Friday, December 3, 2021

Friday J S Marlo is visiting and talking about Characters #BWLAuthor #Heroes #Heroines #Villians

 

Day 1 Characters

 

2. Heroes, Heroines, Villains. Which are your favorite to write?

 

I love writing my villains. They are everything I’m not, so it’s interesting, and fun, to walk on the dark side in their shoes. I especially enjoy writing female villains as they are often more cunning and scheming than their male counterparts.

 

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?

 

I don’t do pictures. My heroes aren’t perfect men, but they have many nice qualities that women appreciate, and flaws that make them more relatable.

 

If I create my hero from plain imagination (his physical attributes, his emotional baggage, his age, his job...), everything about him will be designed to fit the storyline.

 

If my hero is based on a real man, he will share some resemblance with his real counterpart, and the storyline will be weaved around him.

 

In most of my stories, the storyline came first...and the hero second.

 

 

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?

  Your favorite book?

 

Again, I don’t do pictures. My heroines are strong women with unusual jobs and challenging pasts, who learned to rely on themselves.

 

My heroines fit a different pattern than my heroes when it comes to creating them.

 

If my heroine is based on a real woman, she will share some resemblance with her real counterpart, and the storyline will be weaved around her.

 

The difference comes when I think up a new storyline. Most of the time, the ideas popping in my head will come with a female character attached to them.

 

In most of my stories, the heroines are created from plain imagination at the same time as the storyline. One doesn’t come before the other. Heroine and storyline are weaved together from the start, and they both get constantly adjusted so they keep on fitting nicely with each other until the end.

 

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?

 

The storyline will dictate the antagonist(s). Quite often there are more than one antagonist, males and females.

 

My antagonists aren’t all created equal. Some are annoying but harmless, others are charming but dangerous...they have qualities that makes them relatable, and dark sides that they can’t always control.

 

There will usually be a dead body or two in my stories, but quite often my killers will be victims of circumstances or sudden emotions, rather than just being evil persons.

 

6. What is your latest release? Who is the hero, heroine and or the villain?

 

My latest release is The Red Quilt. It’s a sweet mystery/romance novel that takes place on Prince Edward Island during the Christmas holiday.

 

My heroine is Lana, a retired military nurse who lives on a potato farm with the ghosts of her husband and son.

 

My hero is Eli, a retired submariner who raises his five-year-old granddaughter alone.

 

My antagonists are a scheming woman, a shady neighbor...and Mother Nature.

 

The Red Quilt was released three weeks ago, on November 15, 2021. Books are easy to wrap and they fit in stockings. They make great Christmas gifts.

 

7. What are you working on now?

 

I’m working on The Blue Ribbon, a sweet mystery/romance surrounding a wedding in the mountains. It will be the second book in the Fifteen Shades Series, but it will be a stand-alone.

 

I may borrow a minor character from The Red Quilt and turn him/her into my hero/heroine. You can expect a bear or a cougar, a dead body, maybe snow, lots of twists and turns, and a happy ending.

 

8. How can people find you?

 

My Website -> https://sites.google.com/site/jsmarloauthor/home

 

Facebook -> https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005715001393

 

Amazon -> https://www.amazon.com/J-S-Marlo/e/B071PBFDN8/

 

Goodreads -> https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2079858.J_S_Marlo

 

Twitter -> https://twitter.com/jsmarloauthor

 

9. Who are your favorite authors?

 

I like Dan Brown, Ken Follett, Maureen Jennings, J. K. Rowling, Peter David, Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, and many, many more authors.


 

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