Not long ago, i had the opportunity to guest at Dawn’s Reading Nook with the marvelous Dawn Roberto. She asked such fun questions about creating great stories and characters, i thought i’d reproduce some of that interview here. Hope you enjoy it.
What do you consider to be the key elements of a great story?
It all starts with characters for me. If I love the characters, I’ll forgive a lot of other things. I also love books written in deep point of view that take me on the characters’ journey through their eyes and heart. After that, I enjoy clever dialogue that sounds like real people say it. A great story will also have a tight plot with believable conflict. While I’ll forgive a lot for great characters, I get real annoyed with conflicts that go on and on when they could be resolved with one good conversation.
Could you tell us a little about how you develop your characters? Who has been your favorite character to write? The most challenging?
I always start with heroes. Of course, a lot of my books are M/M or M/M/M so they are all about the heroes. I get inspired by an idea for a man – wouldn’t it be fun to have a serious scientist meet a man so different from him he can hardly relate? How about a supermodel? Wouldn’t it be great if I wrote a hero who is a ballet dancer? Then all the other characters arise from that central idea. The idea character isn’t necessarily even the main POV character. I did write a book about a ballet dancer – my romantic suspense, Golden Dancer, coming out on September 27. But the ballet dancer, while the heart of the story, is actually secondary in POV to the news reporter who falls in love with him.
My favorite characters? A toss-up between my wonderful supermodel, Roan Black, in The Scientist and the Supermodel, Genetic Attraction, and later in the year, Deceptive Attraction. I adore him. He is my baby. But I also love my hero David Underwood from Volley Balls. I describe him as a “flaming gay boy from Laguna”, but he is gutsy and wonderfully original and I totally loved writing him.
My most challenging character? Mac MacAllister in Golden Dancer that comes out on September 27th. He was difficult because he is torn between his love for his reporter’s craft, “getting the story”, and his love for the art collector billionaire who he is investigating. It puts him in a terrible conflict of trust and honor and it was very challenging to write.
How would you have answered Dawn’s questions? What do you consider the key elements of a great story? And BTW, i’ll be back at Dawn’s answering a new set of questions later this month. Check out the Book Blog for dates. Thank you so much for coming by. : )