Friday Anna M, Taylor is visiting and Talking about Characters #MFRWAuthor #Heroes #Heroines #Villains #African American Women

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

 

Heroines are always my favorite character to write. With each story I craft a woman in a particular situation that I hope my readers can identify with and/or recognize. I love depicting strivers and overcomers who at first don't realize the inner strength they have or haven't yet actualized the power of that strength on behalf of others. 

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?

Plain imagination gives birth to my heroes, but as I write and chart their character growth I find there's a trait or characteristic I've noted in a real life man that I develop in my heroes. My heroes start unaware of their flaws and how those flaws are holding them back. As they journey through my story they see where they're stuck, they see the trait I dangle before them like a carrot and encourage them to go for it. They always come after the plot/story idea because I start with a what it scenario and try different types of characters in that scenario. That's how I land on whose story I end up telling.

 

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 my heroines come from my imagination. But as I write them I have my ideal reader in mind. She is an African-American woman living in an urban setting in the Northeast whose church plays a big role in her life. She reads for inspiration and enjoyment. I continually ask myself what woman in what setting will inspire and entertain them, what story will encourage and uplift them today. Thus my heroines are African-American women from all walks of life in different eras finding ways to love life and find love. Just like with my heroes, my heroines come to life after I come up with the plot/story idea. If I had to pick a favorite book with a heroine I enjoyed it has to be Bernadine Brown from Beverly Jenkins' Bring On The Blessings. I love her vision and spunk.

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 choose my antagonists based on whose interaction will make my heroes and heroines grow the most. There's an old saw that says every villain is the hero of their own story, thus my villains/antagonists for the most part aren't evil, but are capable of evil. I focus on their desires to make them human. Everyone can identify with wanting but not having. Therein lies the empathy my reader can have with the villain, even while they're rooting for them to fail.

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

My alter ego, Michal Scott, just released a novella this past September in the charity anthology, Falling Hard. My story, Who Can Find A Virtuous Woman, is a steamy historical taking place in 1898 and deals with finding love despite class differences. The hero is Madison Dugger, the first generation of his family born out of slavery. The heroine who has always been attracted to Madison is Eve Richardson, the only daughter of a pillar-of-society family. The villain/antagonist is Rev. Hiram Quansah who Eve's family want her to marry for safety and status reasons.

 

What are you working on now? 

Writing as Anna M. Taylor I'm working on Always the Dead Between and 10,000 Midnights Ago which are books three and four in my Haunted Harlem gothic romance/ghost story series. Always the Dead Between is contemporary where my heroine believes she can find love traveling back to the past while in 10,000 Midnights the heroine learns about love from some feisty but deceased Harlem Renaissance entertainers. I'm working on a historical inspirational romance and an inspirational romantic suspense under my third penname, Anna Taylor.

 

How can people find you?

Twitter - @revannable, @mscottauthor1

Website https://annamtaylor.webs.com, https://www.michalscott.webs.com

FB https://www.facebook.com/annamtaylorAuthor

Anna M. Taylor Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Anna-M.-Taylor/e/B0894LFCTV?author-follow=B0894LFCTV&

Anna M. Taylor Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/7d60e5679ab4/anna-m-taylor-writes

Michal Scott Amazon Author page: https://amzn.to/2TSHzRn

Michal Scott Newsletter - https://mailchi.mp/106e6b05cdfe/michal-scotts-newsletter

Who are your favorite authors?

Beverly Jenkins and J.D. Robb. If they write it, I buy it.

Saturday's Blurbs feature books by Anna Taylor #MFRWAuthor #Romance #Slavery #Harlem

One Breath Away

Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. She’s never been courted, cuddled or spooned, and now no man could want her, not when sexual satisfaction comes only with the thought of asphyxiation. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.

Wealthy, freeborn-Black, Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing the mysteriously exotic woman was foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex.

Hope ignites along with lust until the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…

Buy link:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2u5XQYY

Better To Marry Than To Burn

Blurb:

Wife Wanted: Marital relations as necessary. Love not required nor sought...

A bridal lottery seems the height of foolishness to ex-slave Caesar King, but his refusal to participate in the town council’s scheme places him in a bind. He has to get married to avoid paying a high residence fine or leave the Texas territory. After losing his wife in childbirth, Caesar isn’t ready for romance. A woman looking for a fresh start without any emotional strings is what he needs.

Queen Esther Payne, a freeborn black from Philadelphia, has been threatened by her family for her forward-thinking, independent ways. Her family insists she marry. Her escape comes in the form of an ad. If she must marry, it will be on her terms. But her first meeting with the sinfully hot farmer proves an exciting tussle of wills that stirs her physically, intellectually, and emotionally.

In the battle of sexual one-upmanship that ensues, both Caesar and Queen discover surrender can be as fulfilling as triumph.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2KTaGPH

Haunted Serenade

Blurb:

All the women in Anora Madison's family have lived haunted by the curse of Poor Butterfly: women still longing for but deserted by the men they loved. Determined to be the first to escape a life of abandonment, Anora fled Harlem for Brooklyn, not only severing her ties with her mother Angela, but also ending her relationship with Winston Emerson, her lover and the father of her child.

Six years later, Anora comes home to make peace, but an unseen evil manifests itself during the homecoming and targets not only Anora, but her little girl Cammie.

With nowhere to run, Anora must confront the evil now trying to destroy her life. She vows to protect her daughter at all costs, but if that protection can only be found with Winston back in her life, how will Anora protect her heart?

Amazon - https://amzn.to/3aXifyu

Bio: Michal Scott is the erotic romance penname of Anna Taylor Sweringen is a retired United Church of Christ and Presbyterian USA minister. A native New Yorker, she recently transplanted to the Southwest and is enjoying the great weather along with her husband of thirty years and their rescue cat, Scully. Anna is a member of the Women's Fiction Association and several Romance Writers of America chapters. In addition to erotic romance, she writes inspirational romance as Anna Taylor and gothic romance and women's fiction as Anna M. Taylor.

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Friday Anna Taylor is Visiting and talking about being a Panster or Plotter #MFRWAuthor #Panster #Plotter

1. Are you a panster or a plotter or perhaps a bit of both? I'm a plotter with panster tendencies. 

2. Which comes first - characters or plot for you? Plot. I always imagine the "what if" then see what kind of characters develop in it.

3. What are you working on now? Is this a book in a current series or something totally new? I'm always working several projects at once. Currently I'm self-publishing Haunted Serenade, a gothic romance novella I had published under the penname Anna M. Taylor, which I'll be using to launch a series entitled Haunted Harlem in June. I also have two short stories coming out in anthologies with Delilah Devlin and Passionate Ink, the erotic romance chapter of Romance Writers of America .

4. Do you have some kind of object or place that figures in most of your books? I use gems a lot, hospitals and caves. For me it's place. So far my stories have taken place either in upstate New York or the boroughs of New York City and the West in the late 1800's in fictionalized versions of the all Black towns founded after the Civil War.

5. Do you write everyday or just when the spirit hits? I try to write everyday. It's easier though when the spirit hits, but if it doesn't I forge ahead anyway.

6. Where can we find you? As Michal Scott (erotic romance) I can be found at www.michalscott.webs.com, Twitter #mscottauthor1 and https://amzn.to/2TSHzRn. As Anna M. Taylor (gothic romance and women's fiction) I can be found at www.annamtaylor.webs.com and on Facebook @annamtaylorAuthor. As Anna Taylor (inspirational romance) I can be found at www.annataylor2678.webs.com and on Twitter @revannable. 

7. Who are your favorite authors? What about a book you’ve enjoyed? I have too many favorites to name them all, so I'll just name the latest books I enjoyed by three of them: Rebel by Beverly Jenkins (historical), The Money Man by Nancy Herkness (contemporary romantic mystery) and An Old Fashioned Texas Christmas by Karen Witemeyer (inspirational romance).