Guest Post: Shawn Martin, author of Forget Me Not
Ever since Addison came back to Aileen, her have been brighter and life is sweeter. Until a mysterious man slips a spellbinding cameo around her neck, a cameo that strangles memories. Aileen is left with not the faintest notion who Addison is.
Addison, a three hundred year old fugitive from the netherworld taking the form of Shadowflesh, recognizes the cameo and the curse cast upon his unsuspecting love. But he knows breaking the curse, which may bring back her memories, will cost Aileen her life. To love her means to let her go.
But Aileen can't take her eyes off the stranger who keeps ignoring her. The stranger who pushes her into the arms of another.
Geoff, who has waited oh, so long for Aileen, tries to sweep her off her feet at the Christmas masquerade ball. But a serendipitous moment lands Aileen back together with Addison. One passionate kiss later, she knows beyond a shadow of doubt that she loves Addison, the icy stranger with smoky blue eyes.
Remembering comes at too high a price though. Aileen must run for her life with the curse only a breath away.
Three Easy Rules
by
Shawn Martin
When I was in college, I stumbled upon a book filled with nostalgic black and white pictures of Hollywood's supernatural creatures. The one which I remember the most was the werewolf. That was because of the scholarly debate which ensued among my friends. How do you kill a werewolf?
I listened to all the theories, everything from a stake in the heart to being eaten by a shark to thermonuclear annihilation. But deep down I knew they were all wrong. The only way to kill a werewolf is by shooting it in the heart with a silver bullet, and I said as much. Then I caught the wrath of a dozen philosophy majors, ranting and raving about how deadly nukes could be.
Though the detonation of a nuclear bomb might indeed result in the demise of a man-wolf hybrid, it would have little long-term effect on the paranormal hairy beasty—the one that matters. And I came to this conclusion: If you're going to debate, discuss, or write about the paranormal world, you must follow three easy rules.
Rule 1: You can't change the lore. No matter how much it might make sense, no matter how convincing someone makes an argument, you can't change the lore surrounding a paranormal being. Let's look at that werewolf again. Say you write a story where the heroine chops off the werewolf's head and mails it to Bora Bora. Halfway there, the mail plane is sucked into the ocean, never to be seen again. And you conclude your story by saying the werewolf is "dead." Well, if the paranormal creature ends up dead in your story, then fine... but it wasn't a werewolf. No silver bullet.
Rule 2: Follow the lore. Vampires are often far more fascinating than werewolves, because there are a lot more ways to kill a vampire. Stake in the heart, sunlight, fire, just to name a few. But there is only one way to kill a werewolf. So, if you write a story about a werewolf and the werewolf must die, work a gunslinger with sterling bullets into the pages. It's a must.
Rule 3: If you can't follow Rule 1 & 2, create your own paranormal being with its own lore. This happens to be my favorite rule. While I enjoy a good vampire novel or werewolf story, I find myself enthralled with new and exciting beings escaping the dungeon of some writer's mind. There are no limits, and anything can happen. No silver bullets necessary.
About the Author:
Shawn Martin is the author of Forget Me Not, a young adult paranormal novel and the second book in the Shadowflesh Series. (Shadowflesh, following Rule 3, is a paranormal being locked within an ethereal prison but allowed to roam the earth from time to time, gathering the souls of their victims).
