Lucy Monroe's Blog, page 71

Weekly Prize Giveaway!

Be sure to enter November's contest each week for your chance to win a title from Lucy's backlist. Just leave a comment on any post that is open to comments and you are entered in the drawing. We are bringing back some oldies but goodies. This weeks title is....
The Greek's Innocent VirginOriginally published May 2005ISBN: 0-373-12464-3
Greek tycoon Sebastian Kouros thinks he knows all about Rachel Long: she's a scheming money-grabber who deserves nothing from him or his family. Rachel has come to Sebastian's island to claim her inheritance – but although the bitterness between them is ripe, neither is expecting their searing sexual chemistry. Sebastian takes Rachel to his bed, but it appears she's not the virgin she claims to be. Perhaps now is the time to take her as his mistress, and discard her when he sees fit…
Only Rachel is telling the truth – she's an innocent and a virgin…
This title is still available for purchase.

Year End Splash Party! Event is here!

Click on the picture to participate - Lucy is a participating author!

Happy Halloween!

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The girls getting their pumpkins for carving/painting. :)

Motivation, Motivation, Motivation!

While I'm blessed to not have to do a lot of revisions, the most frequent one I'm asked to make is to flesh out my character's motivation.  As the author, I know my characters intimately and because of this - sometimes I forget to clue the reader in on what they are thinking, or the most important of elements: why they do the things they do.

When you think of a character as TSTL (too stupid to live) or hugely unsympathetic, it's almost always because the author hasn't shown you sufficient or acceptable-to-you motivation for their actions.  Why did the girl go into the basement when she suspected the ax wielding psychopath was down there?  Too often the why is so spurious, the girl is pronounced TSTL.  But what if she weren't?  What if she were a former Marine carrying a weapon?  Or a mother who believed she could convince her son to stop?

I've been a teenager...so have you.  I've raised a few of my own as well and I can say honestly, I've never known any as stupid as the ones that seem to populate horror movies.

Otherwise intelligent characters can come off looking criminally stupid when their actions aren't properly motivated.  So, what are some of the common "motivation mistakes" we see in writing?

The character who acts based on the simple misunderstanding.  We've all heard of this one, yes?  We're told that the "big misunderstanding" is a rotten reason for conflict in a book.  Our teachers and mentors are oh, so right.  A misunderstanding that would easily be remedied by discussion with someone else (doesn't even have to be the other protagonist) won't motivate behavior that is otherwise unbelievable.
Nothing is more annoying than slogging through pages of conflict between two otherwise likable people simply because one of them has the wrong end of the stick and refuses to grasp hold of the right one.


The hero or heroine whose actions are driven by faulty and unreasonable assumptions.  Assumptions that make no sense to your readers will not float your story...not even in the name of humor.  Your readers need to be rooting for your characters and their happy endings, and that's not as likely when they consider your hero or heroine too ridiculous for words.
Properly motivated spurious assumptions can make for really good reading though.  Think about the heroine who thinks he would never be interested in her when in reality he fancies her something rotten.  If she believes this because she's been rejected by boys all her life as being too boring or because he has a well known type and she'd antithetical to it, well that can work, yes?  But if she simply believes it to move the story forward another 20 pages, readers are going to know that and get mightily irritated.

The character who pops up out of nowhere and disappears the same way when they've played the prop they need to your plot.  If you have a villain, or a well-meaning matchmaker pushing your characters together, please take the time to figure out the how and why and explain that to your readers.Something to remember when its relevant to the type of story you are writing: your protagonist is only as strong as the villain they're facing and if that villain isn't motivated or fleshed out, the protagonist comes off looking weak and ineffectual - even when they win.

The character that is unsympathetic.  This character is often motivated by things that readers by and large find less than heroic or understandable.  My super alpha heroes are often unlikable in the beginning of a book, but I plant the seeds for their redemption as early as the first page, if I can.  This is also where my editors often ask me to go back and reveal more of his reasons for doing what he does to the reader.Someone suggested I watch "Doc Martin" (a British medical show that I think is supposed to be funny), so I did.  I find pretty much all of the characters incomprehensible and somewhat unlikable.  The final episode I watched (I gave it more than one chance) that absolutely turned me off the show had the local school teacher who was interviewing for the position of head mistress treat a child whose mother was in hospital like a total bother.  Since children and their welfare is a hot button for me, that was the final straw for me.  I've no interest in watching another episode.

When this happens in a book, I'll end up adding an author to my "Do Not Buy No Matter How Intriguing the Story Sounds" list.  I know I've had a character, or two, hit a reader in the same place.  One of my heroes, I realized I could have done a better job of revealing his inner workings throughout the book and his transformation at the end...another, I stood by.

The woman who thought I would love "Doc Martin" really enjoyed the show herself and was hugely disappointed when it got cancelled after 5 seasons.  So, we have to acknowledge that what is unlikable for one reader may well be adorable to another.  This is where it becomes hugely important to understand your market and the heroic archetypes that work (and conversely don't work) for your readers or potential readers.  It's not enough to say, "Well...she's just not my reader," when her viewpoint is reflected in the vast majority of your target market.

The character whose behavior is obviously driven by plot or word count.  I'll admit these books are my least favorite and most likely to get an author on my "Do Not Buy" list.  But we've all read them, haven't we?  The story that could have been over on page 50 but drug on to 397 because the characters just kept doing things that made no sense so the story could be longer.  Even worse is the character who plainly doesn't fit the plot. The author is intent on writing a certain story, but she chose the wrong characters to tell it with and this is apparent in Chapter One and never, ever gets better.

In short, when writing the complex or the simple, one thing remains paramount: motivation!

It's your turn:  what's your favorite new television show?  Are the characters likable, or interesting enough to be unlikable and still watchable?

Weekly Contest Winner!

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This weeks prize goes to......
Jenna Bayley-Burke
Thanks for visiting my blog this week! Please email me so I can get you, your prize! Enjoy the books and tote bag!

Guest Interview - Maggie Cox

[image error] Hi Maggie Cox! So excited you dropped by today so we can get to know a little more about you!
1. What is your favorite thing to do when you are not writing?
I love to go the cinema. I think going to see a movie is one of the keenest pleasures next to reading a book. I especially love cinematic stories that take the main character/characters on a journey. I recently saw 'The Way Back' directed by Peter Weir. It's based on an incredible true story about a group of disparate men that escape from a Russian gulag during the Stalin regime and who arrive in British-ruled India after walking 4,000 miles from Siberia! It's a truly epic and heartrending story of survival and optimism against all the odds and what I loved about it was that it had kindness and humanity towards each other as its main theme. Not only that but it has a stellar cast too: Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, Saoirse Ronan and Colin Farrell. I highly recommend it.
2. What books are sitting in your TBR pile right now? What book are you currently reading?
As is usual for me (I'm an avid reader) I have several books in my TBR pile. One book that I'm about to read for the umpteenth time is Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher. Her storytelling and writing are so wonderful that reading this book makes me feel like I'm visiting a very dear and much loved wise friend. Because of its winter setting and also because it brings a family hit by tragedy together at Christmas - it's the ideal story to lose myself in as Autumn comes to an end and the chilly and less mellow temperatures of winter arrive.
The other books on my bedside cabinet waiting to be enjoyed are quite an eclectic mix and the titles are as follows: The Law is a Lady by Nora Roberts, Practising the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Saved by a Poem by Kim Rosen (and I really was saved by this inspirational woman's reading of her own and others poetry when she gave a performance in London at the end of the summer) and Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping, which is about letting go of anger and blame in order to heal relationships – grist for the mill for a romance author as well as sage advice for anyone who truly wants to have better relationships.
3. Please share something you found most interesting or fun that you did to research for a book.
During the writing of my title Reputation in Tatters I attended a workshop about learning to make healing remedies from plants with a friend who is a therapist and it took place in Monflanquin in the south of France. As I went on expeditions for the necessary plants in the woods close to the stunning stone-built house we were staying in and sat round the pool in the glorious sunshine after our trips, the characters of PR expert Nash Taylor-Grant and actress Freya Carpenter fleshed into vivid life. So much so that I used the gorgeous setting I was staying in as the very evocative location for Nash's personal hideaway that he whisks Freya off to when she is being hounded by the Paparazzi. I was so inspired that when I wasn't learning to concoct ancient remedies in the house's huge kitchen or avidly listening to our tutor – I was busy filling my notebook with conversations and scenes from the story. Writing romance surely doesn't get much better than this?!
4. Action adventure or romantic comedy? What is your favorite movie lately?
When it comes to choosing between action adventure or romantic comedy, I definitely err on the side of action adventure. I love movies like 'Hidalgo' with Viggo Mortensen (doesn't hurt that he's in it!), 'The Mummy' with Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser (great chemistry between them and funny too), 'The Painted Veil' with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton (a lot more serious but heartrending epic love story set in wartime China). Currently my favourite movie is 'The Adjustment Bureau' with Matt Damon and Emily Blunt. I honestly didn't expect it to be so wonderful. It's got quite an unusual premise involving deja vu and unseen forces moving people together or keeping them apart and the chemistry between the two leads is totally believable and sizzling. It's also got a completely uplifting and happy ending and I left the cinema when the movie ended feeling like I was walking on air.
Personal perspective on my Harlequin Presents title One Desert Night published in the U.S.A on February 7th 2012.

I loved the challenge of writing a 'Sheikh' book as I'd never tried writing one before. My inspiration was the atmosphere of magic and legend created by the famous 'One hundred and One Arabian Nights' and I wanted to create a similar kind of mythical setting in 'One Desert Night'. My hero Sheikh Zahir is definitely a modern man but because he has inherited a fabulously rich and ancient kingdom, he also has the kind of 'old-fashioned' values regarding his responsibility to home and family that perhaps a less 'duty bound' man in the corporate world might not so readily want to embrace. My heroine Gina is also a woman that feels great responsibility to her family – her widowed father in particular – so much so that when she meets and falls in love with Zahir, she is prepared to give him up to help take care of her lonely and grief-stricken parent. When she finds herself incredibly making a return journey to Zahir's kingdom a few years after their magical and passionate night together, she is stunned to discover that he is not just the wealthy urban man she thought he was, but a genuine Sheikh who has inherited a kingdom he is duty-bound to serve and protect.
This is the description of the story on the back of the book:The coveted Heart of Courage jewel – when passed to each sheikh in the House of Kazeem Khan – is said to guarantee love. But Sheikh Zahir rejects this legend. After the bitterness he's suffered, he sees emotion and marriage as two very separate things...It's down to Gina Collins to sell the jewel through her auction house. Returning to the desert plains of Kabuyadir, she's horrified to realise the new Sheikh is the man who gave her one earth-shattering night years ago...
Hope you enjoy it!Love Maggiexxx

Bodyguards In Bed - Review

Bodyguards In Bed offers three stories by three great authors - here is one review of Lucy's story Who's Been Sleeping in My Brother's Bed?
Who's Been Sleeping in My Brother's Bed is an interracial romance I could not get enough of. Danusia is used to men backing off due to her being so smart, and she's really tired of it too. Maxwell knows he's a good soldier but he doesn't think he has what it takes to seduce a classy lady like Danusia. But together, these two are on fire. Whew! There's lots of heat and romance in this short story which make me want to see them again in the future. Two Lips Reviews


BODYGUARDS IN BEDby Lucy Monroe(with Jamie Denton & Elizabeth Naughton)Kensington Brava - June 2011 (05-31-11)Trade PaperbackISBN-10: 0758210337ISBN-13: 978-0758210333
Whose Been Sleeping in my Brother's Bed?
Roman Chernichenko's baby sis is in trouble. She shows up at his apartment needing help and a safe place to be right now, but Roman is in Africa. Only the apartment's not empty. One of his Atrati team is staying at Roman's place while *his* apartment is under renovation. They've met — at Beau & Elle's wedding. She thinks he's freaking hot, he thinks she freakin' off limits, being Roman's baby sister and all. She might be an academic geek, but she knows what she wants and she sets out to get it — Mr. Hottie Super Soldier won't know what hit him ... and beat him to the mattress after.
Buy: Borders ~ B&N ~ Chapters ~ Books-a-Million ~Amazon

I'm giving a FREE workshop on Romance University *Today*

If you're a writer, interested in the process of writing or simply intrigued by the fact that scientists now recognize more than the five senses taught in primary school, stop by and visit my workshop, More than Five Senses: Writing for Visceral Impact, at Romance University. :)

Humpday Hottie!

I love his eyes...I bet I know what he's thinking!

Weekly Prize Giveaway!

Looking for some good reads? Enter this week's contest by leaving me a comment on any posting open to comments and you will automatically be entered in the contest!
One bag/tote will be given away each week.
Weekly winner will be posted on Saturday!