New Worlds

I spent the past week or so re-reading the "Mortal Instruments" series by Cassandra Clare -- "City of Bones," "City of Ashes" and "City of Glass." Fantasy is not normally my thing, but I liked "Harry Potter" and loved "Twilight," and the "Mortal Instruments" falls somewhere in between. It has a little bit of everything -- romance, drama, comedy, fantasy, horror.

Lately I've been a very visual reader, so it's fun to read these kinds of books, which I like to think of as literary candy -- a fun, guilty-pleasure kind of thing. While Clare's characters are very colorful and powerful, they're also relatable. I've been the wise-ass, eye-rolling, teen-aged girl (and still am to a degree) with a dry, sarcastic sense of humor. But without a lot of endless descriptions, the writer makes it easy to picture the Shadowhunters, Downworlders and demons, as well as the Bone City, Alicante and even New York City. I found myself playing the movie version in my head while I read. I seem to be doing that a lot these days.

Not that I want to write fantasy or science fiction, but I wish my brain could create characters as colorful and vivid as those in Clare's books or J.K. Rowling's or Stephenie Meyer's. I don't see whole new worlds of characters and places in my imagination when I sit down to write. I see the people I've known and the experiences I've had and try to capture bits and pieces of those things in the stories that I create. But I think that's where every writer should start, with what you know, then adapt that to a different set of circumstances. Even Clare, Rowling and Meyer weave in themes that the rest of us can relate to -- love, acceptance, loyalty, understanding, belonging, conflict and resolution.

Then again, I think the people in my stories are pretty normal and relatable, but their thoughts, feelings and actions might seem quite foreign to some readers. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess. Hopefully, it will ring true with some people and shed light on a different perspective for other people.