3T Writing Tidbit

We're delving into another of the three elements of story: character. (The three elements being character, setting, and plot 😄) I'm not going to go in any special order with these. 

There are a ton of ways to develop characters. Here's one that builds on July's introduction of archetypes.

Start with a character archetype.
Add specific characteristics.
Build a backstory.
Give them quirks, faults, flaws, characteristic(s) in contradiction with the archetype.
And then the pièce de résistance: GMC, or goal, motivation, and conflict. More about that next month!

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.

2T Repeat Performance - Hot Alpha or Sexy Beta—which would you really choose?

 

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published August 22, 2012 for the Samhain Blog

Hot Alpha or Sexy Beta—which would you really choose?

The Alpha. Highest rank. Strongest and most courageous, or best able to forge alliances. The Leader. Gets the best of everything.

The Beta. Second-in-command to the Alpha, ready to step in if the Alpha dies. May aid the Alpha in courting.

Alpha men are massively hot. Testosterone pumps their muscles huge and fills their step with self-confidence. It also may make them hotheaded and prone to listening only to their own opinions. They may eventually settle down with one woman but in the meantime they have lots of encounters. They’re leaders and at some point, if they don’t put the group first, they may not have a group to lead. So sometimes the heroine comes second.

Beta men have all the same characteristics but for one thing—they’re not leaders. Yet. They can indulge in side interests like running the computer lab or being a bodyguard for the heroine.

Which do you prefer? Alpha? Beta? Or...?

I write strong heroes, vampires males who are powerful, assertive, and protective, even if the heroine can protect herself. These males are leaders, but always put the heroine first, especially in their thoughts and hearts. They’re muscular and masculine, but they’re also thoughtful and caring when needed. Is that alpha or beta? Or...?

I also like loners, the males who don’t follow anyone’s rules but their own, but have a strong code of ethics. Neither leader nor follower, they don’t seem to fit into neat categories either.

And I love the strong, independent, driven males who are a bit of both, like Glynn in my brand-new release Biting Oz. He does his job as he sees fit. Yet he integrates easily with other vampires in the Alliance.

My big bad alpha, the Ancient One, is stuck in Iowa running the Alliance. But Glynn can travel as bodyguard with the Ancient One’s young ward Dorothy—where he can meet heroine Junior. Instantly his desire surges, crashing into Junior's own. Their passion erupts first as arguments, then as a kiss hotter than the sun, and then as far more. Glynn is strong and intelligent, manly without beating on his chest, powerful but not a tool. He commands attention everywhere he goes yet helps Junior run her store’s register. He saves the show literally by stepping onstage. Yes, real vampires do indeed do musicals.

So is Glynn alpha or beta or...? Here’s a short excerpt. Let me know what you think!

In the theater. Junior is late and rushing to get to the pit, but is blocked by a sea of Munchkins.

I screeched to a stop on my toes, off-balance. My bag slipped, dropped off my shoulder, jerked me into stumbling. I nearly dropped the sax, did drop my stand, tangled feet with it and had to wrench myself backward to keep from falling.

Except the sax didn’t hear about the change in plans. Momentum carried it in my original direction, popping it from of my grip.

To my horror, the tenor case pitched straight at the kids.

The man turned instantly, as if preternaturally aware of the danger. But he was behind the kids. He’d have to hurdle like Jesse Owens to get between the deadly sax and those small bodies.

Palming the wall, he levered against it to kick up and over Munchkin heads, clearing them with incredible grace and ease, landing on my side.

On the way he snatched my tenor. Midair.

I set down my instrument bag and blew out my tension. “Wow. Thanks. I...”

Straightening to his full height of six-OMG, he faced me, emanating strength and energy. Powerful chest muscles pushed into the jacket’s gap right in front of my nose.

I gaped, realized I was starting to drool and looked up.

Sondheim shoot me. His face was all dark, dangerous planes. His eyes were twin sapphire flames that hit me in the gut. My breath punched out and none came to replace it. Bad news for a wind player.

He turned to set the sax down. I started breathing again.

A tapping caught my ear, the conductor ready to start. I needed to get into that pit now.

Half a dozen kids and two makeup adults were still in my way.

I’d have crawled over the seats myself but my joints weren’t as limber as the kids’...unless I used my black Lara Croft braid as a rope. I was desperate enough to consider it.

The man, turning back, saw my predicament. He lifted my instrument bag and music stand over kids with the same strength and grace as when he’d snatched the tenor. Then he turned to me.

And swept me up into his arms.

An instant of shock, of male heat and rock-hard muscle. A carved face right next to mine, masculine lips beautifully defined--abruptly I was set on my feet beside the pit. The sax landed next to me with a thump.

“There.” His accent was jagged, as if he were as rattled as me. “There’s your instrument.” He bounded to the back of the theater and was gone.

Biting Oz available now!

Hugs!
Mary

http://www.maryhughesbooks.com

Find Your Paranormal Romance Match -- great deal, limited time!

 

A dozen delicious matches to choose from, including Night's Kiss! See all the deals at Entangled Publishing, or pick up Night's Kiss at your favorite bookstore today!

3T Writing Tidbit

 

We're delving into another of the three elements of story: character. (The three elements being character, setting, and plot 😄) I'm not going to go in any special order with these. 

Here's a provocative sentence I came across: 

Archetypes are masks of a complete human being.

Last month I unpacked the complete human being. Let's put it all together.

Our characters start out with a vision of themselves, either good or bad. They see themselves perhaps as the Hero, a Captain America, or perhaps as a Villain, like Felonious Gru in Despicable Me. More, all their actions and attitudes consciously reflect this archetype -- they wear their vision of themselves like a mask.

But it isn't their real selves. Real people, and characters who feel real, are messy. Conflicted, inconsistent, flawed. They change. They grow, they shrink, they lose, and they win.

Because their mask isn't their real self, it keeps that character separate and distanced from change, contradiction, interaction with other people, and even fully understanding themselves.

So, like a real person, they must learn and change to embrace their own truth, to remove the mask of the static, idealized archetype or even burst it, to become a complete and full human being.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.

2T Repeat Performance - what makes your vampires different?

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published August 22, 2012 for My Odd Little World

What makes your vampires different from the others out there?

Keeping it real.

I can’t claim to have read every vampire book or seen every movie or show. But there are three ways I know of to “make” a fictional vampire—physically (like the plague in I Am Legend), magically (like the witches’ spells in The Vampire Diaries), or morally (divinely cursed like Dracula). Mine are the physical variety. The underlying mechanism has yet to be revealed, but there’s one noticeable aspect that sets my v-guys apart.

My vampires don’t drink blood for their stomachs—they drink it for their veins.

Like humans who can’t make their own blood, my vampires must have regular transfusions (taking their transfusions by mouth).

I like this a lot (especially for romance) because it’s hard to have a real relationship with someone who looks at you as a giant barbequed chicken. My humans are donors, not dinners. Even better, vampires only have to drink about three times a month (just often enough to replace dying red cells).

Now, I do have to say that my vampires have many similarities to those out there. They’re strong, fast, rich, highly sexual and fall in love hard with one person. There’s a group of savvy warriors united by the mysterious Ancient One to protect humans.

But real physiology grounds my vampires, no matter how whimsical the plots get. The blood they drink goes directly into their veins instead of their stomachs, which is frankly more authentic to me because the stomach digests blood. Mini-rant here—feel free to skip to the next paragraph :). That’s one reason I have a problem with turning rituals where the human drinks blood. How effective can blood be, churned up with gastric acid? Assuming it stays down, that is. In humans, blood is an emetic—drink enough and you, um, you know. Email me if you don’t :).

Of course, because my vampires don’t use blood for food, they have to get their energy another way. It’s not revealed yet, but there are indicators they get it from being buried in the soil (perhaps like plants do) honoring the “native soil” needed by Dracula, and the vampires-sleeping-in-graves legend.

The physical differences also have a real social impact. Those who successfully make the change keep their human intellect and morals: silly, smart, wise; good or bad. So on one hand we have the Iowa Alliance living in harmony with humans, and on the other we have the Chicago Coterie trying to take over the world. Some vampires don’t make the change successfully. They lose what makes them human, becoming pure vampire hunger uncontrolled by their rotting human brain. There’s a nice tension between the good guys protecting humans, the bad guys using them as minions, and the rogues mindlessly hunting them.

Lastly, some vampire characters are developed ignoring popular lore. Lore may not be real, but popular means a lot of people understand vampires in terms of the legends. I try to honor all legends that are physically based. My vampires are hurt by silver. They get a buzz from running water. Sunlight fries them. They do have reflections, but no reflection is part of the divinely-cursed vampire mythos (no soul). After being undead long enough, they can turn their bodies into mist; longer yet and they can shapeshift. These all have real reasons tied consistently into the physical nature of my vampires. Which will get revealed eventually :)

3T Writing Tidbit

We're delving into another of the three elements of story: character. (The three elements being character, setting, and plot 😄) I'm not going to go in any special order with these. 

Here's a provocative sentence I came across: 

Archetypes are masks of a complete human being.

Last month I unpacked mask. Let's look at the complete human being.

It's a fact that no character, not even Pinocchio, can be a real human being. But you can make them feel more or less like a real person to the reader. How is that?

In researching archetypes, I came across a Between the Lines Editorial blog that explains it very well. There are flat, static characters who are one- or two-trick ponies and never change. There are also rounded, dynamic characters. These characters change over time (like we do) and have many personality traits, some of which vary over time and are even contradictory (like we do!).

So make your Pinocchio, not a static wooden puppet, but a conflicted being who wants to be a real boy but can't, until he understands the truth and changes his life.

Published since 2009, over the years I've accumulated various items of writing wisdom. The Third Tuesday Writing Tidbit showcases these items in no particular order. Click here to see all 3T Tidbits.

2T Repeat Performance - tell us how the series began

I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!

Originally published August 21, 2012 for Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

 Tell us how the Biting Love series began?

 Backwards. Seriously, I submitted the third story first, the second story second (which was the first sold) and the first story…well, maybe I should start from the beginning :)

Back before my first sale, the rejections were getting to me (I am not terribly thick skinned and tend to write two novels for every rejection I get), so I decided to throw everything I’d gotten good feedback on—sex, love, humor, and vampires—into one story. (If I’d had an extra kitchen sink, that would’ve gone in too :) By layering each element, I quickly wrote Bite My Fire (cop Elena, master vampire Bo). That went so well I dashed off Biting Nixie (punk rocker Nixie, vampire lawyer Julian).

Problem was, nobody knew how to sell that kind of…well, to put it kindly “fusion of styles” (and to put it realistically, “mishmash”). I got even more (shudder) rejections.

And then Samhain Publishing had a special call for hot paranormal romance with humor, exactly the elements in my books. (Author Snoopy dance.) I wrote a fresh novella for the call, which would become the spine for Biting Me Softly. That didn’t make the anthology, but it did interest an editor into opening the door. I quickly wedged in my strongest foot (Biting Nixie) and she bought it. (Author fainting dance :) Then she went back and bought Fire. So Book Two was published before Book One.

I then expanded the novella into Book Three and she bought that, and that ought to be the end of the story. But a call for New Year’s novellas came. I’d been wanting to feature city admin Twyla and got a great idea for her and Spartan vampire Nikos, set on New Year’s Eve in Times Square. I sold that and The Bite of Silence (a novella) was published four months before Book Three—which then became Book Four.

Fortunately Biting Oz has always been Book Five (although the original title was Biting the Rainbow). I’m working on Beauty Bites now, slated to be Book Six, but I’ll let you know how that actually works out.