International Paranormal Response

The IPR feature prominently in my first series, the Yip Jones Adventures. They are Yip’s vehicle into the hidden world of the Slipworld, and become her chosen family.

But who are they, and where do they come from?

When I was first thinking about the concept of the Slipworld, the definition of “monster”, and trying to come up with a way an ordinary person might be drawn into such a world, I was watching a lot of procedural crime drama. Like - A LOT.

Shows that took little bands of investigators out into the world to track unique and varied killers. I enjoyed some more than others, and that made me wonder why. Why did I enjoy that one, but not this one?

The answer came to me in the middle of the night, while I was trying to sleep - because of course it did.

The shows I enjoyed the most were the ones where the characters weren’t cold and jaded, going about their job as… well, just a job. I liked the ones that never lost sight of the fact that victims were people, with families, and lives, hopes, and dreams. The ones where, sometimes, bringing the killer to justice felt awful.

But mostly, it was those who didn’t paint the villains as pure evil who deserved to be killed for their crimes. The ones that remembered that sometimes, the villains were victims too - but didn’t excuse their actions because of that.

The ones who chose compassion.

That was where the IPR started: what if such a team hunted actual, literal monsters? But what if they did it in such a way that sometimes, you almost understood why the villain did what they did. Not to excuse them, but to remember that even monsters are human.

But who would be in such a team?

I had for some time been enamoured with the idea of supernatural people having ordinary jobs. Fairies that worked at cafes. Mad scientists who study biology.

I began thinking of how that might apply to a team of crime fighters - and the IPR came from there.

A ghoul pathologist was the first recruit. Because obviously. And Dr Reese Shelley was born.

A vampire expert in blood splatter? Yes, please - enter Pia Tenwolde, a Scottish woman who was once a Pict. Probably.

If you’re tracking villains and looking for evidence, you need someone skilled in that area. Someone who can profile geographically, perhaps, so they know where a killer will go? Who better for that job than a werewolf? And Thadian Catch entered the chat.

Obviously, every team needs a leader who is austere, enigmatic, and infinitely competent, so I mashed a bunch of influences together (Jack Skellington, Slenderman, John Wick, and the Tall Man from Phantasm, to name a few) and created the mysterious Seth “Hitch” Hitchcock.

Kevin Bridges came from horror history, oddly enough. In early horror, POC never survived to the end. In fact, the first POC character to survive a horror film all the way to the end, TMC, was Kieth David in The Thing (1982)! So, obviously, I needed a POC who didn’t die - who better than a Nigerian Phoenix?

However, there must be a balance in every team. Mabel Tenwolde, the folklorist, and Sabrina Hyneck were ordinary, Loreless humans - albeit Sabrina is a Little Person. Who says just because you’re short and blonde, you can’t be brilliant?

These became the founding members of the International Paranormal Response.

Now, all I had to do was figure out where this team of paranormal crime fighters came from, and what the heck they were doing in the outback!

The IPR became a shadow division of the United Nations, under UNDOC, on the Upworld side of things. In the Slipworld, they work for the Keeper of the Balance, under the Veiled Accords. Their job is to travel the world, investigating any crime that might expose the Slipworld and put its citizens in danger - regardless of whether the perpetrator is a Loreless human, or something else.

I called them the International Paranormal Response because I wanted a diverse group of people from all around the world to be on the team. The IPR consists of Scottish, English, Nigerian, Pakistani/Irish/American and an ambiguous soul who’s actually Iraqi.

But “International” doesn’t usually mean it’s comprised of people from different cultures. It usually means they travel.

So, while my goal for the first and second books was to use my homeland, Australia, as the setting, I eventually had to send them out into the world. But they’ll come back, because Australia is where they were truly born.