First, I want to apologize to our guest today. Cheryl was supposed to appear on the blog yesterday, but due to illness, I didn't get the post up. So I am giving her my spot today. I hope you enjoy her post!
Bring on the Bad Boys
I love reading books that have bad boy heroes because I love to study how authors manage to make them likable despite the traits that earned them a bad boy badge. They can be dark and lethal, blonde and brooding, cowboy-tough, military-level-menacing, French and formidable, unremorsefully sexy, womanizing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Insert your own favorite bad boy trait here. LOL!Romance novel fanatics love to read about heroines they’d want to be and heroes they’d want to be with. Fact: women are attracted to bad boys. Why?
Do you think it’s the nurturing side of us, thinking we can tame them? Or the fantasy that we can be the one woman on earth to finally capture their mustang heart? Why do you think it is that readers are drawn to bad boy characters?
I love when an author does it right. If a guy comes off like a jerk and has no redeeming quality whatsoever, I never connect with or care about the hero. Bad boys still have to be likable in some way.
In Debbie Macomber’s Sooner or Later, Murphy, the lead male should not have been endearing, but he was. The fact that he cared about children in jeopardy smoothed out his rough edges. Also that he found himself helping the heroine even though every unmanageable thing in him flailed against it. Debbie did a wonderful job of showing this mercenary’s inner struggle. This character was very memorable.
Why did television viewers love Angel, a demon vampire? I mean really…a demon? But Angel mesmerized his audience. If you watched the series, what qualities do you think his character possessed that drew viewers?
Think of Doctor House in the award-winning TV series, House. He’s a total jerk and virtually friendless but readers can’t look away. Why do you think that is? Do you think it’s because the writers made him vulnerable by giving him a limp? Or because he’s great at his job? Or could it be because we can glimpse his private pain at times despite how he lashes out at those around him?
Study these and other movies and books containing bad boy heroes to see how that author effectively endeared them to us. Can you think of other examples I haven’t mentioned here?
Another example is Vince from my January 2010 Steeple Hill release, A Soldier’s Devotion. All along the Wings of Refuge Series (Steeple Hill-2008-2010) we know that he’s the stubborn, brooding, dark and deadly member of the Pararescue team. He’s a party animal and a player. So why did so many women, Christian women at that, write me begging for his story?
I don’t have the answer but I truly enjoyed writing his story. He didn’t change overnight and he was still tough and brooding. But he obviously had some kind of appeal or readers wouldn’t have fallen in love with him even as a secondary or ancillary character. I am anxious to see the reader response once his story finally hits shelves. I sincerely hope I have done his character justice and satisfied readers’ hunger to see him redeemed and having his own story while still maintaining his bad boy-ish-ness. He was fun to delve into and to figure out. And sexy? Oh, yes. And he knows it, but it’s how he uses it or not, meaning the restraint he exercises after his conversion that I think gave him the greatest strength as a character.
Do you like bad boy heroes? Why or why not? Who are some of the bad boys you remember most? Why do you think that is? At what point in the story did you come to care about them? How did the author engage you to them, meaning what did the character do or think or say that led to your liking them despite their flaws?
Have you written a bad boy character? What makes them bad? What is their noble trait or redeeming quality—the thing that is going to make them irresistible to readers?
Talk away!
I love Suzanne Brockmann’s (warning: explicit content in those novels) and Susan May Warren’s and Shirlee McCoy’s (no explicit content) characters because they often fall into this bad boy mold, yet we end up loving them very soon into the book. If you read these authors, I’d love you to analyze the story as to what the authors did to make the bad boys lovable. When you figure it out, I’d love for you to take a moment to comment or e-mail me with your thoughts.
Born Valentine’s Day on a naval base, Cheryl Wyatt writes military romance. Her Steeple Hill debuts earned RT Top Picks plus #1 and #4 on eHarlequin's Top 10 Most-Blogged-About-Books, lists including NYT Bestsellers. www.CherylWyatt.comSoldier Daddy-Oct 2009
A Soldier’s Devotion-Jan 2010
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