Recently there have been a series of freaky, scary, pee-your-pants kind of horror flick called “Paranormal.” I want to make it clear I have not seen it. I saw enough of it in the preview to know it would make my heart race until it exploded. But Paranormal is just a title. So what does it mean in the writing world?
The Paranormal genre is similar to fantasy. It has been explained to me that the only difference between paranormal and fantasy is the world. In paranormal the fantastic happens our world. In fantasy there is another, separate world, like Narnia or Hogwarts where amazing things happen.
While paranormal’s tend to be darker in nature, it isn’t always true. You will find that Wingless is a “light” paranormal. So when you see a Paranormal Romance you know it will have a fantastic element to it, in the current world you know, and it will usually have a Happily Ever After 🙂
Shelley Martin Fiction 
Haha! I put a picture of a ghost between the first two paragraphs, and it dissappeared! Typical ghost.
I’m glad to know the difference. I hadn’t heard of the movie (a perk of relying on the Internet over TV). Still counting down!
(Just a thought)~ Paranormal is normally thought of a darker idea because the idea that there is an unseen world we can’t control triggers are most basic reaction to something we don’t understad: Fear. Horror movies of the paranormal seem to be a person’s idea of all the bad things that could happen if said Supernatural parallel universe existed. I find it interesting though that most horror stories almost always leave out the light in the Paranormal idea. Don’t they know there is balance in all things? You can’t have demon’s without angels or visa versa. Just like a vampire novel… Werewolves are bound to show up eventually.
Actually, I think the redundancy of the genres is a bit, well, redundant. If a book has fantasy elements in it, it is fantasy. What used to be “Urban Fantasy” is now being called “Paranormal” and it is confusing the crap out of me. LOL I understand that for some bookshops it would make stocking easier, but in my mind it is still all just fantasy. 😀