Have we marginalized romantic heroes too much?

Good morning!

Yesterday I went on a rant about how we, ladies, as a gender seemed to have lost our feminine sense of mystery or shame.  In the process of being feminists, we seem to have forgotten how to be feminine.  I used the example of the woman on the radio show who got into an argument on the radio with a man she'd slept with after one date.  While she had no problems admitting she had sex with someone after one date, she was embarrassed and enraged that he didn't call her for a second date...because he didn't like how she had or had not groomed her private regions.

Friends, there is a reason that romance novels, especially historical romance novels, continue to thrive in an era when all other publishing loses ground.  There's a big reason shows like "Downton Abbey" have a massive and rabid following while "edgier"  TV dramas flounder in spite of their sexual

I can't picture any of these ladies griping that someone
didn't ask for a second date because the man didn't
like the way they trimmed their pubic hair.

content and language.  We, and by we I mean women, crave manners.  We crave polite conversation.  We ache for a romantic hero to come save us from this muddled world.

Thing is, we simply cannot admit it.  We are so busy being independent, strong, capable, that we can't admit what we really want is a good looking guy to die in defense of us. 

This trend is seeping into the romance novel world.  When writing my novel "Lies in Chance" I was in a really dark place in my own life.  I ached for someone, anyone to be my hero.

But my critique group had a different direction.  They told me that in today's world, the woman has to rescue herself...otherwise she's looked on as week and not someone today's modern readers are interested in.

I stood fast and held on to my flawed hero, (Because I love flawed heroes), but yes, my heroine became less of a weak girl and more of a strong young woman.  Still, in making the changes I needed to make to fit today's mores, I still wondered...what's the point of having a romantic hero if he 's not allowed to be a hero?

I have to think, since historical romances continue to sell so well, that the idea of a super...wildly handsome...amazingly strong man coming to our aid is not distasteful.  And I see the continued popularity of classic books like "Pride and Prejudice" or "Gone with the Wind."  Yes, the female characters are strong.  But they need a stronger man to save them.  This is really obvious in GWTW because Scarlett can run her own business, fight her own battles, but she is clueless how to open herself up to true love.  P& P is a bit different since Miss Bennett is ready and willing to stand alone in life for her principals.  Still she needs Mr. Darcy to rescue her from a lonely life, just as he needs her to rescue him from the same.

The concept of a mutual rescue is something I cling to because if I allow my heroines to simply rescue themselves all the time...the what's the point of writing a hero?  And if there's no hero...where's the romance?

Which brings us right back to that radio argument, which was decidedly NOT romantic.

Ladies, and I'm talking to the ladies right now, it's perfectly fine to admit you're not the strongest person in the room.  It's okay to admit you like a guy picking up the check, opening the door, maybe even standing up when you enter a room.  Maybe if we let men treat us like ladies, they wouldn't treat us like objects.

And wouldn't THAT be romantic?

How much of you is in your hero/heroine?

Good evening.

I was driving home from my J.O.B. today and I was thinking about the couples in my two books, and the couple in my upcoming.  I've never really thought about it, but as I look at the three heroines, Ramona, Shara, and Izzy (From my newest WIP.)  I realize that very big parts of them come from me.

Ramona:(Dream in Color)  Starts out very overweight, in completely in love with a teen idol rock star, and loves late night pizza.  Has mother issues.  Hates that she lives the life everyone expects her to live.

Shara: (Lies in Chance)   Loves horses, is good with kids,  is blond.  (I think I'm blond.  I had blond hair before I started coloring my hair.)  Has mother issues.  Refuses to live the life everyone expects of her.

Izzy: (Fresh Ice)  Loves to read, loves her daughter, drinks coffee by the gallon.  Has mother issues.  Never could live up to the life everyone expected her to live.

Yeah, you get a pretty clear picture of me if you look at my heroines.

As I look at the things that make my heroines special, and, well, heroic, I see, too, the talents I dearly wish I had:

Ramona: (Dream in Color) Can compose music and arrangements that are brilliant and plays piano like a dream.

Shara: (Lies in Chance) Can sight read music and has a photographic memory.  Oh yeah, and she can sing, cook, and wrangle horses.  (Shes' my renaissance girl.)

Izzy: (Fresh Ice)  Can figure skate like a dream.

I always tell people I can't make a book work until  I fall in love with my leading man.  And let's look at my leading men in my books (and the pictures that inspired the characters):

Jesse Alexander:  (Dream in Color) Okay, it's Rick Springfield.  Let's just move on.  I met Rick at a meet and greet almost 10 years ago...his personality and patience blew me away, but so did the juxtaposition of his face, which is not that of an air brushed teen idol, and his body  (oh yeah, I went in for a hug) which ....let's just say, wow.  Wow.  I got such a clear image of who I wanted Jesse to be in that one hug.

Brian Jacobs: (Lies in Chance) This goes back to my childhood hero, Randy Mantooth, TVs Johnny Gage.  I met Randy 12 years ago, and again, personality was an A+.  Plus, he's every bit as dreamy as he was back in the 70's, just with better hair.  Hugging him  (yep, I'm shameless) was like finding a missing piece of myself.  When you love someone from afar for 30 years, one hug can mean a lot.

Quinn Murray: (Fresh Ice)  Okay, calling David James Elliott...I'm ready for my hug!  LOL!  Seriously, something about David's wonderful work as Harmon Rabb in JAG spoke to me when I sat down to write "Fresh Ice."  There's something about a hero who is a hero because there's just no one else around...but someone who doesn't see himself as being all that great...it's like the perfect blueprint for a romantic hero.  So yes, Quinn Murray is that heroic guy with a really, really dark soul.  He needs saving more than anyone he saves. 

I don't know if anyone else approaches it this way.  Maybe every author sees themselves in the hero/heroine. 

Maybe that's why my love scenes tend to be far less graphic than many of my fellow authors.  I'm a married lady!  (And my heroes are all inspired by married men.)  And no matter how I work it, the heroine is still in very large part me, so something super graphic, while fun to read, is too hard for me to write realistically.  It's hard for me to put aside my own morals when I see so much of me in that character. 

So, friends, how much of you do you put in your hero/heroine?  And how much of a real person do you put in the character of the opposite gender?


And Mr. Elliott?  One hug...that's really all I need!

Accept the characters that are within you and free your inner villain!

Good evening!

I have never been analyzed, but my handwriting has.  When I was teaching in Detroit, a group of teachers got together for one of those "meetings" that was supposed to "Further educate" us.  The speaker was a handwriting analyst.  It was very interesting.  I didn't put a lot of stock in that sort of thing, mostly because at the time I prided myself in the fact that I didn't have any one style of handwriting.  (In reality, I just had really, really bad penmanship.)  I thought I could fool this guy.

So we were supposed to turn in a sample of our handwriting.  He thumbed through most of it until he came to mine.  He said the words didn't matter, but he read enough so that I knew it was mine.  He studied the handwriting for a moment and said, "This is a person who is searching for a father figure."

One of the other teachers, a woman who has known my dad since high school, blurted out, "That's nonsense, she has a wonderful father."

The guy said, "Yes, but if her father is a parochial school teacher, is he ever available to her?"

A light suddenly clicked for me.  I realized that everything I'd written involved a rescue of some kind.  An older man rescuing a younger woman, or a girl.  I've always idolized men decades older than I am.  I have little time for the younger crowd.  Come see me when you hit 45 boys. 

And I love heroes.  I LOVE THEM.  I have 5 seasons of "Emergency" and 10 seasons of "JAG" on DVD to prove it.  Oh I enjoy the bad boys (Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp come to mind)  but I like it better when they're the hero  ("Gladiator" anyone?) 

I should also mention that, in addition to my obvious love of the heroic, I am a basically happy person.  Well, I would rather be cheerful mostly because it's just easier to be cheerful around folks than to dwell on whatever is wrong.  Ya gotta love the Lutheran upbringing!  "Just be happy, put on a smile, and pass the casserole dear."

But I've always embraced that darker part of me, even though I never really acknowledged it as being part of me.  In high school I read Poe, Plath, and the Sisters Bronte endlessly.  "Light hearted" reading for me was "Gone with the Wind."  It got to the point that my father, then my English teacher, wouldn't let me do an oral report on Sylvia Plath because I'd just done one on Edgar Allen Poe and he figured I should read something more cheerful.  (I smell my mother's hand in that...my dad avoids conflict at all costs...telling me I couldn't do a report on Sylvia Plath at the height of my "Bell Jar" period was just begging for a weepy evening listening to Julie London records....loudly.)

More recently, I've seen a pattern in my reading and listening habits.  I love Rick Springfield's music, but my favorite of his albums is "Shock Denial Anger Acceptance"  a loud, generally dark collection that I shred when I sing along in the car.

It's a collection of mellow love songs...really...

I got to thinking about this today as a very interesting, very evil character leaped from my fingers to my computer screen today.  When I'm writing fiction I love to have a villain and I like her to be a woman.  "Dream in Color" is an exception to that rule because that book was more about one woman's journey through a maze of reality into something far more interesting, rather than multiple character story.  Of course, then I fell in love with Jesse Alexander and TAH DAH  a romance was born.  Besides, I've always thought of REAL LIFE as being the villain in that story...that and the mother character comes across as sort of villainous.  The thing about this new villain is man, she is twisted.  My Serena Shiply Chapman is one very evil, very twisted beauty of a villain.  She's doing and saying things I would NEVER...

I was shocked.  I said, "I can't write that!" 

Then  I pondered it.

What if Edgar Allen Poe had said that?  There would be no "Tell Tale Heart."  There would be no "Cask of Amontillado."  And the House of Usher would still be standing.

Daphne Du Maurier...what if she had said, "Well, there shall be a Manderly, and everything will be lovely.  Rebecca will just be a cranky ex wife, and Mrs. Danvers will make cookies through out the book."

What if....horrors...Emily Bronte had said, "I can't possibly create a character as bold and twisted and sadistic as Heathcliff...and make him the most romantic character in literature."   THANK GOD she said, "Oh wait...yes I can!"  And she was ridiculously good at it.  So much so that she pretty much didn't need to write another word.  Heathcliff in all his dark beauty, was her masterpiece.

Today's writers seem very different.  I meet a lot of authors and writers who ask the same question over and over again, "WHAT DO THEY WANT?"  I've done enough pitches for agents and editors to know that, while they say they want a fresh voice...what they mean is they want a book they know immediately where to sell.  In the two minute pitch  (ten seconds, if you're pitching to a certain agent who shot me down in...yes ten seconds.  I barely had my name out there.

 I said, "Hi, I'm Sarah Bradley.  I have a single title romantic suspense set in a small town, the main-"

"Nope.  I can't sell that."  that was it.

I'm not ripping on agents and editors.  I WOULD LOVE to have an agent. And I really liked my editor at The Wild Rose Press.  But they have a lousy job.  These days, with the economy the way it is, there's really very little margin for error and therefore, no margin for something that hasn't been tried before.  If you want to break into print these days, you'd better have the right formula, or you're not going to get past the pitch.

I've found that female villains who have...interesting...sexual appetites don't play well in the traditional romance world.

And yet here I have this magnificent villain.  A villain so scary I'm almost afraid to open up my files for fear she's done something really depraved. 

Now you know you all have that character lurking in you.  We're all way more Bronte and Poe than we are Jane Austen.  (Seriously...I love Jane Austen made into movies, but her books.....not exactly my speed.  Where's the death?  Where's the mayhem?  Where's the dark, alcoholic in need of spiritual rescue?)

That brings us back to my need to rescue and be rescued. 

It's taken me a very long time as a writer to know who I am.  Turns out, I'm a bit schizophrenic, like my dear departed grandmother.  One the one hand, if you read my humor blog  It Can Only Happen to Sarah you'll know I'm a completely normal woman who likes to see the funny in every situation.  BUT, as a fiction writer, I'm really more interested in writing characters I like to read. 

I'm hoping that if I give Serena Shiply Chapman enough page time, I'll have the female version of Heathcliff.

And she can create mayhem while my heroine and hero are busy rescuing each other.

Now, let's see if I can pitch that!

Meanwhile, the rest of you, pick up a copy of my romantic comedy Dream in Color  at the Wild Rose Press site.  It's available in digital as well as paperback!

Now go forth and WRITE!

Feeling like a fool over Floyd...

Good morning!

I wasn't going to write about this, but the topic simply wouldn't leave my brain. Try as I might, I can't shake the foolish feeling I have.

Many of you don't know, but I'm a big honkin' fan of cycling. (It's especially amazing since my own bike hasn't touched ground from the garage rafters in two years.) We watch the Tour de France as a family during the long hot days of July. There's something magical about watching men half my size defy the odds and ride a bicycle all around Europe.

I don't have any special team affiliation, of course I love Lance Armstrong, and my favorite cyclist is George Hincapie for reasons I cannot explain. But I always cheer for the Americans. (The Aussies, too, but especially the Americans.)

That said, four years ago an American named Floyd Landis won the Tour in great style. He was up near the top of the leaders for much of the race, but had a devastating lost in one of the stages. All hope seemed gone for the American. Then, the very next day after his massive time loss, Floyd stormed back with more than a vengeance. It was a miracle in the mountains. He road like a man possessed. And, because of those heroics, he won the Tour.

A few months later, the powers that be stripped him of his title citing doping issues. (Cycling has unforgivingly harsh rules against doping of any kind. Most cold meds aren't even allowed. Testing is random, frequent, and often motivated by loathing for a competitor. At least, that's what Lance Armstrong sometimes believes.) Floyd denied, denied, denied. And many of us believed him, fervently defending him when the discussion came up.

Now, four years later, Floyd Landis came out last week and admitted to doping.

The good news is, the discussion didn't come up much, so at least no one is calling me and mocking me. The bad news is, we had length conversations with the children about this, and now we look like fools.

The worse news is...we feel like fools as well.

It shouldn't surprise me. Celebrities generally don't belong on the pedestals we build for them. Sports figures cheat all the time. Actors are nothing like the characters they play. Rock stars don't love us as much as they say they do. (Well, except for Rick Springfield...of course!) It should come as zero surprise that Floyd Landis cheated. I'm an adult, I should be immune to this sort of thing.

The problem is, no one likes hearing their heroes are jerks. No one likes being lied to.

I've written here many times about how fiction is more logical than real life because characters in fiction, at least the heroes, aren't allowed a lot of leeway when it comes to character flaws. Oh, you can have the wounded, mysterious hero (We love him, don't we?) but in the end, he darn well better be honorable.

So I'm a romantic. I defended a hero I thought was honorable. Turns out I was wrong. I didn't do anything wrong. I shouldn't feel lousy about this.

But, like I said, I can't shake the feeling of being a fool.

Thanks for listening!