1.
Do you write a single genre or do your fingers flow over
the keys creating tales in many forms?
So far, I’ve
limited myself to only writing Regency romances; “Regency romances with a
Gothic twist,” I like to call ‘em.
Do your reading choices reflect your writing choices?
My
reading choices are all over the map. Right now I’m devouring a book about
WWII, but I’d be just as happy flipping through People Magazine.
Are there genres you wouldn’t attempt?
As far as romance
is concerned, I wouldn’t tackle erotic, paranormal, or steampunk. The thought
of writing all that sex scares me to the souls of my boots. There are some
authors who can spin a sexual fantasy for 60, 70, 80 pages, but I ain’t one of
them.
Paranormal unnerves
me for a different reason. I wouldn’t want to write one unless I could dream up
a really unique set of creatures: vampires have already been flogged until
their fangs are falling out, shape shifters have shifted out of possibilities,
and angel/dragons have flown off the deep end, what else is there? No, others
with truly fabulous imaginations are going to have to handle the paranormal readers.
And then there’s
steampunk. The whole genre fascinates me, though I haven’t cracked a single
steampunk novel. Everyone says it’s full of machinery, which is enough to stop
me in my writing tracks. I am not mechanically inclined… at all. My husband will
attest to my bewilderment concerning the seven—count ‘em—seven remote controls
we keep on the coffee table. He swears one of them turns on the radio, but I
have yet to find it. He also claims I have trouble opening doors. Mechanical, I
am not.
2.
Heroes, Heroines, Villains. Which are your favorite to
write?
The one
thing villains are sweet about is that they write themselves. Give me a good
villain and I’ll give you 100 pages of sheer terror!
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
bubble up slowly, taking on the characteristics of past boyfriends, movie
actors, or fictional protagonists. To be honest, they’re the hardest for me to
write because I grew up with sisters and, until the hubby came into my life, my
closest friends were women.
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?
In the
Albright Sisters series, all of the female characters are loosely based on my
family. There’s that old saying, “Write what you know.” So when I launched into
romance fiction, I stuck with heroines I love and admire—that made it so much
easier to put life into them.
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?
Conflict in
a story is so important that before I begin a scene, I think of a way the
characters can scrape against each other or scrape against themselves. Starting
Oct. 24 and running five weeks until Nov. 21, I’m teaching an online course for
The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College titled Conflict,
Suspense, and Action. Some people may think a brilliant
Proust-like work of literature doesn’t need these three devices, but I beg to
differ. As an avid New Yorker reader,
considered the benchmark for great writing, I’ve analyzed a year’s worth of
short fiction (that’s 52 stories, folks), and found that every one of them was
chock full of conflict, suspense, and action. No single character generates all
the conflict in my books. If the villain isn’t in a scene then the setting is
causing a problem for the protagonist. Should the protagonist be alone in a
bedroom, then that person is struggling with an internal issue.
Conflict=critical.
6.
What is your latest release? Who is the hero, heroine and
or the villain?
I’ve just
re-released two books that suddenly went out of print when my publisher was
sold to Simon & Schuster, A Rogue in Sheep’s Clothing (Only
.99 cents!) and The Secret Life of Lords (Just $3.99!). They are the first two
novels in the Albright Sisters series, and, I’m happy to say that Rogue hit #1
in its genre on Amazon last year.
7.
What are you working on now?
The third
book in the series, A Duke in the Rough, is in the hands of a few trusted beta
readers. My goal is to have it available by Christmas. Everyone cross your
fingers for me, okay?
8.
How can people find you?
The Writer’s Cat is a newsletter I
send out very infrequently. Yes, it announces the release of my next novel, but
it’s mostly about my charming, yet pesky cat, Sufie. What I would dearly love is if folks would
email me at elfahearn@hotmail.com and let me add them to the mailing list. I can also be friended
on Facebook, or visited at my Web site elfahearn.com.
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