Separate but Equal

I’m trying something new in my WIP. I usually have a plot and a subplot in my novels, but this time I’m writing two distinct plots that have nothing to do with each other except for the main characters in the series, psychic Diana Racine and her love, Lieutenant Ernie Lucier of the New Orleans Police Department.

Not two POVs, mind you; I always have multiple POVs. Each story line will tie up at the end, but they will not connect. (Though characters and situations should grow and evolve in a series, each novel should stand alone as a separate entity, and in my opinion without a cliffhanger.)

I’m not sure I can pull this off. It’s like watching a tennis match where you go back and forth between players. The difficult part is segueing from one plot to the other without jarring the reader. In a way it’s similar to time shifts or flashbacks in a novel. That can be tricky if it’s not done well because it can be confusing. I wrote one book that goes back and forth in time, Threads, but I made sure that the shifts were clear by headlining the year and city the story takes place.

There’s always a paranormal element in the Diana Racine books because she’s a psychic, and her visions take her out of her own body or place. Her visions materialize because of touch, whether it’s a person or an object, and it doesn’t always work. There’s something contrived about a psychic who’s in complete control over her otherworldly experiences. I would imagine that those with a psychic gift are at the mercy of some overpowering element, but I find stories where that element solves the crime to be a form of cheating. I’ve purposely made Diana fail at times so as not to stretch the credulity of the plot, but she does contribute to the solution, even if Lucier is the cop who brings in the bad guys.

Both plots in this new, as yet untitled novel, revolve around a murder, of course. In one, I employ a favorite trope of mine: the corruption of the super wealthy. I remember my mother, a blue-collar worker without a worldly bone in her body, saying whenever we drove through a wealthy area with lavish homes that the people who owned them had to be crooks. I used to laugh, but not so much anymore. They’ve become my villains, whether the corruption is the cause of their wealth or it’s their motivation to keep it.

The second plot involves twins and a ghost or two. New Orleans, along with Savannah, has quite a few haunted houses.

Diana visits one on request, disbelieving in ghosts, and finds there really is one. I’ve never written Diana into a story line with a ghost. She has channeled dead people, but that’s different.

So we have two, actually three, upstanding citizens who are nasty pieces of work and a twin haunted by her sister who disappeared but no one can prove is dead.

Make those two work, Polly, without giving the reader a neck ache. I double-dare you.

Polly Iyer is the author of eight novels: standalones Hooked, InSight, Murder Déjà Vu, Threads, and Indiscretion, and three books in the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, Mind Games, Goddess of the Moon, and Backlash. A Massachusetts native, she makes her home in the beautiful Piedmont region of South Carolina. You can visit her website for more on Polly and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.