Use Humor in the Torture Chamber by Sarah Raplee

Humor is integral to my writer’s voice. I am a plotter and a pantser, meaning I outline the story to a certain degree before I begin to write. Humor is something that ‘just happens’ as I write, even when the subject matter and situations are dark. Writing instructor Alicia Raisley once told me I write “dark comedy.” At the time, I thought I was writing Romantic Suspense with paranormal elements, but I understand what she meant.

(Caveat: I was going to share some excerpts from my published stories to illustrate the following points, but due to a series of unfortunate events, my books and digital copies on thumb drives are in storage while we’re having the wood floors refinished. Guess I’ll paraphrase or make things up as I go along instead.)

A good illustration of the “dark comedy” humor is from BLINDSIGHT, Book 1 in my Psychic Agents Series. The hero, Hector, is tie-wrapped to a chair in a drug lord’s torture chamber when he regains consciousness. When one of the drug lord’s minions who never liked Hector comes in to taunt him and threaten him, Hector belittles the guy with wisecracks until the man pistol whips him. Hector used the opportunity to invite a very bloody but not too serious wound as a ploy to feign unconsciousness and buy time. The reader learns this information when the guy leaves. Hector thinks, Nothing like a scalp wound to impress an audience. He uses humor to distance himself (and the reader) emotionally from a terrible situation.

Later in the story, Hector, Meli (blind heroine) and Fred (guide dog) hear the awful roars and screams as a bear attacks the bad guys and tracking dogs who are hunting them through the wilderness. The heroine has a phobia of bears. She throws upher meager breakfast while Hector holds back her hair. Fred, who is not ‘in harness’ (working), tries to sneak a taste. Anyone who has lived with a dog knows this is a realistic canine bad habit, making the situation relatable. The fact that Fred (a dog genius, according to Meli) does it is funny. That Fred does this at a point in the story where some really horrific stuff is happening lightens the mood and helps balance the story tone.

In a lighter short story in the anthology Love and Magick, a medieval prince cursed by an evil gnome into the form of a wolf finds himself falling for the peasant maiden he protected, who is nursing his wounds. He has impure thoughts about said maiden as he drifts off to sleep, but struggles to control them because the maiden’s seven-year-old sister can read his mind. The little girl knows he is human because she can read his mind. But her sister doesn’t believe her, and his thoughts are no longer private. The mind reading is a good news/bad news situation—always good for a laugh.

In an unpublished Steampunk story, I wrote a heroine who is on the autism spectrum. She is smart and beautiful but socially somewhat clueless. Her interactions with other characters are often funny in a fish-out-of-water way, but they also help make her relatable to the reader. Fish-out-of-water characters and plots offer lots of opportunities for humor.

The longer I’ve studied the craft of writing, the more I’ve come to understand when and why humor works.

Do you use humor often in your stories? Do you like stories with humor? Please share an example in a comment. ~Sarah Raplee

WHY PSYCHIC AGENTS? by Sarah Raplee

Hi, I’m Sarah Raplee, author of the Psychic Agents Series of Romantic Suspense novels. Why psychic agents?

Because they are so fun to write! 

I love “what ifs”. 

For example:

What if the FBI has a top-secret unit of agents with extraordinary psychic abilities who are a resource for both U.S. law enforcement agencies and those of our allies?

What if an agent who can find anything or anyone, anywhere, can’t find the man who murdered his family?

What if every time a blind wedding singer kisses a man, he passes out?

What if a drug cartel run by powerful psychic criminals kidnaps and enslaves other psychics in order to achieve world domination?

I also love world building, constructing a world in which such a story can take place. In order for the stories set in this world to make sense, I have to design a “cosmology” of rules that govern the way things work.

For example:

Is the general public aware that psychic Talents are real? Or is this knowledge limited to a select group?

How does the top-secret unit get assigned to cases?

Is psychic Talent inherited? Developed by exposure to a virus? Caused by an experiment gone awry?

If inherited, how is it passed down?

Do parents with the same Talents pass the same Talents to their children?

What happens when a regular human has a child with someone with Talent?

I had a wonderful time world building the Psychic Agents series. I hope I’ve piqued your interest so you'll read the blurb for BLINDSIGHT, Book 1 in the Psychic Agents series from Windtree Press.

 BLINDSIGHT BLURB:

A tenacious FBI Psychic Agent who can find anything…

A lonely blind woman with a dangerous kiss…

A brutal psychic criminal obsessed with killing one and controlling the other…

When FBI Psychic Agent Hector Guerrero’s family was kidnapped and murdered, he swore to stop the slave trade in psychics. Undercover for three years in the Mendoza Drug Cartel, he’s zeroing in on a hidden prison camp in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Nothing will stop him from taking down the Cartel.

Blind wedding singer Melisenda Smith can’t keep from projecting her emotional energy onto others through touch. Meli’s nomadic life performing throughout the Pacific Northwest allows her to avoid physical and emotional intimacy. But now her only family, her elderly guide dog Freddy, must stop traveling. Desperate to pay for a career change so she can work from home and keep her beloved companion, Meli accepts a risky gig at a drug lord’s wilderness wedding.

When the Cartel targets Meli for kidnapping, Hector loses his focus. When Meli blows his cover, she loses Hector’s trust. When Meli rescues Hector from a torture chamber, Hector might well lose his battered heart.

I hope you enjoyed my post. Please visit my Amazon Author Page to learn more. ~Sarah

ROMANTIC THRILLERS WITH A PARANORMAL TWIST by Sarah Raplee

Hi, I’m Sarah Raplee, author of BLINDSIGHT (Psychic Agents Series Book 1).

Psychic Agents Series Blurb:

Over the last hundred years, the number of people with psychic gifts in the general populace, world-wide, continues to increase. The Special Psychic Agents of the FBI’s Global Resources Subdivision are a law enforcement resource hidden deep in the Bureau’s International Operations Division. These men and women are charged with using their powerful psychic Talents in support of FBI operations and foreign law enforcement organizations upon request. These unsung heroes routinely lay their lives—and their hearts—on the line in pursuit of justice for all.

As Matt Buchman said in his post last Saturday, writing a romantic thriller is a balancing act. The thriller storyline and the romance storyline must be so interwoven that one cannot stand without the other.

In the case of paranormal romantic thrillers like BLINDSIGHT, the paranormal elements must be integral to both storylines and to the main characters’ goals, motivations and conflicts. For me, writing one of these edge-of-your-seat stories was a whole lot of fun!

I took a world-building class, a class about weaving together the various elements of a story and a class on researching and writing diverse characters. The characters in this series reflect the richness of our diverse American culture.

Digging into subjects as wide-ranging as bear vaults, hypothermia, invisibility cloaks, and world history was fun. Brainstorming secondary characters, twists and turns in the plot and a doozie of a mid-point reversal was off-the-charts awesome. During revisions, discovering theme was a revelation. Somehow I’d written it in without knowing!

I'd have to say the most difficult thing for me to get right was pacing. Thillers are mostly fast-paced, but this romance needed quieter moments spaced in as well. 

BLINDSIGHT Blurb:

 When psychic FBI Agent Hector Guerrero’s family was kidnapped and murdered, he swore to stop the slave trade in psychics. Undercover for three years in the Mendoza Drug Cartel, he’s zeroing in on a hidden prison camp in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. Nothing will stop him from taking down the Cartel.

Blind wedding singer Melisenda Sepulveda can’t keep from projecting her emotional energy onto others through touch. Meli’s nomadic life performing throughout the Pacific Northwest allows her to avoid physical and emotional intimacy. But now the veterinarian insists her only family, her elderly Guide Dog Freddy, must stop traveling. Desperate to pay for a career change so she can work from home and keep her beloved companion, Meli accepts a risky gig at a drug lord’s wilderness wedding.

When the Cartel targets Meli for kidnapping, Hector loses his focus. When Meli blows his cover, she loses Hector’s trust. When Meli rescues Hector from a torture chamber, Hector might well lose his battered heart.

Excerpt:

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, the agent poured his champagne into his neighbor’s empty glass. He couldn’t take a chance on dulling his thought processes.

Being Hector was like wearing an ill-fitting-but-familiar old suit that pinched in a couple of places, but not so badly he couldn’t ignore the discomfort most of the time. He had to be at the top of his game, one-hundred per cent in character to survive long enough to bring down the Mendoza Cartel.

The murmur of the crowd muted. Casting a glance over his shoulder, Hector spotted Killingsworth staring through the open French doors beside the musician’s dais like a lion spotting a threat—or prey. The back of the agent’s neck prickled.

Turning in his seat for a better look, he made out a shadowy female figure wearing a long gown. Why was Killingsworth so interested in her?

A swirl of iridescent fabric the color of sagebrush in springtime accompanied a dainty, green-slippered foot into the soft circle of light spilling from the ballroom. Conversation near the doorway hushed. Every male in the room homed in on the woman who left the shadows, a woman like no other the agent had encountered in the underworld of the Cartel.

Coppery curls spilled over the curve of one shoulder in a long, loose ponytail. In the warm glow of the chandeliers, rhinestones shimmered in her burnished hair and winked from the frames of her mysterious dark glasses. Her demure, floor-length gown failed to conceal her curves or the sweet, girl-next-door sexiness she exuded.

For the first time in nearly four years, desire unfolded in the agent’s belly.

In the world of the Cartel, women survived and sometimes thrived using a combination of cold cunning and artifice. They grew cynical and hard, or worn-down and resigned. Yet everything about this young woman sang the siren song of wholesome, soul-deep beauty. Even the crowded ballroom’s air smelled fresher with her in the room.

She hesitated, brushing back an errant curl with a small hand covered in sage-green lace. Beneath the twinkle of her dark glasses her wide mouth curved into a smile full of promise.

One of the blue-suited mariachis descended the dais steps and spoke softly to her. She nodded. Tucking one of her hands into the crook of his arm he led her to the little stage. He murmured something into her ear and she smiled. They ascended the three steps and crossed to the middle of the small, raised stage. The mariachi guided her gloved hand to a microphone stand.

Hector’s heart bucked like a wild burro. ¡Mierda! The woman was blind.

©Copyright 2017 Sarah Raplee

Thank you for reading my post. ~ Sarah Raplee

www.sarahraplee.com

SOMETHING RICH AND STRANGE by Sarah Raplee

I love reading and writing stories set in worlds that are enough like our own to be recognizable, but have, to quote the Bard, undergone “a sea change into something rich and strange.”

Think of fairytales, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis or Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic,the Pirates of the Caribbean films or television shows like Grimm and or Marvel’s Agents of Shield.

One of my stories from the anthology Love and Magick is set on the Oregon Coast during Victorian times. I did a ton of research to make the setting for Curse of the Neahkahnnie Treasure realistic. But the plot is about the search for a cursed pirate treasure guarded by a cursed ghost. Something rich and strange.

My soon-to-be released paranormal romantic suspense novel, BLINDSIGHT, is the first in the FBI Psychic Agent Series. The series is set in our contemporary world, with a twist. People with psychic abilities exist, unknown to the general public.

The other of my stories in Love and Magick, Enchanted Protector, is set in a medieval-like world, but one where evil needle-toothed gnomes, dark witches and other Fae creatures complicate life for humans (and each other.) Enchantments happen and a pretty little girl can read thoughts. This world is even richer and stranger than my Victorian world.

What are your favorite "rich and strange" stories, films, tv programs?

~ Sarah

Here's a taste of Ruby and Rolf's world. I hope you find Helmsgard as familiar as a fairytale and as strange as thunder snow.

Enchanted Protector excerpt

Ruby pushed into the wind with her head down. She had seen no one in the alley, but a moment later her feet tangled with some small creature that screeched in outrage. She windmilled her arms and then fell on her bum. The unforgiving stones jolted her spine to the top of her head. For a moment, her eyes would not focus.

After a few seconds, a wizened little face with a white beard and bushy white brows floated into view. A frown of apparent concern scrunched the small man’s countenance. “So sorry, miss,” he said. “My fault entirely. Let me help you up.”

Hands the size of a small child’s tugged on her arm with surprising strength. Ruby wobbled to her feet and blinked down at the small Fae man. He straightened her apron and brushed dirt off her skirt. Her head began to throb and her heart began to pound.

He finished and peered up at her. “That’s better, wot? Right as rain you are, I trust.”

Ruby drew her brows together. The word trust did not belong in the mouth of a gnome. Or was he an elf? Both were small in stature, with pointy ears and an odd way of speaking. Ruby had trouble telling the two Fae races apart. It was said that elves were merely mischievous, whereas gnomes would steal the shirt off a man’s back while he drowned.

The little man smiled, and it became obvious what was what and who was who. Whilst an elf’s teeth were small to match the size of his mouth, in shape and number they appeared human. This gnome had what looked like a hundred narrow, pointed teeth.

Ruby lost her voice. The enduring memory of Mam sewing up her mangled left hand when she was small caused her to sway in the face of all those needle-like teeth.

The gnome lifted his face skyward as if he were a dog scenting the air. His smoke-colored eyes widened and then he twirled in place, scanning the square. He backed away from Ruby. “We must be off, with snow coming, wot? Carry on, miss. Carry on.”

He scurried down the alley, mumbling to himself as he disappeared into the shadows. Lightning cracked overhead and snowflakes poured like eerie white rain from the storm-tossed clouds.

#

Prince Rolf of Helmsgaard, heir to the Dragon Horn Throne, lowered his muzzle to gnome height and followed Thumble-no-skin’s sour scent into the village. The strong odors of unwashed humans, wood smoke and cooking meat layered with the Fae creature’s scent trail. Not to mention the smell of sewage, which he luckily minded less than he had when he had been fully human. Since the devious little gnome had cast the enchantment that had transformed him into a wolf, Rolf had learned to use his heightened senses to his advantage.

The gnome’s scent trail was fresh, the sour odor of his evil magic strong. Rolf’s heart lifted. Thumble-no-skin could only have arrived recently or Rolf would have caught his scent sooner. Perhaps he could finally catch the Fae man without a bolt-hole nearby.

He trotted down the cobblestoned street the villagers had deserted in favor of the market. The bustle of the crowd reached his ears. He caught the sweet feminine perfume of a maiden, as if the girl had passed this way only minutes before him. One of his frequent waves of melancholy threatened. Lying with women was one more thing denied him since the treacherous gnome and his gang of thieves had played him for a fool.

He picked up a trace of tangy gold attached to the maiden’s scent and awakened from his reverie. The hackles on the back of the prince’s furred neck lifted. Few of the villagers possessed so much a farthing. The girl’s small treasure would be as irresistible to the gnome as a shiny buckle to a crow.

Thank you for reading my post. I'd love for you to visit my website at www.sarahraplee.com