Tag Archives: romance

And I write books with romance?

I have an anecdote to start my post with. I was getting off the subway, my purpose for this trip to meet my husband after he was done work. I’m slow, mostly due to my carrying a tiny human, and my doctors orders to slow the eff down because of earlier complications. As I’m getting to the steps a guy calls out. I see him coming towards me so I’m obviously the steps “madame” he’s calling to. He has something in his hand and my first thought is crap, what did I drop? He then hand me a rose, tells me to have a good day, and takes off-presumably to the next unsuspecting woman as he had a couple more in his hand.
My first thought is wow, that’s kinda creepy. Then I realized that most women, married or not, might have thought this a wonderfully sweet gesture. If I distance much self from the act, look at it as if I was another person, I may have found it amazingly romantic. A flash of romantic comedy runs across my mind and I see a girl maybe trying to find him again. Maybe the gets his contact anyway. Instead, the reality is my best friend wonders why I didn’t hold on to the red bud. I know, I’m a broken woman.

Or am I?

Women who read this, what would you have done?

Love’em for what’s on the inside – What makes a Charming Character

I’ve been analyzing a lot lately what makes a very loveable character, mostly in the heart-throb, swooning kind of way. But other than their charming good looks, and the things an author makes them do that causes crushes, there is also the personality.

My favorite Character in a book thus far.

Pocket, from Christopher Moore’s Fool, is definitely one of my character crushes. If you haven’t read the book, you should, especially if you like dark humor, Shakespeare, and you’re not easily offended by cursing (among other things). Pocket is King Lear’s jester, and he’s determined to restore the Kingdom back to its glory after Lear dismisses Cordelia from his good graces, and divides the Kingdom between his other daughters. Pocket, aside from being hugely comical, is also dark, slightly vengeful, loyal to those who deserve it, and extremely intelligent despite his upbringing. I loves me some Pocket. My other book crush is Erik from Phantom of the Opera. Yes, the book version. I know he’s a little (*cough*a lot *cough*) psychotic, murderous, obsessive, etc., but all he wants is to be loved, and treated like any other human being despite the very terrifying disfigurement of his face. He’s kinda like Wall-e except, you know, evil. But he very obviously has the possibility to change within him.

Characters like those two are very different, and they have very different aspects that get me to say that I adore them. So how does a person mold the personality to make a character loveable? This is where it can get truly sticky, because what one person adores, another abhors when it comes to a single trait. Even stranger, you can just shift the POV that the character is being viewed from and you can make the same person suddenly love a character they despised.

Well, with the difference between the characters I create, and the ones that I love, I have no authority to say what makes a personality (much like how I’m not sure I’m the authority on what makes a 25 year old’s heart flutter). But I do know that, no matter what the setting, it only takes that one thing, that one action that the character’s persona allows to happen, to sweep a reader off their feet. It doesn’t have to be a grand, heroic gesture – it could be as simple as picking up the dishes he broke for the waitress, being the supportive friend despite outsider’s objections, or being the shoulder to cry on when you have no idea why you’re crying in the first place. Any man can do these things, of course, but only ones who have certain personality traits can do it with honest feeling, and make it count.

So, what are you favorite personality traits to either read or write about?

An Altered Ending is Available at GirleBooks! Want to get a FREE copy?

It’s really super simple to get entered into a draw for 1 of 3 copies! You can…

 1) ‘Like’ My Facebook page if you haven’t already http://www.facebook.com/megantrennett

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 Contest will close on February 20th, and the winner will be announced by the 22nd. PDF is also available, as well as ePub, PRC, and LIT eReader file formats. 

 Check it out here!

Nancy Kelley’s His Good Opinion – A book Recommendation

When I poked my head into the writing world, I noticed that there was a particular book that was very popular among my fellow female authors: Pride and Prejudice. I’d never read it before (being Canadian and all, I was force fed Canadian lit in my schooling), so I became curious about why it was so popular.

I’ll admit right now, it took me over a year of having seen it mentioned a lot in my twitter feed before I endeavored to dip my toe in the experience of it. I watched the movie. I didn’t get it. Was it good? Sure, but not really romantic or anything. After posting my experience on Facebook, I was directed to the mini-series. Again, I watched the whole thing with hope that, by the end of it, I would be a P&P fan. Nope, didn’t happen.

Fast forward two months, I’m sitting in my living room, Kobo in hand and an urge to read. P&P was a free eBook I’d downloaded once I had my new toy from Santa up and running. I was going to read it. At this point, I’ve engrossed myself with this story enough that a simple few words triggers memories of the speech on the page before me to the point that I feel like I’ve read this book three times a year my entire life. At the very least, it had some very unforgettable verse. But, alas, I still wasn’t a believer. About to give up all hope, I remembered seeing a little book that had been part of my Twitter feed reading for as long as I’ve had an account.

Enter Nancy Kelley’s His Good Opinion.

If anyone was going to make me like this story, it would have to be a fan. In truth, however, I didn’t have any hope of being a fan going into this book.

And I’m still not, but I am a fan of THIS book.

His Good Opinion, which is P&P told entirely from Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy’s POV, has a lot more of the elements I was looking for in the original story. Nancy makes the desire of Elizabeth’s courtship far more believable, if I may say, as she pens the thoughts and feelings of Darcy as if she was Austen herself. While readying the original, thinking that his apparent sudden feelings seemed very absurd (even with the bits and pieces of his perspective), Nancy makes it feel natural and obvious. She does this again with the change that Darcy goes through, and for the first time, I didn’t walk away from the tale wondering what I was missing.

She creates scenes, whether based on the original text or not, that linger in your mind the way a great movie does, and the ending feels far more satisfying than Austen’s.

If anyone was to tell me that they were going to read Pride and Prejudice for the first time, or if they had the same feelings I had about this, I would recommend they go out and buy this book. Like, now!

I’ve been wanting to do book recommendations for a while, as I really enjoy reading and passing along great book suggestions, and I’m really happy that my first one is a fellow Indie. Nancy Kelley, if you ever write another classic based novel, I’ll probably be one of the first people to buy it.

His Good Opinion On Smashwords

Appealing to the mind’s-eye.

Every time I start a book, and begin to create new characters, I think about how they would look. Normally the personality, especially that of my leading man (or men), are already front of mind and need the eye-candy coated shell to be wrapped around it. This whole idea came about after considering the post I made last week about crushing on your characters. It’s easy for the creator do so, but what about the ones who pick up the book? Naturally, as most authors do, I want my guy to appear attractive to the reader. It’s a hard task to do considering people find different things attractive.

Maybe you prefer blonde hair over brown, or maybe no hair at all. Tattoos: do you enjoy them, or are they a deal breaker? Same goes with piercings (and if you’re all for them, maybe you aren’t in all areas). How about eyes? Are you more drawn to blue eyes, brown, green? Are you attracted to ‘four eyes’ or would you rather they wear contacts? What about build, ripped to the point of cheese grater abs, or do you like a little meat on the bones? Baby faced or strong jawed? Not to mention that, once you form that pristine male specimen in your head, you have to clothe him. Okay, so maybe you don’t have to clothe him, but unless you’re writing erotica, they can’t very well run around naked all the time.

Creating a character you want your audience to truly fall in love with can be really pain staking. Age range alone will make what appeals different from one reader to the next. You may say “but you have to keep your target audience in mind.” True, but consider this: chick-lit, contemporary romance, and the likes usually have a target audience of women ranging in age from 25-50. And while there are some women in their forties who find, say, the stars of Twilight to be hunky-monkeys, they’re probably going to lean more towards the George Clooney’s and Brad Pitts. My age range is more on the Robert Pattinson, Daniel Radcliff end of things. However, as demonstrated by the image below, they are not what I would call my cup of tea (Truth be told, looking at my top 6, I’m not sure I have a type except older).

On the left: Men Considered Attractive by people in my age group. On the right: Men I considered attractive. I think there's a difference

So how do you do it? How do you create the guys who will not only capture your heroine’s heart, but also that of your cherished reader? And readers, what makes a character appeal to you (outside of personality, because THAT’s what truly matters-and is a topic for another day).

Creating Perfect[ly flawed] Characters that steal your heart

Said to be the perfect man, but can you create a better one?

 @harleymaywrites Tweeted yesterday that she had a crush on one of her characters. I thought this was normal. In fact, I thought anything less than a crush on your characters set one up for failure in portraying them in the way you want them to be: perfectly flawed. Especially if you write tales of the heart like I do.

I myself have been infatuated with one of my characters for approximately two years now. He’s Simon Avery, the main love interest for my main character, Ellen, in the up-coming An Altered Ending. Simon has issues: like his fear of aging, his stubbornness, his cockiness (especially when it comes to his writing), and a few others. But he’s also incredibly supportive, loyal, empathetic, and, of course, hot. I loved him, and the way he is, so much that I ended up writing another piece with him a little more in the light (a ways away from completion, though).

I have enjoyed a particular dark haired villainous man from Heart Pulled to Pieces, as well as his arch rival. Yet, still, as much as I enjoyed these characters, they don’t hold the same amount of space in my creative heart that this guy does. There are similarities among all three (though two are more alike than the other), but no matter how I dice it, and no matter what I do to try and change it, Simon is still numero uno.

It makes me wonder what exactly makes a writer love one character more than another? Personality? Looks? Emotions tied to the piece that they’re involved in?

Even if it’s not the same level of admiration as the kind that makes you swoon, I think we all have “favorite children” amongst our pieces. You never really want to admit it, because you’re supposed to be proud of all of them, but there’s always one that sticks out more than the rest. It probably doesn’t hurt that they’re easy on the minds eye, and say witty and charming things while they run around in there.

So tell me, what are your favorite creations, and what makes you love them so much?

A special thanks to the Harley May on Twitter for inspiring the blogpost

Also, Gingie (the gingerbread man) was created by and is owned by Dreamworks

What’s love got to do with it? Hopefully everything

When my sister and I talk television, one of our most common complaints is how bland and boring one of our once favorite shows has become. We still watch it, loyalty of course with a bit of interest in some of the story lines, but either way the luster has been long gone. It’s hard to pin point exactly where the magic ended, but it’s pretty clear that after a bit it ventured into the mundane. What used to drive this show? The will they/won’t they.

It's after the happy ending, so should their tale have kept going?

It makes me wonder, every time I watch it, why drag the story on beyond the obvious end? With television shows, it’s obviously the network pushing to keep their money makers on the air. But there is the possibility of changing it up, writing characters off the show. Once upon a time, I recall the creator of my sister and I’s former favorite saying that she brought in a certain new character to allow the show to continue once all the current lead tales were already told. Yet, to this day, they’re dragging on the old relationships that have long ended (be it good or bad) for unexplained reasons.

As a writer, I can’t imagine continuing on a tale that’s long over, after the excitement of the concrete ending has passed. I get the need to show a glimpse of the happily ever after, but the everyday mundane? When it comes to a story about the thrill of falling love, it’s about the journey, the pitfalls, the highs and low, the anticipation of what could be. After that, it can get stale. Not that what happens afterwards isn’t a journey on its own, but it’s a different story.

So why keep going? For the money.

When it comes to telling tales, I ask fellow writers if they would continue a story, long after what you thought the ending should be, because it would bring you more money? Do you write because you love it? Or do you write because you love the dollars?

I know my answer, but I’m curious as to what other’s opinions are. I’m aware that there are those who write strictly for the paycheck, and I’d like to know why.

As for my sister and I, we have a new show we watch and get excited about. It’s on tonight after the Holiday Hiatus. I wonder if it’ll be as good when the inevitable conclusion happens, and I’m eager to find out. I’m a sucker for it, what can I say.

PS- Grey’s Anatomy (the promo image used in this post)  was created by Shonda Rimes and airs on ABC.