Hi, I’m science fiction and fantasy author Carol Van Natta, and I live in author Pat Stoltey’s home town of Fort Collins, CO. She was gracious enough to invite local authors over to her virtual house, and I was happy to RSVP. I’m a mystery fan.
My flagship series is the Central Galactic Concordance series, a sprawling space opera with a big damn story arc that I figure will take at least nine books to do it justice. My muse’s home planet is science fiction, probably because I was corrupte… er, exposed at a young age and grew up with scientists. However, my muse loves vacationing in fantasy, romance, action, suspense, paranormal, adventure, mystery, and thriller, several of which are likely to turn up in my stories. I’d always planned to write the first four or five stories in the CGC series, then start a whole new second series from one of the dozen plot bunnies I’ve squirreled away. Instead, I got hit by the cross-genre bus.
Back in December, a best-selling science fiction and fantasy (and now YA) author named S.E. Smith asked if I’d like to be part of a new Kindle Worlds project she was putting together. (Think of Kindle Worlds as licensed fan fiction.) She was looking for paranormal romance novellas written in her good-natured “Magic, New Mexico” universe. Mind you, I’d never written a paranormal romance in my life, and I tend to write long, but the opportunity to work with her and eight other authors was too good to pass up. The result was In Graves Below, about a disabled veteran and a magical dancer vs. a demon horde that wants to make Denver an all-you-can-eat buffet, released May 5.
Paranormal romance, or PNR for short, is usually an overlay of magic on the traditional subcategories of romance – contemporary, historical, suspense, etc. It’s like asking “what if” on a grand scale—what if the main characters not only had to deal with falling in love, but the fact that they turn into panthers on a regular basis? This is world building 101, which is catnip to my science-fiction oriented muse. In some ways, the PNR world was easier, because it’s based on the real world, but that’s a double-edged sword. In my space opera series, I can invent interstellar travel and new materials, but in PNR, I have to research the real world so I know what laws of physics I’m breaking, or where my story deviates from the real history of Native Americans in southern New Mexico in the 1700s. It was fun to write, and if this one does well at the virtual bookstand, I have enough research to write another one, too.
Right now, I’m working on books four and five of my space opera series, for which the first three books, Overload Flux, Minder Rising, and Pico’s Crush, laid the groundwork. Peace and stability have prevailed for the past two hundred years, but underneath, trouble is brewing, bringing change—unwanted by some, welcomed by others. It’s going to be wild ride.
After that, I plan to visit the bus stop and see what comes along.
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Carol Van Natta is a science fiction and fantasy author of the award-winning Central Galactic Concordance space opera series, of a retro science fiction comedy, and In Graves Below, a paranormal romance. She shares her Fort Collins, Colorado home with a sometime mad scientist and various cats. Any violations of the laws of physics in her books can be blamed on the cats.
You can learn more about Carol and her books at her website. She can also be found on Facebook. Subscribe to her newsletter here.
In Graves Below is available for Amazon Kindle.
Image credits: Pixabay.com; Picture This Photography. Cover design by Melody Simmons.
Carol is giving away one e-copy of one of her books (winner’s choice) to a visitor who leaves a comment before midnight Mountain Time Wednesday, June 22nd.
I’m pleased to announce that the winner of one of Carol’s books is Alex J. Cavanaugh.
I use random.org to make the selection after numbering the responses in order of posting. Congratulations, Alex!
I’m working on my 4th genre right now and I love it.
Diane, I agree — it’s fun to let your muse wander through the genres at will. Keeps it off the streets and out of the karaoke bars. 😉
Carol, I enjoyed your guest post here, and laughed when I read this in one of your comments “icky romance in their beloved science fiction.” I think my husband would have agreed. He did love science fiction and would not have liked a strong romantic element in the story. Still, I think those stories appeal more to women who are also SciFi fans, which I am not. I’m old, and old-fashioned and like my genres separated on my plate. LOL
Maryann, nothing wrong (and everything right) about liking what you like. Readers should be free to find their catnip, and not apologize for not liking the stuff that’s s’posed to be GOOD for you. I write because I want to read the stories I have to tell, and funnily enough, the cats won’t write them for me, the lazy bums.
If cats can be blamed for breaking the laws of physics, what can I blame my border collies for? I thoroughly enjoyed your blog post. I appreciate how you can switch genres with ease. My brain works that way, but my writing fingers haven’t figured out the concept yet, and I have to focus on one genre at a time. How do you keep all your disparate ideas under control?
Jaydine, in my limited experience, dogs will take the blame for anything, as long as treats or attention are involved in the outcome. Give your collies something to herd, and I bet they’ll take the blame for the Kennedy assassination.
I wouldn’t say I keep the disparate ideas under control, so much as organized. My writer brain is like a little magpie, attracted by the shiny. I use a program called Evernote (online and computer) to make notes about those ideas as they come along. Sometimes I use them for creative avoidance, too, such as if I’m having trouble with a scene in my WIP, rather than stew about it, I’ll go work on the outline for something else for a while. It quells the frustration, and gives my subconscious the chance to figure out what the problem is (usually making my characters do something stupid, or too early).
I really respect authors who create the sort of unique story that doesn’t fit neatly into one genre category. And after all, aren’t those categories limiting at times? Thanks for sharing.
Margot, I think genres can help a reader sort through the bazillions of choices to find books they know they like, but they can be used as an artificial (and inappropriate) measure of a story’s worthiness. For example, I think science fiction romance (SFR), a relatively new genre, is gaining a dedicated fan base, but there are still detractors who complain that someone got icky romance in their beloved science fiction.
I’ve written something that wasn’t science fiction and it was rather fun.
Will check out your books, Carol!
Thanks, Alex. I see you write rollicking space opera, so what was your non-SF book? I have plot bunnies for other SF and other fantasy series, and even a steampunk series.