pausing, even for a couple of days, to work on something else would have been extremely foolish. Well now that project is out of the way and so now it's time for 
Enchanted Temptation (the title needs work, but all titles need work).

There's only one problem. The book features a ghost. Yeah. A ghost. I don't do ghosts. I don't know anything about ghosts. OK, that's a lie, I do know all about Casper. And Ghostbusters. But what I don't know is ghosts in romance novels. I've read a few books here and there (especially Christmas anthologies ... always back to
Christmas
Anthologies
) that have ghosts and a few Halloween related ones too (though I can't think of any right now). But what I really need is a list of books to use as a point of reference. These books should feature ghosts that don't take over the entire story, that are sweet(ish) and are believable. So, in my first attempt to reach out to the readers of this blog (anyone out there?) I have a request ...

What are your recommendations for romance novels that feature ghosts but in which ghosts are not the overriding element to the novel?

Oh, and P.S. my heroine does not get buried alive ... maybe figuratively, but not literally. I'm claustrophobic, I couldn't do that to ANYONE.

P.P.S For your reading pleasure, here is the first paragraph to 
Enchanted Temptation. Which will change in the final form in one way or another, possibly scrapped completely.

It was happening again. Philippa tore the light sheets from her legs and sprang up from bed. The blasted light bounced twice on her window sill, delighted she was up, and then dropped down into the courtyard. An interesting development since the previous times the little ball of golden-y pink light had stayed in her bedroom. Twice now it had woken her. Glittering and flickering like an almost-gone candle before her eyes, her dreams were soaked in a weird sort of pale gold color before she jerked awake, startled. It would then fly away from her before she could reach a hand to touch it to land on a spot in the room and stay just long enough to force her from bed before disappearing.

2 comments:

Cindy said...

Emily, a similar thing happened to me when I found myself writing a ghost story for my blog a few years ago. I eventually wrote a novel with those paranormal elements, even though that's not what I read OR write. So when you hear of some good ghost stories, let me know!

Emily said...
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