The Byronic Hero

Song of the day: Sanctified by Nine Inch Nails

Have you heard of the Byronic Hero? A Byronic hero is a protagonist, or antihero, who is romanticized but flawed. Someone much like the Romantic hero who rejects and is rejected by the society. Someone steeped with darkened, destructive, dangerous traits.

The term Byronic hero is named for the characters often portrayed in the works of the colorful English poet, Lord Byron. If you know of Lord Byron’s excessive, reckless, and scandalous life, you would probably consider that he, himself, embodied the Byronic hero.

This archetypical character (predominately male, but sometimes female) might be:

• Defiant
• Jaded
• Mysterious
• Cynical
• Charismatic
• Seductive
• Proud
• Adaptable
• Haunted
• Intelligent
• An outcast
• Sexually dominant

Sounds like a hero I can really fall in love with.

Lord Byron summed the Byronic hero up best with the last stanza in his piece The Corsair. The Corsair is written about the privateer (or pirate – depending on who you ask) Jean Laffite.

He left a corsair’s name to other times,

Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes.

One virtue, a thousand crimes. Hmm…that describes the pirate captains in my Romancing the Pirate series quite well. I must have a thing for the Byronic hero. A tortured soul seizes my imagination and sends my heart apitter-patter. With hands tied behind my back, I would willingly follow him. *sigh*

So, who are some Byronic heroes?

• Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights
• The Phantom of Phantom of the Opera
• Robin Hood
• Severus Snape of Harry Potter
• Anakin/Darth Vader
• Lestat of Interview with a Vampire
• Wolverine of X-Men
• Xena, Warrior Princess
• Scarlett O’Hara
• Achilles in the movie version of Troy
• And of course, Captain Jack Sparrow

Can you name a Byronic hero? Who is your favorite?

Learning to Write Smut – MuseTracks Guest – Juliana Ross

Historical erotic romance author Juliana Ross is our special guest today, and she’s going to give us a lesson in writing sex. Not just any sex, but GOOD sex.

Welcome, Juliana!

When I began work, early last year, on the novella that would eventually become Improper Relations, I was hoping to push myself. Throw out the rule book. Write a story that stretched—even demolished—the limits I’d been setting for myself as a writer.

I wrote in the first person, something I’d never tried before. I set the book a half-century earlier than anything I’d ever written. And I decided that the heat level had to be off the charts. Not just hot, but “turn on the fan, it’s boiling in here!” hot.

There’s a big difference, however, between planning to write a smoking-hot sex scene and actually doing so successfully. As I wrote, I learned—usually by watching my sister do exaggerated spit-takes while reading my latest draft—that writing about good sex is really difficult. In fact, it’s really, really hard. (No pun intended.)

By the time I’d finished the first draft of Improper Relations, I’d learned a lot about what works—and what doesn’t work. And I’m still learning!

Here are just a few examples:

Use anatomical terms that don’t awaken your inner 12-year-old boy. If you can’t read a word without smirking, it’s likely your readers will have the same reaction. Humor can be wonderful in sex scenes, but readers should be laughing with the characters, not at them. This can be a tall order when writing historicals, since common 18^th- or 19^th-century terms often sound silly to modern ears.

After much dithering, I settled on a synonym (I won’t repeat it here) that was commonly used in the Victorian period to describe the male sex organ, and is still widely used today. Then and now, it’s not fit for polite company, but the alternatives made me dissolve into giggles every time I typed them out.

Avoid descriptions that are excessively clinical. In an early draft of another novel, I referred to the “clever surgeon’s fingers” of my hero, a doctor, in the context of foreplay between him and the heroine. This set off alarm bells for one of my beta readers, a lawyer who has more than a passing familiarity with medical malpractice suits. “You have to take that out,” she told me. “It makes him seem like some pervy Dr. Feelgood. Yuck!”

When it comes to descriptions of sex, I learned, neither of the participants should come across like a doctor—even if one of them actually is a doctor. Remember that clinical is the opposite of dirty. And dirty, in this context, is good.

Descriptions of how things sound can be problematic: Most readers don’t simply picture a scene—they hear it in their head as well. So restrain yourself when offering cues for the soundtrack to a sex scene, and when it comes to moments that might squick people out, turn the volume waaaay down. This is particularly true for anything involving, ahem, bodily fluids. (I find “moistly” especially troublesome.)

As I said above, these are only a few examples – but I’d love to hear your take on the principles of writing Good Smut.

Those of you who are writers: did you encounter a steep learning curve when first writing sex scenes, or was it smooth sailing from the beginning? And what about the readers out there? Do you have any suggestions on what writers should avoid if we want to keep you reading?

I’ll be giving away three copies of Improper Relations to MuseTracks readers this week—just leave a comment below to be entered in the draw.

An editor by profession but an historian by inclination, Juliana Ross lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and young children. In her spare time she cooks for family and friends, makes slow inroads into her weed patch of a garden, and reads romance novels (the steamier the better) on her eReader.

You can find Juliana on her website, Goodreads, Twitter, Facebook and—her newest obsession—Pinterest.

You can buy Improper Relations through Carina, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and All Romance.

Method Writing – Are YOU Oscar Worthy?

Song of the Day: Drive By by Train

I recently discovered I could be a star in Hollywood. Yep. Look out Angelina Jolie, there’s a new super watt actress in town. Well…maybe not. But after reading an article in the March 2012 issue of Romance Writers Report and hearing a presentation given at my local RWA® chapter last month on Method Acting, I thought it was time to write my Oscar acceptance speech.

What is Method Acting you ask? It is a group of techniques used by many actors to create the genuine thoughts and emotions of their characters. These professionals go deep—integrating themselves into the lives of their character rather than simply performing them. There are plenty of books and resources on the subject, so I won’t go into great theatrics here. But I will share how the very same exercises can be awesome tools for writers.

The procedures:

Relaxation – Relax your body to allow the mind to work. Ohmmm…

Sense memory – It’s been pounded into our little writer brains, use all your senses. Recall a similar experience. Utilize it at the most rudimentary level and work to relive stimuli in every detail.

Concentration – Must…stay…focused…must…stay…in the…moment

Magic if  / ‘as if’ – the ‘what ifs’ of a scene meant to make the author believe  the scene and everything in it are real and thus provoke honest reactions

Objects – focal points, real or fantasy, anything that allows the writer to avoid distraction, leading to the unconscious behavior and steady concentration of the writing. I prefer to focus on the ripped body of David Beckham.

Substitution – We can’t allow personal feelings to disrupt or detract from those of a character and expect readers not to notice. Use the power of concentration, grasshopper. Personalize your thoughts with a substitution to overcome the bias.

Animal exercise – We can learn so much from the characteristics of beasts—how they move, their appearance, whether they are dangerous or docile. These traits we can translate into powerful descriptions for human ones. Roooar!

Song and Dance –This exercise is meant to remove the unconscious behaviors and replace them with unbridled conventions. Break out the dancing shoes and the Taio Cruz Dynamite CD.

Private Moment – Let your inner voyeur loose. Overcome personal inhibitions to write about private moments and behaviors.

Speaking out – No, this isn’t a political protest or public outcry. It’s verbally recognizing concentration had been broken and getting back to business.

Moment to Moment – we allow scenes and action to move the story forward as opposed to sticking with our original view of the plot. I don’t know about you, but my characters are constantly surprising me.

Justification – There must be a reason why the characters say and do the things they do for their actions and reactions to be real.  This, of course, is not how we women operate at any given moment without proper doses of chocolate or margaritas, right ladies? But for the sake of the readers…

Affective Memory – Cover me! I’m going in. Going in deep. This exercise conjures up the deepest, and sometimes most painful and frightening, personal experience to capture raw emotions. In all my research on Method Acting, every resource comments on this practice either being a dangerous or pure genius procedure. Many in Hollywood have said Heath Ledger’s role as the Joker in The Dark Knight affected him so intensely, it led to his fatal use of prescription drugs meant to alleviate his demons.

Given Circumstance – understanding all preceding method parts are tied together by the theme/spine, moving beyond the superficial

Shy of singing and dancing like a fool in my office, I was surprised to learn I have been doing my own version of Method Acting techniques in my writing. Each procedure I have utilized at some point—some such as sensory and affective memory, more than others. In order to convey moments of genuine emotion and action/reactions, I have conjured up incidents in my own life that have paralleled similar responses. Let’s face it, I’ve never watched a loved one twirl at the end of a noose, nearly drown, or face the Grim Reaper head on. But I have been traumatized by death, I have been truly so frightened it stole my breath away, and I have stared down the barrel of a gun (which incidentally royally pissed me off). Lucky for me, I have loads of experiences to draw from in which to recreate exactly what my characters are doing and feeling.

How about you? Do you use any or all of these techniques? I’d love to hear from you.

The Power Of Knowledge- Turn It Into Money

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.- Matthew Arnold

 

Do you want to make money?

I’m not sure, but I would guess every person reading this article will answer with a resounding YES! I know I do. I also know that it’s not enough to simply write a good book. This brave new world we’ve entered with the advent of self publishing and e-readers has changed our industry forever. We are now responsible for the business as well as the creative side of making books. (This is true no matter which avenue you take to publishing.) Most sectors of business change over the course of years, we’ve seen huge upheavals in the course of a few months.

Because of the shifting landscape, it is our responsibility to stay current with market research and business strategies for our careers. This takes a bit of time and effort, but doesn’t have to be overwhelming. A writer can educate themselves by reading blogs, like Muse Tracks, and researching the internet. I decided to take my own advice and have been studying trends and tricks of selling books.

This is me doing the research!

We know e-book consumers are increasing their buying power, both in print and e formats. More people are buying more books online to the detriment of the traditional brick and mortar book stores. Obviously, the ease and number of e-readers on the market has influenced this trend immensely, but a sky rocketing segment of this is found in-app purchasing. According to the Book Industry Study Group- www.bisg.com   which publishes Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading shows that more than half of e-book readers increased their use of using apps to buy books and more than one third of them increased their buying at sites like Amazon. A huge percentage of them said that they’ve significantly decreased their spending at book stores.

Their findings show that dedicated e-readers are still the most used platform for reading books, but even that has changed over the last few months. Take a look at these numbers:

-17% said they are now using tablets, which is up from 13%.

-Smartphones used as readers has gone from 5.3 to 9.2%

- Dedicated e-readers has dropped from 71.6% to 60.9%. Even so, sales for the Kindle jumped 175% between Black Friday and Christmas of this past year.

So how do these numbers translate into dollars and cents? The book trade as a whole has grown and profited over the last year, but the e-book trade has led the way jumping from 73.2 to 128.8 million dollars. That’s a 76% increase in just one year!

This is huge!

So what do you do with this information? E buying, whether print or e-book, is still fueled by the traditional method of “word of mouth”. We all want to read a good book so we listen to our friends. The trick is to take that time honored method and apply it to our digital age. “Word of mouth” now has the ability to extend far beyond a writer’s immediate little world. It’s called social media.

Indie/self published authors have blazed a path of marketing through this outlet pushing their sales to new heights. I was very interested to learn that traditional publishing houses are taking note of this grassroots effort and are using it as well. An anthology will soon be released through a major publishing house and they have each of their authors creating street teams to help market the book. Each author sends out a request to their friends asking them to sign up for a specific week to Facebook, Twitter, blog etc. about the upcoming book. It has the potential to reach hundreds of thousands of people, if not more. (Interesting twist that traditional publishing is taking a cue from the lowly writers who have made their own path.)

Let me be clear- I am not a business type person. I have trouble keeping my check book balanced, however I am NOT stupid. If I want to steer my writing career, I have to have the knowledge. Knowledge is power, knowledge translates into making money and as we’ve already decided, we all want to do that!

MuseTracks Guest – Georgie Lee – Tackling Your Research

Toady’s special MuseTracks guest is multi-published phenom (and fellow Carina Press author) Georgi Lee.

Welcome Georgie!

*Research, research and a little more research.

Research, for me, is not an onerous task. When I’m ready to start writing about a particular time period, I can’t wait to go to the library, pull every book available on that era off the shelf, take them home and lose myself in a new time period. However, research isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It can be overwhelming deciding where to begin, what to look for and when to stop. Today, I want to offer some advice and a few suggestions for getting started and seeing it through until “The End.”

The first thing to do is…

Start Big: You know what era you want to write about, so it’s time to learn about the era. General overview books are a great place to start because they give you the key politics, ideas, people and events that helped shape the time period. Once you know the basics, you can begin to…

Narrow things down: Decide when in the era you want your story to take place then focus your research accordingly. In my ancient Rome novella, Mask of the Gladiator, the story takes place in January 41 A.D. during Caligula’s assassination. As a result, I read books about Caligula, both ancient and modern, with special focus on his assassination. I took notes on the names of plotters, the details of the assassination, the havoc wreaked by the mad emperor and the impact of his death. I also had to be aware of whether or not things like the iconic Colosseum existed in 41 AD. It didn’t, so I researched whether or not there was another coliseum in existence at the time that was being used for gladiatorial matches. Details like this are important since mistakes can pull a reader out of the story. So can botched details concerning everyday life. So once you’re done narrowing things down, it’s time to…

Get personal: The details of everyday life help create characters, make them real and flavor a narrative. I started researching everyday life in ancient Rome, from the slaves who dressed the nobility’s hair, to the kind of food served at banquets, and the interior of Roman homes. I sprinkled these details throughout the story to help make the setting come alive and draw the reader into the time period. However, be careful with how much historic detail you add to your story. Too much will make it read like a college mid-term instead of a sweeping saga. So, what happens when the research you need isn’t there? Well, it’s time to…

Think outside the box: Depending on what time period you’re dealing with, you may or may not have a wealth of information to draw from. When I was researching ancient Rome, there was an almost endless list of books available on the subject. I’m currently researching ancient Egypt, and despite the vast amount of information on their funerary practices, knowledge of their daily lives is sketchy. Instead of relying on traditional books, I’m searching through different sources including classical authors, podcasts from modern Egyptologists, and papers from very early Egyptologists to try and extract information. Public domain books available free on Amazon are a great place to pick up research that is off the beaten path. It’s time consuming but worth it, even though at some point I’m going to have to…

Know when to say when: Research can be fun. It can help you outline your story or navigate a tricky plot point. However, it can also distract from writing. There is no end to the research available or the hours you can dedicate to it. It’s an important part of the process, but so is sitting down and getting words on paper. So, don’t be afraid to put your research aside and start writing, because the great thing about research is, you can access it any time and you can always do more.

Thank you everyone for stopping by and a special thanks to Jennifer for having me here today.

Bio

A dedicated history and film buff, Georgie Lee loves combining her passion for Hollywood, history and storytelling through romantic fiction. She began writing professionally at a small TV station in San Diego before moving to Los Angeles to work in the interesting but strange world of the entertainment industry.

Her traditional Regency, Lady’s Wager and her contemporary novella Rock ‘n’ Roll Reunion are both available from Ellora’s Cave Blush. Labor Relations, a contemporary romance of Hollywood is currently available from Avalon Books. Mask of the Gladiator, a novella of ancient Rome is now available from Carina Press. Look for her novel of love in the golden age of Hollywood from Avalon Books in 2012.

When not writing, Georgie enjoys reading non-fiction history and watching any movie with a costume and an accent. Please visit  www.georgie-lee.com for more information about Georgie and her novels.

Social Media Links

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Georgie-Lee/1118655216

Twitter: @GeorgieLeeBooks

Buy Links

Mask of the Gladiator – http://ebooks.carinapress.com/1C1CE451-9420-4E12-8657-AE8CE6C6F330/10/134/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=561AB37C-9999-418D-A4DB-219BD27E7D11

Surrender the Booty – Pirate High Seas Tactics

Song of the Day: Save Yourself by Stabbing Westward

Click to pre-order your copy!

In A Kiss in the Wind (release date March 26th!), pirate captain Blade Tyburn engages in not one, but two sea battles. Really, what’s a pirate adventure without some live action?  However, did you know that pirates often avoided going into battle?

Sure, pirates are known for their pillaging, plundering and rioting. But when chasing down ships under sail, pirates preferred tactical strategy over a blood-fest.

Once the pirates spotted a potential prize, they shadowed the quarry, following them for hours, and sometimes even days. They did this to determine several things—what country the ship sailed under, where the ship was headed, how fast could she sail, and was the vessel well-armed.  How did they determine all this? By being bad ass, of course.  These men made it their business to be experienced in the seas they prowled, became knowledgeable of the trade routes, and by having rats, er, informants staked along in ports.

Armed with this intelligence, the pirate crew voted on whether they wanted to take the ship or let her pass.  Should they decide a ship was a worthy prize, they still didn’t attack. Engaging in battle was the last thing they wanted. What good was a prize if she was damaged, or worse, sinking? And no one wanted to die, right? Pirates relied on the elements of speed, surprise, and gotchas!

First, they might show their colors, meaning hoisting their jolly roger. If that didn’t get the knees a-knockin’, they’d fire a single warning shot across the ship’s bow. You’d think that would be enough. Unfortunately there were some stubborn fools. So pirates would resort to vapouring techniques meant to terrorize victims into surrendering. Fierce shouts and fearsome threats, lively battle music, and brandishing weapons were usually quire effective. Giving up the goods spared lives. But those who resisted, well, they were shown no quarter.

If you were encountered by a pirate ship, when would you surrender? Or would you fight until the death?

Me? I’d probably try to use my feminine wiles to outsmart them. LOL!

The Superstitious Minds of Pirates

Song of the Day: Cue the Twilight Zone theme music.

Click cover to pre-order your copy!

In my Romancing the Pirates series, I mention superstitions often. Superstitions fascinate me. The oddity of these beliefs, how they originated, and the stories linked to them. And because superstition was so prevalent with sailors and pirates, naturally I incorporated bits of maritime myths in my books.

Like all sea dogs worth their salt, most of my characters are highly superstitious. One recurring belief tale after tale was that women on board were bad luck. By the antics and trouble that befall the crew time and again, I tend to agree.

In A Kiss in the Wind (shameless plug: release date March 26^th!), there are several events surrounding superstition that has the crew all skittish and affright. One such event involves seagulls flying overhead while our fearless pirate captain comes upon a ghost ship. Seagulls and albatross were believed to carry the souls of dead sailors. Killing one of these birds was considered very bad luck. Stand down animal lovers, no birds were harmed in the making of Kiss. But these birds did fly above the masts in groups of three—a sure omen of death.

Squawk!

Some of the superstitions I slipped into the story but said nothing of the beliefs surrounding them. Flowers are considered unlucky to have on board as they could be used for a funeral wreath. Therefore, many sailors believed flowers on a ship also meant someone would die on the voyage. In Blood and Treasure, I deliberately used flowers as a representation and foreshadowing symbolism.

Here are a few fun lesser known beliefs:

• No whistling on board – stirs up the wind bringing storms.
• Naked women on board were considered lucky – as they shamed the seas into being calm (think figureheads) I know, this is a direct conflict to not having women on board. Pfftth–men.
• Don’t set sail on Fridays – Christ was crucified on that day.
• A shark following a ship was a death omen. (Na-na-na-na-na-na-ahhhh! Jaws!)
• A bell ringing by itself surely meant someone was about to die. (Sheesh, choppy waters must be a bitch)
• Wine poured on the deck would bring good luck. (Just think of all the poor sailors’ tongues with splinters in them.)
• Rats leaving a ship meant the ship is doomed.
• Black cats were considered good luck.
• A silver coin placed under the masthead would ensure a good voyage. (Kind of like a bribe, I’d say.)
• Avoid redheads.
• An anchor tattoo will keep a man fallen overboard from drifting away from the ship.
• Gold earrings keep a sailor from drowning; it also ensured payment across the River Styx. (Boy, sailors sure are into bribery.)
• A baby boy born on a ship was good luck; it is suggested that a boy born on the gun deck is referred to as a “son of a gun”.
• Never say pig – it’s bad luck and brings strong winds; it’s also bad luck to mention say rabbit, hare, or fox (the captain’s name in Blood And Treasure is Fox – tee hee)
  

  Red skies at night, sailor's delight; red skies at morn, sailor be warned

• Don’t disrespect the sea – never throw a stone overboard.
• Bananas were bad luck, having bananas on board caused ship to disappear.
• A stolen piece of wood linked into the keel will cause the ship to sail faster. (Because no one wants to be caught stealing.)

There are loads more mariner superstitions. Can you name another?

MuseTracks Guest JD Faver – Researching the Elusive Alaskan Men

Today’s special guest is powerhouse JD Faver. JD is the author of contemporary romance, romantic suspense, and romantic thrillers. I must say I am amazed by her tireless drive and quirky spunk. You’ll understand why…

Welcome, JD.

Hi Jenn!

Thanks for inviting me to be your guest today on Muse Tracks. I wanted to share some of the things I learned while writing ON ICE, my new romantic thriller. Most of the time a writer has to do some research, even if they think they know everything there is to know about a subject. I do have some areas of expertise that I would feel comfortable delving right into without extensive research. Healthcare, nutrition, sailing, are among the things I think I know something about. Everything else in the whole wide world requires research.

Jenn, although you may have the heart of a sultry pirate wench, I’m sure you did spend a little time getting into the pirate mode online before you put fingers on the keyboard and cranked out your first wonderful novel.

ON ICE is the story of a Houston woman who escapes a brutally abusive husband and flees to the farthest point she can imagine, Alaska. Her sister helps her and for all her trouble, the sister draws the wrath of the crazy guy. But for my little heroine who is now in Alaska, I needed to know what life was like before I could write about her in her new world. Yes, I went to all kinds of online sites and gathered lots of good info, but there were still some details that eluded me. I have lived in the southern part of Texas most of my life, and although I would love to visit Alaska I was having a hard time with some of the juicy little details.

My brilliant plan was to go to an online dating site and look up Men in Alaska…

Are you laughing at me?

Please keep in mind that I am single and I was totally truthful. In my profile I wrote that I just wanted to use them for information for my novel. I got lots of interesting replies. I tell you, if you were really hard up for a date, Alaskan men are most appreciative. I sorted through the replies and copied and pasted the same note…”No, I’m not planning on moving to Alaska, nor am I planning a visit in the near future…You would be happy to pay my way? How lovely, but really, put away your Visa card. I just want to pick your brain…Yes; I’m tall and blonde…and have adequate body fat to provide for insulation…

Yes, I like to shoot things, but not animals. If I had to kill what I ate, I would be tenderizing the tree bark…”

I finally filtered out the lusty men who wanted to chat and settled on the most articulate of the bunch. The two very nice gentlemen who became my sources of Alaska minutiae were charming and amusing and very good sports.

So, this confession is just to let you know that you can always find a way to get solid meat on the bones of your story. Sometimes research is rather exciting. <g>

J.D. Faver

http://www.amazon.com/Ice-Contemporary-Romantic-Thriller-ebook/dp/B00758KQ22/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1

Toe-Curling First Kiss

Song of the Day: Poison by Alice Cooper

Being a romance writer, I’ve written a quite a few scenes involving kissing. I’m guessing most authors at some point have written an amorous scene or two with a kiss.

A kiss can be a powerful moment in a character arc or a pivotal juncture of a story. How a couple kisses can indicate sensual passion, loving emotions, or heated urgency. And at the other end of the spectrum, a kiss might hit upon disgust, jealousy, and evil designs.

A kiss is a kiss, right? Or is it? In order to effectively write about a kiss and not make the deed a simple act of swapping spit with a cold dead fish, an author might draw from their own experiences.

I remember my first real kiss. Not the quick peck on the cheek. Not the tight-lipped, eyes squeezed shut, immediately swiping the cooties away from you lips smooch. But a real kiss.

It was a late summer afternoon and I was the ripe age of fourteen and a half. I had been horse-playing in the front yard with a boy I liked. Let’s call him Trouble. Trouble was an older boy of sixteen. One who had undoubtedly kissed a few girls before. In hindsight, I see now that wrestling with Trouble had been a prelude to the inevitable. Being stronger than me, and with a considerable amount of cocky confidence, he pinned me to the ground. Time in the outside world suspended, but as he eyed me like prey with that insufferable smirk on his lips, he quickly descended upon me with one wicked kiss—complete with a little tongue action.

Shazam!

I remember vividly how that kiss felt, how it had changed me. I was like a wild animal stunned by a tranquilizer dart. Completely dazed and unable to move. My heart stopped beating. I sprouted wings and was flying high on the charge my body took. A surprising tingle spread across my body. And I was hot. Get your mind out of the gutter. I was hot from the blush of embarrassment. I mean, Trouble was a seasoned boy, after all. Had I kissed him back correctly?

Hope and excitement of sharing something so intimate, so special, had left me breathless. But true to the form of teenage boys named Trouble, his kiss was the beginning of another emotion—bone-crushing heartbreak. That’s juicy fodder for another blog.

Fortunately, there were more first kisses. First kisses by those I let into my life—a few flirty ones and a few cootie-wiping doozies. Then there was that first kiss from the man who would change it all. And our first kiss as husband and wife. Lucky for you, that is as mushy and sentimental as I get.

Do you remember your first kiss? Have you ever experienced a toe-curling pucker that blew your socks off? Let’s hear your lip-smacking stories!

Villains Can’t Be All Bad!!!!

By: Stacey Purcell

 

 

Villians. We love to hate them.

How do you make a villain truly memorable?

One of my favorite television shows is Criminal Minds. If you haven’t seen it, the show is about a profiling group within the FBI who get sent around the country to help on gruesome cases. There are so many villains running through that series that they all begin to blend together. However, there is one episode that stands out in my mind. It’s because the villain was so well thought out.

The essence of every novel is found within the conflict, two opposing forces set in the same time and space. That conflict is usually found between the protagonist and the villain. How much more fun would it be to create a really villainous villain! Let you imagination soar as to the dastardly things they can do on your pages, but be careful. If you let it run away with you, you’re in danger of creating a cartoon character instead of someone who keeps readers turning the page. They will put the book down in frustration because it has lost the reality edge.

The villain in this particular episode of Criminal Minds was doing some pretty intense stuff. He even captured one of the team and in doing so, we came to understand him a little bit better. His father was so twisted that he turned a sweet young boy into the monster on the show. The writers created sympathy and understanding within the viewers. We never condoned what he was doing, but it made you want to rescue the little boy trapped inside who had been branded by his deranged father. The show put us through an emotional wringer that haunts me still today.

That’s what we want for our novels. How do you do that? James Scott Bell in Conflict and Suspense has some great tips on creating unique and memorable villains:

1. Create a whole backstory for your villain. Let the reader know that he wasn’t always the psychopath killing machine, the back stabbing office worker, or the corrupt priest. Very few people are born bad to the bone- why did your villain turn out this way?
2. Just as it happened in Criminal Minds, give them a sympathy factor. When you do this, your audience bonds on some level with the villain. This is some powerful mojo! Create conflict within the reader. Their brain says he’s the bad guy, but their heart says that it’s not all his fault.
3. This next one can be difficult. Justify your bad guy’s actions. No matter how bad it seems to you, he thinks he’s in the right. Find some way to make it plausible for him to believe that. After all, he does what he does because he thinks he is entitled to his actions or what they will bring.

 

In my first book, I made my bad guy the result of a heinous grandfather’s torture. He was also terrified of the dark and was a gifted artist. Nine times out of ten, I received great feedback for my villain in contests because I made him seem all too human and my readers could relate to him. In my second book, the villain grows up in abject poverty and then loses his whole family in a massacre where he believes my protagonist has betrayed him. It broke my heart to write the scene where he ends up having to shoot his wife because she is in mortal agony. Hopefully, it will break my reader’s heart as well.

Create them bad, devious, sly, murderous, but create them human and you will have a powerful character that won’t be forgotten.