S.D. Grimm | Immerse Yourself in the Paranormal

Hello! I am so excited to be on Fresh Fiction for Supernatural day! I love all things supernatural from creepy, bump-in-the-night things (hence SUMMONER, which is basically a ghost story and love story wrapped up together) to the pretty and fascinating things like unicorns and dragons and gryffins. (Gryffindor represent!)

One of the really cool things about the fantasy genre, I think, is seeing how
different creatures have changed in folklore over time, or how they can be
different in different works of fiction. I mean, how cool are the flying
thestrals in Harry Potter than you can only see if you’ve witnessed a death?
What a new take on a normal Pegasus-type of creature?

Those surprises and differences are something that I love as a reader and lover
of all things geeky. When I settle down with my popcorn to watch a new show
about vampires and learn that they can be in the sun, or the sun does in fact
burn them, or they can have magical daylight rings that allow them to walk in
the daytime (oh my gosh, early seasons of The Vampire Diaries, anyone? Can I
just geek out about that show for a moment!?), I start to love that different
fantasy worlds can bend or break or make new rules. And I love it. Because it
gives me something new to immerse myself into as I get to know a new world. A
new setting.

That surprise within the familiar is something I look forward to in a new story.
I have to admit, out of all the creepy supernatural beings, ghosts were never at
the top pf my list of things to write about. I mean, I love a good werewolf
story and vampires are fun, too. But ghosts are spine tingly in a whole
different way. Just the idea of them being connected to the spiritual realm and
death. The idea that they are souls with a past. Maybe even a past they miss. A
connection to the afterlife.

I’m a very spiritual person, so some of that hit really close to home for me,
and it wasn’t necessarily a topic I considered delving into . . . until I did.
Because fiction is full of layers. That’s what we connect to, right? I mean, I
don’t connect to a werewolf breathing down my neck and chasing me through a dark
forest—because it’s never happened to me. But I *do* connect to fear. I connect
to the feeling of being lured in by something evil and scary and then regretting
that I walked down that path. I swear, sometimes the things that happen in
stories full of fantasy and sci-fi ground me more than those based on real life
things. Maybe that’s why I’m a proud geek.

I want my stories to have re-readability, and when I started looking into
writing about ghosts, and I started to see a story that was about people being
haunted not only physically (by a crazy, vengeful ghost—yasssssss!) but also
emotionally, I got really excited. This theme of forgiveness and redemption
started to blossom out of my plans for this book. And I found it—even in the
middle of blood and fear and guilt and creepy hauntings—beautiful. And relatable.

And of course, I fell in love with the world and the idea and the characters and
just had to write Allie and Cody’s story.

As an enjoyer of books and movies and amazing stories, it’s that connection to
the character that I love most. And, yeah, at first glance, maybe the
supernatural elements seem too farfetched to connect to, but that’s because it
was only a first glance. And stories weren’t meant for glances. They were meant
as something to immerse yourself into. So I think I’m gonna go find an awesome
supernatural story and do just that.