The Alpha Male–Better Known as “Oh Yum”
Published February 24, 2011 | 
I was discussing the role of the Alpha male today with a very good friend of mine. It shouldn’t be a surprise that two people who write stories that involve, or revolve around, relationships would end up discussing the Alpha male character. Writers and readers alike are interested in the Alpha male, the hero, the man slated to play opposite the heroine in every great story. And the story isn’t required to be a love story. It can be a story where there is merely sexual tension; an awareness that there is a man and woman involved in the plot, but not with each other. Sometimes that’s the best kind of story!
But for me, and my stories, there has to be contact (often full frontal sans clothing). I need the characters to be involved, to take the sexual tension to a new level where spontaneous combustion is a real threat, and combustion may be the characters’ or it may be the reader’s. I want my Alpha male to be a strong man, sometimes arrogant, often a little controlling, with a need to fix the things the heroine needs fixed in the story whether she wants, or needs, him to fix it on her behalf. I want him to have a hard side, a secretly soft heart, and a passion for the heroine that goes without saying. The Alpha male must lust after the heroine but find himself falling in love. That love must be true, though it doesn’t have to come without a struggle, a fight, a few curse words, and some remorse. Because a true Alpha male will resent love a little bit for taking his choices away from him, even if he doesn’t recognize or understand the resentment. It flavors the story.
The Alpha males that I create are generally composed of all these different layers. Sometimes they come across immediately and other times you’ve got to get into the story beyond the first fifty pages to find the Alpha’s emotional depth. I’m of the opinion a character shouldn’t lay all their cards out on a table for a reader to sort through. Instead, he should play it close to the chest. He should flirt with the reader a little, or a lot, and engage the reader in a little literary foreplay. I want the reader to crave the Alpha both physically and emotionally, and that takes time. On the page it can happen quickly between two characters, but for the reader, the emotional investment must be developed. This is where I think some authors fail to engage me, by failing to give my Alpha a multi-dimensional personality. I can get one-dimension satisfaction by staring at the clipart on this page. But if I’m reading, I demand more than that.
As an author, I demand my characters provide that to the readers. There are times I’ll read a scene and think, “Ha! Got it in one!” And there are other times I struggle with a scene, writing and rewriting it until it finally clicks and the dialogue (both stated and implied), the character movement, and the background noises all come together to make the scene happen. I love it when I can go back and read a passage and really feel the emotions I wanted to pull out. I like a sex scene that leaves me squirming, even if I was the one to write it. I like a passionate embrace that makes me miss my husband. And I like the camaraderie that not only pulls the characters together but that also pulls the reader in as a silent wraith amid the characters’ action, allowing the reader to move among these three-dimensional characters and hear their voices, smell their skin, feel the heat of their sun, and the silk of their sheets.
It may seem I slipped off topic, but stick with me. I’m coming back to the Alpha male. His role in all of this is to provoke the heroine, engage the reader, and pull the story together. It’s a lot of weight to put on one fictional character, but I’m solidly of the opinion that a story is as strong as its Alpha male(s). Weak men just don’t do it for me in any way; they never have. So the next time you pick up a novel, give the Alpha male some thought and figure out how he makes or breaks the story for you. Look at his layers and figure out if he’s a potato or an onion: single skin or infinite layers. And finally, decide how the Alpha male makes you feel every time he walks on stage. Hopefully, if it’s my story you’re reading, you’ve missed him a great deal. And if you’re rooting for him to take his shirt off? Well, I’ve done my job.
Achieving Writing Bliss
Published February 23, 2011 | 
I waffled about blogging on the topic of achieving writing bliss for fear of being sacrificed to the many muses (musi? musee? mise?) of my followers. It’s always a fear, you know, that you’re going to strike upon a topic so volatile that it results in threats against your frog tattoo (yes I have one), your Porsche (no, I don’t have one), or your secret stash of Lindt (steer clear of the chocolate, people). The time has come to throw down the gauntlet to those who believe you must be miserable to be an effective writer. The gloves are off, and I’m about to slap you with happy.
Writing is solitary by nature. While there are almost always people around, writing is done alone. It means that we must partner with our muse and sit down in front of the keyboard and turn thoughts, ideas, conversations and dreams into viable stories. Writers are advised to develop thick skin. I agree we must be impervious to the naysayers, but thick skin? Hm. I don’t know. I believe that without thickened skin, the industry will eat you alive. But writers must preserve some of their emotional vulnerability for that to be able to translate sincerely from the author to character to reader. We’re advised to write the stories that come from our hearts and souls. If no one reads them, does that mean our hearts and souls are barren, unpopulated wastelands? NO. How then is an author to find balance, meet both requirements, nurture the muse, and simply write? It’s simple, really: achieve writing bliss.
Bliss is defined as a state of (some believe extreme) happiness. It took me a while to figure out how to translate this to my writing life, but I’m almost there. Here are my five rules:
First, you must passionately love what you do. Writing is hard. If you don’t love it, find some other way to spend your time.
Second, you need to find a method to translate that passion to the page, whether you write romance or science fiction. It doesn’t matter.
Third, you need to develop a routine that encourages you to honor your work.
Fourth, find a partner to dissolve the silence that surrounds the process.
Fifth, you must find ways to nurture your bliss. Feed your happiness or it will wither like a bloom left without water.
It is a misconception bordering on an outright lie that says bliss is a simple state of being. That assertion pisses me off. You have to work at bliss. You have to nurture it, tend it, honor it, and commit to it. I’ll be spending some blogging time discussing suggested methods you might use to put these five points into place. Hope to see you around!
We Temporarily Interrupt This Program…
Published February 13, 2011 | 
I’ve been blogging on query letter writing and we’ll continue that blog together after this short change of program.
There are so many misconceptions about what writers are and what writers aren’t. I don’t imagine my thoughts will lay waste to any existential arguments simply because they are, after all, mine. My thought tend to lean toward things like Why do squirrels constantly twitch their tails? What makes a car behave for a mechanic yet crap on its owner? and How can politicians be so charismatic and repulsive at the same time? So yeah, no great revelations coming in this post, but I hope you walk away with a little more perspective.
In my mind there’s a difference between being a writer and an author. Writers write; authors are read. Anyone can claim to be a writer; few can claim to be an author. Regardless, one can never become an author without having been a writer first.
Writing is a time-consuming labor of love. Your muse becomes both a creative partner and elusive wraith, and you are instinctively in tune with her moods 24/7. Writers are driven to create that one line or paragraph or piece that becomes the hinge of the story, brings a character to life, or resonates with the soul. Genre is irrelevant. Every writer experiences moments where they laugh out loud at something they’ve written or cry at the torture they inflict on their own characters. While I definitely prefer the first, I always appreciate the second. None of it comes easily. There are days you struggle to write anything at all; other days you can’t type as fast as the words come to you. But the worst moments by far come when your muse is silent. You begin wondering if she’s just resting. As the days pass, you wonder if she’s withered up and died in some small corner of your mind. Then, somewhere around 3 A.M. on a Monday, she steps in and demands your immediate attention, and you’re just so damn grateful she’s back that you get up and write without complaint. Is it a coincidence that she comes to you at the witching hour? That’s for you to decide. I know what I believe.
The difference between being a writer and an author comes when your words evolve, line by line, into a story and someone in the literary world not only sees that story but blesses it and, eventually, sees it through to publication. What’s it like to be a published author? I don’t know. But I’ll be glad to tell you when I get there.
Creating Your Query Hook
Published February 5, 2011 | 
Ah, the fishing lure. If you’ve ever wandered around a sporting goods store, you know that there are rows upon rows of items designed to attract fish. Lures are specific to the types of fish you’re after and the locations you’re fishing (i.e. saltwater or fresh). There are soft plastics, hard baits, hand-tied flies and and hard plastic bobbers. It’s a veritable cornucopia of delectable fishy delights.
What does this have to do with writing? There are so many analogies I could make there isn’t time to list them all. But what we’ll focus on today is developing your hook. A hook is a summary of your manuscript’s plot that includes an emotional hook to engage the reader’s interest. It should be two or three sentences that clearly define your main character, his/her primary problem, and a catastrophic result.
Identifying the main character is simple. Who is your story about?
Identifying the primary problem s/he encounters should also be relatively simple. You may have ten active subplots occurring, but there is one primary plot your main character is engaged in. Define that plot as concisely as you are able. A couple of words will do for the planning stages of developing your hook.
The third point, identifying a catastrophic result, is called the black moment. This is the moment where everything falls apart, comes crashing in, is dramatically revealed, etc. and your main character reaches the culmination of his/her struggles throughout the story arc. Pick a couple of good, descriptive lines/thoughts/words to describe the black moment. It can be as simple as “Jane’s husband cheats” or “Mawdan faces evil sorcerer, is wounded.” For literary fiction, you would focus on the great revelation, or what the character has to learn (i.e. John understands forgiveness is key).
So you’ve got your three key elements. The next thing to do is develop these elements into approximately three very well-crafted sentences. The mood should be reflective of your book, the language reflective of your voice. If you’re writing a comedy, keep it light. If you’re writing dark urban fantasy, don’t crack a joke.
Put your words and/or phrases in order: main character, main problem, catastrophe/great revelation. Next, build a couple of active sentences that describe your book. This counts toward the 250-300 words allowed in your query, so be concise. I drafted this hook for a novel I haven’t written yet:
“Jane is forced to either adapt or die when her plane crash lands on a remote South Sea island. Daily survival is a challenge in itself but when she runs out of her schizophrenia medication, she’s assaulted by a variety of scenarios. Determining which ones are real is her only hope of survival.”
I’ve introduced the main character (Jane), her main problem (survival), and her black moment (reality and illusion combine). This pushes the reader into the first paragraph which is right where I want him/her to be.
This hook is the opening to your query letter. It’s critical that you grab your reader immediately, thus the reason for action words like “forced,” “crash,” “challenge,” and “assaulted.” Action words/language are meant to engage the reader, whereas passive words/language nearly give the reader permission to pass on the rest of your letter.
One final comment: the absolute worst way you can open up your query is with a question. “What if Jane crashed on a deserted island?” I guarantee you the agent reading the query is going to answer you with, “I wouldn’t care.”
Remember that a great manuscript must be represented by a remarkable query in order to catch the eye of the average agent.
Next: Building the Body of Your Query
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