Today I am so happy to welcome back one of my favorite paranormal romance authors to Reading Between the Wines, Rosalie Lario! When you're done, make sure to check out
my reviews for her fabulous Demons of Infernum series and pick up your own copies today!
Handling the Unruly Character
A huge thanks to Crystal for inviting me here. I’m so glad to be back! Today I’m going to talk about an issue I recently encountered in my writing. A character refused to behave. See, in my mind he was a fun, carefree guy who lived for good times, but when I started writing in his POV, it came across far darker than I’d anticipated. So what did I do?
What most people would have done in my situation: I tried to whip him into shape, LOL.
Guess what? It didn’t work. J
It took me a lot of stopping and starting before I figured out the one thing that had been staring at me all along. My character wasn’t as shallow as I’d initially thought he was. He had some trauma in his past that he had never coped with, and it manifested in his personality as lightheartedness.
Once I stopped fighting my character’s true darker personality, the story sped up (and intensified).
If you’re not a writer, it might surprise you to hear me speak of my character as if he’s a living person. But see, that’s the thing. In my head, he is. Sure, I give him some character traits to start with, but once I begin writing that character, he takes on a life of his own. My job is to portray him as honestly as I can, and to follow along wherever he deems to leads me.
One of my absolute favorite characters is Cresso, the hero in Heart of the Incubus (a novella based in my Demons of Infernum world). He’s an incubus and a biochemist who is used to having more than his share of women and good times. That is, until he happens to fall for his coworker, Genevieve Russell, a sexy scientist who wants absolutely nothing to do with him. After her fiancé broke her heart, Genevieve has had enough of womanizers. She’s determined to steer clear of sexy-as-sin Dr. Taylor, despite the fact that his incubus allure makes her want to rip his clothes off. But when a secret admirer’s affection turns to the macabre with threatening notes and grisly gifts, Cresso appoints himself her protector. As she and Cresso hunt her stalker, she discovers there’s a lot more to the sensual incubus than she ever imagined.
I’ll be happy to give an ecopy of Heart of the Incubus to one commenter who answers the question: What would you do with an unruly character: (a) whip him; (b) follow along where he takes you; or (c) both? LOL, thanks for playing along.
