Manly Words

Sometimes I think my writing career really began with my book Whenever You Want.  It was my 14th book, but most of what I wrote before that was not very good, so I started my career with Whenever You Want.  Today's post is about my main male characters and how I built them.  

What I like to do when I'm making a man for the audience to fall in love with at the same time as our heroine, I like to choose a word to describe him to help center his character.  Today, I'm going to share the words I used to build my men.  Let's get started.

Mark Lewis - Whenever You Want: The goal with Mark was simple.  I wanted to make a man who was a REASONABLE man to be Christina's first love.  In a lot of ways, everything that I wrote before this book was nothing more than practice, and I knew that, so I wanted to keep my expectations low.  When I read the book as a more mature novelist, I see that I accomplished what I set out to do.  However, I also prefer Dominic to Mark (even though he is the antagonist), and whenever I do a public reading for this book, I always choose to highlight a scene where Dominic brings it all out.  Actually, I see myself grabbing Dominic by the neck like he's a kitten and using him as a main male lead in another story.  I don't know when that will be, but I love him so much, I might just do that someday.

Seth Halkias - Kiss of Tragedy: His word may surprise a few of you.  It's OBEDIENCE.  This book is organized like it's paying tribute to Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake.  So, in the first half of the book our main girl, Juliet is acting like a baby and she's not getting the best out of Seth because she's still expecting him to lead her.  By the second half of the book, we know all that is wrong, and our girl has taken complete control.  By this point in the book, Seth will do anything she asks of him.  I'm not sure how many women get to experience this because men are so often insistent on being dominant, but having someone be willing to obey your every word because they love you completely is an element of romance I wanted to explore.

Tate Crossman - The Blood that Flows: This book was published ten years ago and is now out of circulation.  I may re-release it if I see a decent enough gap in my writing schedule that I have the time to polish it up a bit.  His word is DEPENDABILITY.  This book is not a romance novel.  It has a few elements of a romance novel, but the resolution does not have anything to do with falling in love, or being in love, or being together.  Tate makes it his responsibility to be there for our girl when she needs him the most.  Like the best film noir, you fall in love, get hit hard, but by the end, the world has changed so completely that when the story fades out at the end, everyone must reconstruct their reality.  Maybe he and Sweeper get together in that new world and maybe they don't.

Harrison Fox - Rose Red: Harrison's word has a double meaning.  His word is APPRECIATION.  It means that he's grateful.  He's so incredibly grateful to have Paige in his life, it almost brings me to tears thinking about it.  The second meaning for the word is: gaining in value.  He appreciates.  As I was reading some fresh comments about Rose Red, I began to wonder how many women feel appreciated in their lives.  His character also improves as the story progresses, so you can see Paige's influence on him.  By the end, he's golden.

Evander Chaney - Behind His Mask: Evander was built a bit differently than most of my other male leads.  His word is STRIPPED.  If you read the book, you'll see how he is literally and figuratively stripped in the book.  Part of the goal of his character is to change the minds and hearts of the reader.  He begins the story by being everything that is usually portrayed in a romance novel hero.  He's intelligent, muscular, affluent, rich, and good-looking.  By the end of the book, all that is gone.  He's so enraged, he can't think and he's partly crazy as he scribbles on the wall.  His muscles have been ridiculed because he's been a jester, not a knight.  Not only that, but his muscles are a bit of a threat to our girl, Serena (Sarah) because she would not like to be forced into a deeper physical relationship.  By the end, his family is revealed as a complete mess.  His poverty is uncovered, and his good looks are lost because he begins to look like his father, which Sarah finds completely repellant.  The reason this book is supposed to change the minds and hearts of the reader is that the standard man that is created for the entertainment of romance novel readers... he's a fantasy.  This book is meant to encourage the reader to have a real-life romance with a real man without the false expectations that are created by unrealistic but constantly repeated male characters.  Good luck, girls! 

Christian Henderson - His 16th Face: Christian is the best male character I've ever written.  In order to make him, I had to use four body models and three character models.  That's a lot.  The most I had ever used before this was five models to make Evander.  Sometimes, I don't even have to use any.  My man just pops into my head like he was there all along.  Christian is my masterpiece.  His word is SACRIFICE.  I'm working on the sequel, If Diamonds Could Talk, right now, so I'm not in a great place to talk about Christian, so I'll leave it at that.

Salinger Meriwa - Hidden Library: Hidden Library is the sequel to Behind His Mask, and so Salinger has a tough act to follow with everything that happened to Evander and Sarah in the first book.  His word is DOGGEDNESS.  Salinger has a plan and his plan is in direct opposition to Veda's plan.  He wants to win her over, but she's determined to slam the door in his face.  For quite a large percentage of the book, what he tries to do in order to connect with her doesn't work.  He has to keep trying and trying in order to get through to her.  When he finally gets there, it's quite glorious.

Fletch Litman - If I Tie U Down: This character is so vivid to me, I worry that he'll be annoyed if I say something about him that he doesn't like.  His word is FLEXIBILITY.  Fletch is not thrown by changes in circumstance.  He's very willing to do all kinds of things, like a person who doesn't know his limits.  His flexibility is so intense that his attitude changes on a dime as he sticks to his priorities.  Honestly, I feel a little in love with him whenever he talks and I have great hopes that this book will eventually enjoy as much success as Whenever You Want.

These are the men from the books that I've released.  I have five unfinished projects at the moment.  When I say 'unfinished projects', I mean books that do not have a complete first draft yet.  I'm on draft three for If Diamonds Could Talk.  But, as a teensy sneak peek into the project I have in mind for after I finish up Diamonds, the word for my latest man is GAMBLER.  I could squeal, I'm so excited.  He's going to set the world on fire!