Fantasy sub-genres labeled as paranormal.
This week I would like to talk about the fantasy sub-genres labeled as paranormal.
Being a relatively new genre, the categorizations of fantasy can be confusing and perplexing. I mentioned some of the sub-genres of fantasy briefly in an earlier post, but I still have a lot to say about them.
The first time I came across people using the term paranormal fiction I wassurprised. I have to admit, when I learned that people actually categorize book genres as either paranormal or fantasy I was incredulous. I mean, seriously? Really? Really?
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I was appalled and upset: overcome with the feeling that there was a lot of blatant misinformation going around about the fantasy genre. Truthfully, I thought it was bizarre.
Fantasy is clearly a very broad genre that encompasses everything magical, supernatural, and yes paranormal .
So why do people even bother with the term paranormal?
Paranormal is basically something that isn't scientifically explainable. In my personal opinion it is the same thing as fantasy. Fantasy is a genre revolving around magic; magic is something that cannot be scientifically explained. If you want to make up a sub-genre of fantasy called paranormalfine. But the label paranormal seems to be consistently misused. Contemporary fantasy, and urban fantasy are actual genres that fit into the mainstream (or uninformed) the definitions of supposed paranormal fiction.
The actual paranormal genre is anything that cannot be scientifically or magically explained. So when someone labels a ghost story as paranormal they are completely right. But if someone labels a story with magic in it as paranormal, that is incorrect.
To be completely honest, the concept of paranormal romance kind of confuses me. If the implication is that vampires are paranormal, instead of magicalwell to that I'd tell you to explain how the specific vampire mythology is or isn't magical. If an authors vampire mythology (and none of their other mythologies) have absolutely no magic then the story is paranormal. But how may stories can actually say that? How many paranormal romances are actually fantasy romances?
Ghost stories are clearly paranormal. But what about stories involving powers invoked by a higher being? If the higher being is of an actual religion (or ancient mythology) it would be traditional fantasy based and thus fantasy romance. If it is a made-up god, such as the gods of J.R. Wards Black Dagger Brotherhood who created all of the supernatural creatures what would that fall under? The paranormal definition actually fits here.
I do believe that there are many ways in which the paranormal definition makes sense, but I also believe that it is silly to define so many fantasy things as paranormal things.
Im currently in a forum that divides fantasy fiction, and paranormal fiction writers. In the paranormal fiction writers forum, many writers describe their books as having magic and other supernatural creatures. The fantasy fiction forum, on the other hand, clearly is high fantasy (traditional vs high fantasy post) focused. So I ask again, really? Really?
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What do you think of the paranormal genre? Do you believe the term is misused?
Need to give appropriate credit with regard to this posting mainly to https://breathassured.ca. I got the idea for this as a result of I little piece I read up on from there site.
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Posted in Health and Medical Post Date 01/08/2016