Friday, March 13, 2015

Friday - Betty Ann Harris talking about Heroes, Heroines and Villains #MFRWauthor #BooksWeLove

                         
 
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? For the most part, I write romantic suspense, but I am also currently writing a romantic paranormal titled Possessing Prudence. I'm also working on my first murder mystery. I enjoy writing mystery/suspense/romance, and that's mostly what I read as well. I would never attempt to write fantasy as I think my feet are firmly planted in reality. I like to think my stories are believable, that they could actually happen. As I'm writing a paranormal at the moment, I guess that means I believe in ghosts. 
 
2. Heroes, Heroines, Villains. Which are your favorite to write? Does one of these come easy and why? Many of my books are written about FBI Special Agents usually protecting modern day damsels in distress. The special agents are heroes and they are usually male. However, in Danger in Paradise, the special agent was Ruby Stone, a woman who found herself involved in a dangerous case in which she fell in love with the man she was trying to protect. 

I relish writing villains as characters in my books, and there has been a villain in most of the books I write. They are usually dark and disturbed and a nemesis to the main characters.  
 
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? Heroes, I love them. I use my imagination to conjur up that perfect hero for my main character. Usually they are a combination of traits I find particularly attractive in a man, both physically and in their personality. I like the strong but sensitive type for the most part, someone who is passionate about life and love. I usually have my hero in mind before I have the idea for the story. 
 
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? The same as with my heroes, I have my heroine in mind before I have the idea for the story. My heroines are beautiful, intelligent, and talented. They are usually successful women that have a passion for life, love, and their professions. 
 
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? Most of my villains are bad, like murderers, criminals, etc., and are deeply flawed or even psychotic. A few of my villains have been just misguided and not really bad. I base their personalities and even appearance sometimes on characters on TV or people I've know in real life. It's not hard for me to make them human because evil does exist in real life.
 
6. What is your latest release? Who is the hero, heroine and or the villain? My latest release is A Very Special Agent. The hero is an extremely good-looking man, the tall, dark and handsome type. His name is Stephen O'Leary and he's a top-notch FBI Special Agent who had previously worked in the Secret Service, but has just been reassigned to protecting private citizens. 
 
7. What are you working on now? At the moment, I'm finishing up my second book in the Protected Heart Series, a series written about a successful interior designer from Park Ave. in NYC, who is forced, for her own safety, into a FBI witness protection program. In the first book, Eureka Point, she is uprooted from New York to a small town just north of San Francisco named Eureka Point. With a mentally unstable and estranged husband after her, not to mention a hit man for a dangerous South American drug cartel after her, she's under the protection of Special Agent Tom Owens. 

In this next book in this series, titled Moonlight Cove, Lizzie and Tom have married, but the South American drug cartel has not given up on finding her and killing her. 


 

8. How can people find you?

            Website  http://ladylizzie1.wix.com/authorbettyannharris

            Blog

            Twitter   Love Writers Promo (@ladylizzie1) | Twitter

3 comments:

Margaret Tanner said...

Hi Betty,
Interesting post. Love the villains.
Regards

Margaret

Janet Lane Walters said...

Margaret, Thanks for stopping by.

Betty Ann Harris said...

Thanks for hosting me, Janet. Also, thanks Margaret for your nice comment.