Writing Paranormal Women's Fiction vs Urban Fantasy

I'm a planster. Meaning I plot a little, I'll do character mock up and story boards on Pinterest before I start writing, but leave pretty much everything up to the zero draft to work itself out. This method isn't one that I suggest. Many times I've found myself rewriting and never finishing a draft because I'd go on many a wonderful tangent, letting my characters take me where they want to go. (Ps. "Letting my characters take me where they want to go" is a little white lie writers tell themselves when they don't want to follow story structure and just write their characters doing fun stuff.)

So, as a plantser, I started Eastside Hedge Witch out with a formula for an urban fantasy, and realized that this book was more literary and the supernatural things that happen are metaphors for what women go through. In its essence, Eastside Hedge Witch is a story about a midlife crisis. A woman comes to terms that the life she's been leading isn't living as her truest self. She'd lost her identity and stopped practicing magic--something a lot of women who stay home with the kids do, give up their career and hobbies outside the home. Except Miriam's identity is a bad ass witch, and she not only gains that back, but becomes even more. She regains a sense of self and ventures into the supernatural world in a leadership role.

Eastside Hedge Witch was a delight to write because it became more than a parody of a magical-mixture-super-special mc. It was my first theme-heavy story (with a good dose of absurd humor). There were so many elements I wanted to explore but it could have been a five hundred paged monster and would stop feeling light. I realized quickly instead of tackling every thematic element I wanted to in one book and creating another yet unfinishable novel, I could spread what I wanted to do over several novels.

Eastside Hedge Witch is off with alpha readers, so there won't be anymore excerpts and the excerpts that exist, might be coming down, but stay tuned for the continued story in Eastside Faerie!


Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay