Let's all cheer for paranormal activity!
Mar 31, 2023 6:21 pm
Paranormal White Elephants
My obsession with the paranormal isn't exactly new. When I was a kid I nurtured ideas of becoming a parapsychologist. So I read a lot about different kinds of supernatural happenings. I've never seen a ghost, but I know a lot about them.
Poltergeists, despite what the eponymous movie leads you to believe, are not caused by restless spirits. The prevailing theory is that they are either caused by or centered on a living person, usually a young woman. Some of the historical accounts of poltergeists are pretty terrifying. I've heard tales in which these poor girls (and their families) were tormented for years by objects flying around, people being lifted in the air, and furniture moving across the room to crash dangerously near people. Is it some demon doing it out of jealously for the attention of the girl? Or is it the power of the girl herself, a physical manifestation of the tumult of adolescence?
In Vampire's Dayrunner, I used the idea of supernatural powers being a white elephant (in the original meaning of the term, a priceless gift that was mostly a burden.) I wanted Kit to have been changed by her experience in the Realm, and this seemed like a fun way to torment her. My general rule was to make this gift work against her far more often than it worked for her.
Kit doesn't just see magic, she causes it too. When you're this freaky around the edges, it's hard to keep the paranormal secret.
Did you read this book? I'd love your reviews and recommendations!
I think I made her suffer enough. Kit gets the first inkling of this power in book two, Dryad's Blade, and is just barely BARELY starting to control it in book seven, Sorrow's Apprentice, but she can't use it reliably until book ten, Wyvern's Sigil.
This week's question: Have you ever had something move or fall with no rational explanation?
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