Guest Blog: Melanie Nilles

[alanajoli]

By reading Melanie Nilles's blog (starlet97), it's easy to pick up her interest in angels. Because of the impact of angels on her own life, she's chosen to write about them in her young adult novel Dark Angel and its as-yet-untitled sequel. She is also the author of the forthcoming "Legend of the White Dragons" series, of which Dragon Prophecy and Dragon Legends are due out this year. You can visit her at her own blog or at the livejournal community that she moderates: fantastic_realm. Thank you, Melanie, for being a guest of the blog!

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I appreciate the opportunity to share something about myths in stories. In particular, I want to focus on angels. Yes, those winged messengers of God, or whatever name a particular religion assigns.

The three major religions of the world all share a belief in angels. Some may say that angels aren't myths, but that's not the opinion shared by everyone. I believe they're real, but not as artists portray them.

For my story, Dark Angel, I wanted to cast angels in a new light. Instead of the usual supernatural beings, I thought it would be fun to make them real but not as we expect. I asked myself "What if..." (Yes, a writer's favorite question, because every story expands on a "what if" scenario.) In this case, I thought "What if we see angels in pictures with wings--since I'd never read a Bible passage that mentioned angels having wings though found in my research it's mentioned once--because they weren't angels as we know? What if they were alien visitors; but because early civilizations didn't understand or accept that idea that the world wasn't only one of a million in a vast universe, they saw them as supernatural beings, messengers of a higher power--or in this case of a far more advanced civilization?"

Because I wanted to use that and keep it plausible to what I knew of angels in the Bible (I'm Catholic), I wanted to have a way to make these beings match much of that. I gave them a purpose, which came from an element of a story I wrote in college. In this case, some of their species have the power to hide their wings because of a special symbiosis with a higher intelligence, or rather a collective of creatures from another dimension. I won't go into details--you'll have to read the book ;) --but I will say that it fit what I wanted to do. As Emeril would say, BAM! I had my explanation for how they could hide on Earth among humans, since they otherwise looked human.

In doing my research, I discovered that the different religions all mentioned angels, though they have different purposes and different backgrounds. In the Christian beliefs, there are seven orders of angels with different terms of service to God. They are messengers, warriors, and guardians and will appear to men. In Islam, they serve only Allah and are not seen but do His work. Islam also mentions djinn, who can change shape and who may turn against Allah. This reminded me of the fallen angels of Christian beliefs. So, I found similarities and disparities.

Usually, we think of angels as helpers. That was the way I used them. If my aliens came from an advanced civilization, they might come to help us. I'm an optimist and took that road. However, even aliens can have their problems. The fun part was then to bring those problems to our world as those jealous of the small group with powers hunted them down.

Using angels as the basis for a young adult story came easily. I fell in love with the work and the characters. The idea is one not often explored, except the usual angels as a supernatural being battling demons, the fallen.

Myths can be used in many ways to inspire new stories. We just have to think outside the box. And having wings would be fun too!

Comments

[elven-wolf.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying these posts. When I first started writing my novel, it was heavily influenced by angel mythology. Later drafts showed a definite drift toward the Greco-roman, though, but it still has some Christian elements to it. The research itself was fascinating. I was raised Catholic, though I don't consider myself as such anymore, but the myths are still fascinating to me.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you are--because I am, too! :)