Pity and the Hero

Some time ago, I met a man whose company I enjoyed. For about a week. He was dating a friend of mine . . . and I generally thought he was great fun. Occasionally, the topic of childhood would come up and he would mention that his was . . . in a word . . . awful. Once he opened that little window of information, though, the torrent of self-pity NEVER ended. Over time, any moment when I was alone or amongst just a few people around him, he would go on . . . and on . . . and ON about his father, a family history of alcoholism . . . his mother . . . his father . . . and round and round again. Worse, these things were the REASON his own life was, in his own estimation, worthless.

And in truth . . . I can empathize and sympathize. You can't reach a certain age without becoming aware of the truly horrid in some people's backgrounds. I've had friends, dear and wonderful friends, who have experienced nearly every horror one can imagine, everything from rape, murder, tragic deaths, awful illnesses, abusive spouses . . . addictions and self-destructive behavior, suicide . . . The ones I respect the most seem to have come through with a sense of humor intact, or a dignity, or a sense of realism yet optimism about the world. More than that, I don't find they BLAME the past, just seem to wish to make sense if it. I think I like that in my fictional main characters too!

I've been fine-tuning a manuscript for my editor, and I had Oldest Daughter beta read it. It was written before the recession, and occasionally my heroine (it's a YA) lapses into self-pity about not being able to have the summer she had hoped for (which would have included a trip to Europe). Oldest underlined every time the heroine whined, and the five or so offending lines in the first four chapters were removed. As I removed them, I cringed. WHAT WAS I THINKING when I wrote them? She WAS whining!

Then I started thinking about books I have absolutely HATED. A lot of the times? I got tired to hearing the heroine or hero whine. I bought this book, expecting to love it . . . and sometimes? I have to say, the writer whined. I felt that way about Eat, Pray, Love. I know I am in the minority there. And though those are memoir, even in fiction, I like my heroes and heroines to get on with the business of life.

So how about you? We often put our heroes and heroines through A LOT. I mean, the whole point of fiction is wringing our characters through hell and back. But do you ever find a book crosses some line where you stop feeling sympathy and want them to get on with it? Do you find you have to be cautious when writing to be sure introspection doesn't go on for too long?

Who Do You Root For?

Baby Girl and I settle in at night together. She does her homework in my bed, and lately, I have been resting. Because I am too tired to even read most nights, I have been watching re-runs on TV. Having gone through every Law & Order under the sun, I expanded my re-run viewing to include NCIS and Bones one or two nights a week. And then, we will watch this show.

Here's the thing about Baby Girl and me. Over the years, we have fine-tuned the pecking order of who we will root for on shows like American Idol, Amazing Race, or So You Think You Can Dance. We don't watch other reality shows (like Survivor). We generally don't like to see people being mean and many unscripted shows have an elements of having to be unkind to win. So we don't watch those. But on the talent contest-type shows, the order of who we root for generally is: Latinos, gays, nice/sweet parent-child or sibling pairs (such as on something like Amazing Race). If any of our first two choices offered are MEAN, then we go down the list with various sub-pecking-order "rules" we have somehow devised until we settle for someone to root for. (Compelling back story? We might be persuaded!) If the Latino person happens to be Mexican or Mexican-American, that trumps all. Always.

Baby Girl LOVES George Lopez. He now has a show on at 11:00 p.m. and she is ecstatic. She loves George because his humor is similar to Baby Girl's father and stories he tells of how he grew up, poor and Mexican. Baby Girl's dad can even perfect a Mexican accent a la George Lopez. It's like me slipping into a New York accent.

Demon Baby is reminded every day that some day he will be the first Mexican-American president of the United States. Of course, right now he says he wants to be the Tooth Fairy. Which DOES sound like a good gig. But perhaps president is in his future. Basically, I suppose like many people, who my kids root for is about the people you identify with, or the people who remind you of your friends and family. It's about pride. Now that Baby Girl is in Mean Middle School (nature of middle school, I am afraid) . . . she hears SO MUCH racism. Even Oldest Son has gotten sensitive about it. So she likes seeing Mexican-Americans who do well and "represent" for her identity. And whether athletes or various movie stars like to hear it or not, how they are depicted in the media does, indeed, make an impression on kids. Baby Girl has other role models, to be sure. Lots of them. But nonetheless, we root for people based on how we identify with them.

So it is with books. Most of the time, depending on genre, you are being asked, early on, to identify with the hero or heroine and to ROOT for them. I don't know a writer alive who doesn't, at times, walk a tricky line. "How smart alecky or bitchy or difficult or flawed can I make this character before readers are turned off and stop caring? Or actively DISLIKE the main character?" A show of hands, please?

We seem willing to forgive a lot of flaws--characters who drink too much or can't sustain relationships or gamble or sleep with someone who's inherently bad for them--IF their sense of humor or their smarts or their ability to save the world means we overlook the flaws and root for them anyway.

And so much of this all is subjective. Some of us, like Baby Girl, will choose to root for a character based on our own bias, or our own identity, or our own belief system, etc. If there are two mom characters and one is hippy-dippy and disorganized? Guess which one I am rooting for. NOT the Barbie mom. The OTHER one. The slightly nutty mom. In the end, most of the times readers are just going to give you so many words or pages to ensure we're rooting for who we are supposed to be rooting for. And betrayals of who we root for . . . readers aren't likely to tolerate.

So who do YOU root for? What kind of main character? As you create your own characters, are you aware of that likability factor? Of making sure your reader roots for who they are supposed to root for? Thoughts?

Note to Self . . .

Never have two releases within a month of each other. It was just how things worked out. Out of my control.

But insane?

Yeah.

So . . . I got the best review of my life from Romantic Times on Freudian Slip. The whole review is at the link. Here's what they ran above the review:

Orloff has two greatly important writing traits -- she's both wise and delightfully entertaining. Her charming, compelling and completely enjoyable story about the universal mysteries of life, love and our eternal purpose is emotionally riveting. Look for a quiet place to devour this book, where tears of joy can be fearlessly shed.

Like . . . Holy cow! Wise? Wise ASS, maybe. But wise?

So I started thinking about it . . . The book drops June 1. And here I am, three years after I started writing it, and I still totally love the book. That is RARELY the case. So I tried to think about why.

The books I love, romance-wise? That I love even after they're done? Are the ones where I write a guy I would shack up with. There you have it. Julian is my perfect guy. He's an ex-heroin addict. He's covered in tattoos. He's nobody else's perfect guy. But I absolutely love him. So I am sitting here in my office while I write this, and my covers are framed all around. And I started thinking:

Spanish Disco--still adore the book. Yes, I would be with Michael.

Diary of a Blues Goddess--Tony? Come on, YES.

Billie Quinn #1. Nope.

Billie Quinn #2--YES.

Mafia Chic--Nope. Could NEVER get past the fact he's in law enforcement. NEVER.

Double Down--Nope.

Invisible Girl--Nope.

High Heels?--Nope.

Urban Legend--YES.

I could go on . . . but Julian is now my fave. He's so damn clever. I like that. So that's it, I guess. I am inventing the perfect catch for me.

In other notes . . . if you live in Richmond, Virginia, or within driving distance, I have a TWO-NIGHT signing event for Magickeepers next Wednesday and Thursday from 5-7, at the Barnes and Noble on Commonwealth Parkway.

And it's time for confession folks. Do you write love interests that . . . interest you?

The Ordinary Hero

I had a memory this morning. Of my first real "date" for New Year's when I sixteen. My dad said something to my date, along the lines of "Don't drink and drive or I'll break your legs"--I think it was worded a little more gracefully--but only slightly. My date, a very handsome guy, Puerto Rican, bilingual, tall, beautiful skin and build, said the obligatory, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir." We went to the party and other kids were drinking like mad. But not my date. He was a landscaper . . . a senior in high school, but his values were such that . . . well, even if my dad HADN'T threatened him, he just would NEVER drink and drive.

From there, my dating history seemed to be this odd variety of men--every career, race, religion, aspirations. And I consistently found--with no offense intended toward anyone wealthy--that the men I dated who were very rich were invariably jerks. And all the plumbers and electricians, and landscapers and guys who broke their backs to earn a living, well, they treated me exceedingly well. I can't make a sweeping statement that this somehow translates to stereotypes. It was my own experience. Luck of the draw, perhaps . . . but . . .

Now I write. And I find that if I look back over the whole of my writing, all the heroes, or most of them anyway, are ordinary guys who get drawn into extraordinary circumstances. They can sling a beer, but they aren't driving fancy cars or living in fancy houses. The villains? They have money--and power. They're greedy. They treat people like possessions.

Now, do I feel this way in real life? I think I try to judge each person on his or her merits. But I can see how fundamental experiences trickle in. Do I REALLY think all people with power can't be trusted? Intellectually . . . no. But it's there . . . those life experiences that sort of color the heroes and shade the villains. I like the average Joe drawn into circumstances beyond his control, using just his wits to save the day.

Even when I look at my middle-grade Magickeepers, my hero is all of twelve. But he has already learned that if you lie to yourself, your magic cannot be trusted. Only those true of heart and true of purpose succeed.

Thoughts?

The Perfect Hero

I must be a perfectionist, because I am on a roll with this "perfect" theme. So what the heck. What makes a perfect hero--to you?

Because my perfect hero isn't yours and isn't yours. I find this kind of character to be the most intensely personal of all sometimes. I like my heroes to be crazy-smart (as in, so smart that they're almost in that weird category). Lewis LeBarge in my Billie Quinn books comes to mind. So smart he couldn't fit in anywhere EXCEPT with the left-of-center eccentrics he surrounded himself with.

He doesn't have to be strong. MacGyver is a good example. Getting by with his brain. I like the ordinary archeologist, like Indiana Jones who figures out the escape route by smarts, not brute force.

And my hero will never, and I mean never ever, be a laywer or a cop or a D.A. But most especially a cop. In fact, in my books, if you want to know the bad guy, look for the person in the uniform.

Now, I realize that's ME. There is a whole subset, for example, of Harlequin books with cop heroes. I know lots of people whose dads were cops and D.A.s and so on and were terrific men (think Atticus Finch--now THAT was a lawyer you could believe in!). But I believe, to the very core of my being, what John Acton believed:

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

I believe that. Which is why I cheered in V for Vendetta. Which is why I love the anti-hero most of all. My feelings this way mean if I see a cop in real life, I hyperventilate. If a cop car pulls in back of me, I usually look for the nearest exit on the highway or the nearest store parking lot to pull in until the cop passes. I believe power corrupts in religion and in the military, and in politics. And so perhaps, in the end, I am an anarchist.

BUT . . . my hero--and perhaps mine alone--disdains power and he fights for the little guy. He's Robin Hood. He's the smart guy who takes on the bully.

I realize my feelings about politics and authority figures colors my hero. But that's why I think it's such a subjective thing. My HERO is just as likely to be a bookie or a criminal. Which is perhaps different--I know it is in romance or women's fiction. My hero is also likely to be not the handsomest man in the room. In fact, he's the one with the bad nose that's been broken in too many bar fights or Golden Gloves matches. Maybe it's shaped by my dad, who never met an authority figure he liked and never backed down from a fight. And his nose is left of center a little.

So tell me . . . who is your Perfect Hero?