Monsters Around Us

One of my favorite aspects about writing The Paladin is building the world. Now, unlike a pure fantasy novel where you'd have to build the entire world from scratch, this is urban fantasy. I'm using a pre-existing world and modifying it. Something like Men In Black. 

Today's topic, specifically, is the world that exists all around us (the people of The Paladin.) While the average person sees nothing strange, Jonathan slowly learns about vampires, werewolves, and all kinds of monsters that live among us. It's fun to figure out how these sub-cultures and hidden people would live. Do werewolves go to the grocery store? Do vampires see the latest Marvel movies?

The best part is creating your own monsters and seeing where they can fit. What roles can they take in society that won't mess with people's perception? How can they survive without outing themselves? Maybe it's just me, but I absolutely love this part of the writing process.

I think too many times out there writers add in a bunch of fun stuff, looking for things that would be cool, but they don't consider the consequences of these additions. They don't think about the long term effects of having a ghost live in a school or a dragon living in a subway. Every action has consequences and following those through to their logical conclusions, even if you don't write about them, is important to make sure the world makes sense. 

So what about you guys? Have any of you inserted your own creations into existing worlds? Or made brand new worlds and added fantastic elements? What consequences have you come up with that may not necessarily be worth writing about? Hit me up in the comments.

​DFTBA!