Babes With Bodacious Driving Skills - "B"

Beautiful babe with bodacious driving skills and emotional baggage.

So here's the thing. I write romance. Actually, I write romantic suspense which is a romance story intertwined with a suspense plot...very fun and very challenging to write.

Coming from a suspense background, the first books I wrote were suspense-thrillers, I just can't help but throw some action into my story lines.  This I'm good at. Explosions - how fiery you want? Bad Guy - one diabolical madman coming up! 

Beautiful heroine in need of rescuing - Uhhh...? I don't do that.

I want to like my main character and one thing I value in a book is a woman with some spunk. I'm not talking Glock strapped to the thigh a' la Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, but I don't want the chick tied to the train tracks either. I mean...really?

Characters can and should be vulnerable. Your plot depends on them messing up or butting up against someone that is both formidable and, for most of the book, seemingly unbeatable. But there's a fine line between a main character in crisis and a main character that is a door mat.

Besides, if I want you to spend time with my character, time you have to carve out of your busy day... then I want you to go with her on a crazy ride. Something filled with adventure and breathless kisses and maybe even a car chase!  As for the love interest, he needs to see both the strength and softness - and value them both.

How do you choose your main character's personality types? Do you choose profession first? Or do you fit them to the plot?  Maybe its the opposite...maybe you choose the character and follow their lead?  I'd love to hear what your process is.  

Until next time...Go Write!

Photograph by Tommerton2010.