Friday, January 16, 2015

Friday, Diane Scott Lewis is talking about Heroes, Heroines and Villains #BooksWeLove #MFRWauthor

1. Do you write a single genre or do your fingers flow over the keys creating tales in many forms? Does your reading choices reflect your writing choices? Are there genres you wouldn’t attempt?
I started writing historical fiction when I was a child and it’s still my preferred genre. I do read a lot of historical novels, and non-fiction for historical research. I recently wrote a vampire novel, A Savage Exile, but the setting is historical, on the remote island of St. Helena during Napoleon’s exile in 1815.
I used to think I wouldn’t attempt horror novels, but my vampire novel nudges in that direction.

 2. Heroes, Heroines, Villains. Which are your favorite to write? Does one of these come easy and why?
In my recent novel, A Savage Exile, I loved writing the villain, Hudson Lowe, a person with few boundaries and ugly intentions. Great fun! Heroines come much easier than heroes, probably because as a woman I can delve deeper into a woman’s mindset, emotions and so forth.

3. Heroes. How do you find them? Do pictures, real life or plain imagination create the man you want every reader to love? Do they come before the plot or after you have the idea for the story?
 My heroes are always flawed and never the Alpha-males with muscled, perfect bodies so popular in romantic fiction. I like a man who is real, has a temper, harbors secrets, can be selfish, mysterious, but always, deep down, good at heart. Oh, but, he’s usually very handsome. Sometimes I’ll base my hero’s looks on a movie actor, with his own quirks of course.
My heroes at first come from the plot, but as I write (I don’t outline a story) he grows and changes as I get to know him better.

4. Heroines. How do you find them? Do pictures, real life or imagination create the woman you want the reader to root for? Do they appear before the plot or after you have the idea for the story?
 My heroines are me inside, tough, determined, and outspoken, but beautiful on the outside. They are never perfect, however. They have insecurities, and other flaws. In my research into the eighteenth century, my favorite time-period, I found many women with the strong qualities mentioned above. Many believed in women’s rights, wrote books on the subject, so don’t let anyone tell you that those ideas didn’t materialize until the twentieth century.
As with the hero, my heroine grows and changes as I get to know her.

 5. Villains or villainesses or an antagonist, since they don’t always have to be the bad guy or girl. They can be a person opposed to the hero’s or heroine’s obtaining their goal. How do you choose one? How do you make them human?
 I’ve only ever been in one villain’s POV, in A Savage Exile. I did give Hudson Lowe some good qualities; his love for his wife is one, his agony over what happened to turn him into a vampire is another, so the reader can understand him as a person.

 6. What is your latest release? Who is the hero, heroine and or the villain?
A Savage Exile is my latest release. The hero is Ali Saint-Denis, a conflicted man with a terrible secret. The heroine is Isabelle, a French maid, who falls in love with him, despite her suspicions as to his strange predilections. I’ve already mention the villain, Hudson Lowe.

 7. What are you working on now?
A historical murder mystery set in Cornwall, England during the American Revolution. It’s called The Apothecary’s Widow. Here’s a blurb: Who poisoned Squire Pentreath’s scold of a wife? The apothecary who prepared the infusions—Pentreath owns Jenna’s building and wants to sell and push her out, one of the manor’s disgruntled staff, or the beleaguered husband himself? Two disparate people, Jenna and Pentreath, must come together to solve the crime before either one of them is sent to the gallows.

 8. How can people find you?

            Website: http://www.dianescottlewis.org

         Blog:  http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/

            Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DSLewisHF

            Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/diane.parkinson.794

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