30 Days of Demons – Day 5 – Research
Don’t forget to comment on yesterday’s post for a chance to win a $10 gift card for Barnes & Noble courtesy of author Michele Bardsley! Contest closes tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST.
Something I didn’t do much of in my earlier books was research. I wanted my ideas to essentially come out of my imagination and down on the page without being led by anything in particular other than the magical ether that surrounds me. La la la.
I was a lot more naive five years ago than I am now.
I research now. Not a huuuugge amount, but more than I used to. This would be evident (I think) when you compare THE DEMON IN ME to ANGEL WITH ATTITUDE. I wrote AwA without knowing much of anything about demons except what I watched on, say, Buffy or Angel. I didn’t realize, when I wrote that book, that Nathaniel, the tempter demon, was basically an incubus — a demon meant to seduce women and take their souls to hell. Since I was ignorant to most of the mythology and was writing in a bubble, I just called him a tempter demon and gave him a different set of rules.
And that’s okay! I think he worked quite well. That was a rather tame book and an actual “incubus” might have been a bit too…hot to handle. But that was then and this is now. 
I wouldn’t say that the world building I’ve done in Living in Eden is strictly based on any one set of mythological guidelines. The joy of being a writer of fantasy is that I can make stuff up, make it my own, and bend some rules, amend some rules — and really, when it’s fantasy, there are no rules that can’t be bent.
Just like my heroines, I like to trust my gut. If something feels right, then I know it’s right. If something feels wrong, then I try to avoid it at all costs.
Some of the things I researched for THE DEMON IN ME that may give some hints on subjects touched on and characters you can expect to meet in the book/series:
Tarot cards
Seven Deadly Sins
Amulets and talismans
Salem witch trials
Clairvoyance
Demonic possession
Exorcisms/Exorcists
Fairies
Demons and fallen angels — hierarchies
Witches
Good times! I actually love doing research and learning new things. Of course, with this subject matter sometimes the internet research will take me into…uh…uncomfortable territory. Demons are not always shiny, happy heroes! I don’t stay at those websites very long. *shudder*
30 Days of Demons continues tomorrow…
Till then, happy reading!
–Michelle xoxo
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I’ve always wondered how much research do author do before writing their books. Thanks for the info
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Wow! That’s quite a lot of research, but hopefully you can use that info in other books too.
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eesh! yeah I would think that googling “demon” would definitely lead to some really creepy websites. I certainly wouldn’t wanna search it on the internet, lol
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I’ve wanted to write my own book for quite sometime now and just started researching some topics that I think would help along the way. I enjoy learning how authors work so thanks for the insight.
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Thanks for sharing. I always find it interesting how much research an author will do for their books. There seems to be a wide range.
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i love angel with attitude!!! well all the vamps book to , your sense of humor is great
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I did a little research last month and I had found a site with Biblically based demons. That was fun. LOL I think the cool thing about fiction is, like you did, we can change whatever we want to fit what we are comfortable with. I really like how you add humor to your books. Can you imagine if you didn’t? You’d be depressed, your readers would be depressed and we’d just be a big ole mess. bAHAHAHAHA