Fairy Lore - An Ordinary Fairy Style

Fairy legends have been around as long as there have been humans. Nearly ever culture and country has them in some form or another. Most of what we're familiar with in this country comes from European influences. When embarking on writing a novel about a fairy woman, I made a crucial decision: I intentionally did not research fairy lore. My reason was simple. I preferred to create my own myth.

While An Ordinary Fairy contains a lot of the basic fairy stuff, like close connection to animals and wings and flight, I included a few twists as well. What I left out was the huge amount of lore and myth that's available if you go looking. This created a problem during an early review by an editor acquaintance, who just happened to know about fairies. She questioned the fact that Willow's cottage has an iron security gate across the door. "Since iron is poisonous to fairies, that could never happen," she told me.

So I consulted with Willow and she gave me a good explanation - you can't believe everything you read. Fairies call it Guarding the Mystery - to protect themselves from discovery, they've cultivated the myth that they are - a myth. Much of the fairy lore you read (according to Willow) is planted misinformation to throw fairy Hunters off the scent.

Are Willow's traits unique? Nope. That's tough to do without creating something that's not recognizable as a fairy, so you have to keep some of the standard stuff. What's unique about Willow is her personality. Feisty while insecure, laden with issues and secrets, and short-tempered but playful. She's tough to figure out, as Noah discovers the first time they meet.

Another thing about my fairies - they're tech savvy. Willow doesn't own a phone or television, but she loves her laptop computer, and she's an excellent hacker.