1. Heroes,
Heroines, Villains. Which are your favorite to write?
At our house, this is a trick question – my husband and I co-author our
books under our pen name, Adriana Kraft. He loves writing about women and often
takes the lead, especially in terms of their character, their quirks. I often
fill in some of their inner world and thoughts, but for a guy, he’s amazingly
good at that, too.
Heroes? I suspect we’ve never written a hero who doesn’t bear at least a
smidgen of resemblance to my husband. Hence I’m in love with all of them and
find them easy to write and edit. It might go without saying that we don’t
write what might be called heavy duty alpha males – our men are all tender and sensitive,
but still fully capable of many alpha qualities when the situation calls for
it.
Villains
– oh, we both have such fun creating villains. I will say it took us a while to
create a truly evil one – and especially, to take the step of offing a villain
as part of the book finale.
2. 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?
LOL,
I gave away part of that answer above! We typically fasten on our heroine first
and work from there – who will fit for this woman? What will draw her to him,
what will stand in the way? What occupation, what personality. Looks come
later, and yes, sometimes photos or famous people. For one of the books I’m
featuring tomorrow, a younger Richard Gere (think Pretty Woman) would be
the perfect image for the 40-something hero in the May-September romance.
3. 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?
Anything
can trigger a heroine. We definitely use photos here, and my husband often
scours the web and comes up with several options from which we select one, not
only for her looks, but for the expression in her pose. Photos help anchor not
only our physical descriptions but also our hero’s responses. In tomorrow’s featured
books, we once met a female racehorse trainer who is the model for one of the
heroines, and a female lawyer we knew served as the basis for another one.
4. 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?
For the most part, it’s only our romantic suspense books that possess an
actual villain, always engaged in some kind of criminal activity. Though we
both had ample opportunity to work with
such persons in our professional careers, we’ve never based a villain on any
specific person. But my husband is a trained criminologist, and his expertise
on the inner workings of the criminal mind definitely informs our depiction of
our villains and what drives them.
5. What
is your favorite book?
Two answers. For me, any of the Jane Austen novels, which I
(like my college English professor) re-read every so often. Among those, Emma
tops my list, chiefly for the scene towards the end in which she finds the
courage to make an about face and own her feelings.
For him – he doesn’t have a favorite book and could never
count up all the books he’s read and loved. Also, he never goes back and
re-reads a book. As a kid, he loved Johnny Tremain and the Zane Grey books. His
current favorites are historical fiction grounded in real people and events,
especially those focused on Celtic beliefs and practices.
6. Who
are your favorite authors?
Far too many to list them all, both within and outside the
romance genre. Erotic romance? Authors Lisabet Sarai and Kymmie Carlton, especially.
Currently my Rom Com favorite is Emily Henry, for her witty characters and for
turning romance tropes on their heads with her plots. Mainstream? Anything
Geraldine Brooks writes, and that goes for both me and my husband; also C.W.
Gortner and T. J. Klune. Historical romance? Both of us would list Cathie Dunn,
Melanie Karsak, Nancy Jardine, Helen Hollick, Annie Whitehead, Gemma Lawrence, and
Elizabeth St. John, among others.
7. What
is your latest release? Who is the hero, heroine and or the villain?
I’m
going to cop to one of the books we’re promoting tomorrow, since it’s on sale
now. Detour Ahead,
set in the world of thoroughbred racing, features a high powered lawyer
grieving the death of her father. Her best friend sends her to a California
time share both to rest and to have a new case to solve – someone’s been
threatening the racehorses at the time share wrangler’s ranch. A rape victim in
her early teens, Tracy has never recovered, never permitted herself intimacy
with a man, always kept her deepest feelings hidden. Our hero is based on the
wrangler we met on our own trip to a time share in the foothills north of San
Diego where we spent two weeks, got inspired for this story, and started
writing. The villain? I don’t dare share a spoiler, so I’ll just say he’s in
financial trouble and being blackmailed by probably the true villain of the
story.
8. What
are you working on now?
We
have a number of irons in the fire. Several finished manuscripts have been on a
back burner for a while, and we’re gradually picking them up and thoroughly
editing them for release. At the top of the list is catching up with the
married pair who are the stars of Swinging Games, our erotic romance
series set in the swing lifestyle. We’re crafting a road trip for them and
having a great time picking out favorite spots to send them. Which leads me to
say we’ve never set a book in a place we haven’t spent time in personally Well,
except for our newest release, set in Roman occupied Wales and then Rome. More
on that next month!
9. How
can people find you?
Blog: https://www.adrianakraft.com/blog
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