Ahem.

So anyway with all this alpha-love going on around Ashenden House, it annoys the crap out of me that in my latest WIP I keep softening up my hero. I kept doing it with the skeikh and I did it in the ms before that too. In fact I keep softening them up so much that they may as well be blouses instead of alpha heroes. And not in the billowy, loose, cool pirate shirt way. More in a frilly, girly way. May as well have put a pussy-bow on them and called them Fanny.

I know why I’m doing it of course. In my head I’m thinking frantically ‘he MUST be sympathetic!’. And ‘there MUST be some soft moments right NOW!’. And ‘he MUST be likeable!’. Argh. So I keep making him gentler, making him likeable and sympathetic and….well….soft. Which for an alpha Presents hero isn’t really all that good. Because people don’t read them because they like soft men. They like them because of their powerful, alpha hot men. Who aren’t soft in ANY way.

Sigh. My real problem is the fact that in the last couple of WIPs my heroines have been strong. Very, very strong and ballsy. And that’s a problem because you have to have a hero who is even stronger and ballsier than she is. He must win their encounters – at least at the beginning. Which kind of scares me a little because I’m worried about all the things like not being sympathetic, not being likeable, hearing the word ‘alp-hole’ in my head. Opening up that alpha box all the way is scary.

However, what I need to remember is this: his motivation is EVERYTHING. No, he may not be likeable. No, he may not be sympathetic. What he needs to be is understandable. He has to have good reasons for doing what he does and if he’s properly motivated he can get away with a lot. I know I’ll forgive a hero a lot if I can understand why he acts the way he does.

The second thing I have to remember is that at the heart of the alpha is a good man. Whether he thinks he is or not, underneath everything, he’s the protector, the carer, the defender. Yes, he can act like an a-hole sometimes when he believes he’s right. Yes, he might sometimes be a little scary when he’s threatened. Yes, he’ll fight like crazy not to be vunlnerable. But fundamentally he’s a good person.

Which brings me to my current WIP. I need to get over my fear of letting my hero be who he is, which is one hell of an angry SOB. So angry in fact that my MOC story is turning into a revenge tale because he was NOT happy with just a MOC. He wanted more.

So I can’t go softening him up because it’s not in his character (soft guys don’t really pursue revenge so single-mindedly). Plus the fact that his heroine won’t take any crap, especially from him. In fact the past couple of days I’ve been rewriting a particular chapter because I realised I’d pulled back on him. So I rewrote it and just let him have his head and honestly, writing it was like watching a car-crash. You just can’t look away. I kept writing and thinking, ‘what did she say to him? Oh my god, this is going to be bad’. And then I wrote more and it’s like ‘Oh no, he did not just do that!’ It was actually kind of awesome. Because it finally felt like he was being who he was.

Right, so, my lesson for all those afraid of the alpha, is basically don’t hold back on him. Give him the proper motivation (and not just because his mummy didn’t wuv him). And trust him to be a good man. He may not be intially sympathetic or likeable, but as long as the reader can understand him, then they’ll forgive him a lot. Oh and if he’s a really bad boy, nothing like a good grovel at the end.

Anyone else have trouble with their alphas? Or are you a beta girl?

Sadly this is no longer the case for me. I’ve started my new WIP and it’s taken me a week to get the first chapter right. This is unusual for me since when things are going well I can write a chapter in a day. My problem is – I think – that the more I know about character and conflict, the easier it is for me to see when it’s missing from my story. Last year I’d push through the hard bits and just write in an effort to find the story. Now I’m finding I can’t do that. Now I’m realising that when it gets hard, it’s usually because I’m missing something vital and if I write through, I’ll only end up rewriting over and over so it’s better to get it right first time round.

This beginning hate is also partly a change of process. Instead of having an idea of the set up and writing instantly, I spend a LOT of time thinking about the story first, getting it straight in my head initially. This has been great in terms of conflict etc but when I sit down to write I’ve sometimes got too much information in my head and I struggle to get the balance of conflict, backstory, and character right in that first chapter.

Then there’s the writing away and suddenly having to stop because you’ve realised you haven’t nailed the characters down as well as you could have. This in particular has been a real bugbear for me, especially with this WIP, probably because my sheikh and his oil baronness were so strong in my head. I always knew what they’d say in any given situation because I knew them. But this time round it’s been a struggle to fix Mr Rough and Miss Prim. She was easier. But he…I just couldn’t get him. It’s like the difference between a statue of a man and the living, breathing reality of him. I knew his appearance, his conflict, a fair bit of backstory but he just wouldn’t come to life for me. I suppose the good thing is that now I know the feeling of having a character come to life – my chessman, my sheikh – I can recognise when it’s not happening and can stop and try to find the ‘key’ to the character. And for me that’s usually figuring out their layers. ie what’s the mask they wear in public (their identity) and who are they behind this mask (their essence).

Anyway, to cut a long and VERY boring story short, once I’d figured out Mr Rough’s identity (after only having to write his POV twice!) the stupid statue finally began to show signs of life and now I think I have him. Just as well since his conflict is going to be an extremely tough one to write and he’s going to be another dark, angry hero that I will have to break. Hehe. *rubs hands*.

Does anyone else find beginnings tough? Or is it just me??

Anyway, my excuse for this slackness is due to finishing Mr Sheikhypants. Which I now have. Yay. Of course it does mean that now I have to write the synopsis. Not yay. Synopses and I do not get on. I’d far rather immerse myself in my new idea. Because yeah, now the sheikh is done, I have to put him away and think about the next story, and in the interests of staying ahead of rejections, I’m going ahead with a new Presents/Modern.

This new idea has come together rather different to anything I’ve done before and I think it’s a good thing. Instead of coming up with a set up and charging straight into it, I’ve actually taken the time to think about it before I start writing. Isane, right? I’ve decided to do a marriage of convenience story since I haven’t done one before and they’re always popular, with an enemies to lovers slant on it. But it isn’t really the trope that’s the important bit. It’s the characters that matter most. And this time I’ve actually tried to think about who they are as people first, before I decided on their conflict.

What I find interesting about this process for me now is that it feels like the characters come together in a much more organic way rather than merely being a collection of traits and conflicts stuck together. And now I know what type of people they are, I can look back over their pasts and see what their conflict might be and how it has shaped them. All of this without writing a word of the story.

However, this is going to be a tricky story. My hero has a very dark conflict, though actually, that’s not the tricky part. The tricky part is thinking of a good reason for a marriage of convenience! Anyone read any good MOC stories lately? Was the reason for the MOC plausible?? Any hints gratefully recieved…