Stumbling Blocks

I'm now working my way through edits on Playing with Fire  (and I should have cover art very soon, so yay!), and I have one little change to make to the final edits of Devil in Disguise. Once they are done, I hope to start writing some new words. There's just one tiny little problem.

I really don't have the story just yet.

It's pretty aggravating, really. I have the hero. I have the heroine. I just don't know their story yet. Usually, I know at least how it starts. And the way the final draft ends usually only barely resembles the way the first draft ended - although sometimes it does. I usually write linearly - from Chapter One to Chaptever Whatever. But in Tiger Eyes, I wrote the last chapter before I'd written the third chapter. I got stuck around page thirty, so someone suggested writing the book in reverse. I wrote the last few chapters, then went back and un-stuck myself.

But with this newest WIP, I'm kind of stuck again. Here's part of the problem. This new story contains characters from The King's Bride  (which I just got back from my super-terrific beta reader and will tackle once Devil in Disguise and Playing with Fire are gone.) and TKB is a paranormal-historical. So I think I should make the new one paranormal as well. Trouble is, I don't know which part of the paranormal world I should use. TKB deals with ESP and psychometry (the ability to 'read' an object and learn about its past, or the past of its owner), so I don't want to do that again. I've toyed with the idea of a shape-shifter, or a selkie, or something - but until I decide, the story just isn't going to happen. At least, I don't think it will. And that's what's so frustrating.

Usually I hit a few snags along the way. TKB's first draft was fun to write because about halfway through, the story seemed to be heading toward trainwreckville, and I was fed up with fighting with it. As a result, I just let it go and the finished project turned out to be pretty good. I kept most of the original draft (cleaned up, of course) and thought the story was better for it. But then, I had a story. Right now I don't.

So, let me hear it - what paranormal element should I lean toward? Tell me what you think! :D