Meet USAF Engineer Master Sergeant Briggs. The poor chap thought he was in for a dull birthday off-duty, but then he gets a mysterious gift from Area 51. Before he knows it, he's got Madison and her loquacious parrot, Sir Rupert, literally falling out of time and into his lap. Talk about a surprise party!
So I finished The Key, aka The Big A** Book, with no plans to write more science fiction romance (you might recall that I didn’t know I’d written SFR at that point. I thought I’d written a) an action adventure that just happened to be set in space; b) a really, really long novel I wasn’t sure anyone would like.).
But I had such a good time writing it. I kind of liked writing an adventure set in space. Space battles were fun. Ray guns were fun. Jetting through the stars? Yeah, fun.
And I had this other book I’d been working on when I had to stop and get The Key out of my head. I glanced at it, but a very strange thing happened.
My bad guy (he wasn’t totally evil, but he was NOT nice) started bugging me about being the bad guy. About not getting the girl. He thought he hadn’t been that bad!
I was, like, seriously? You so deserved what happened to you and you know it.
Well, he never admitted he deserved it, but he did agree to up his game so he could be the hero and get the girl. I suspected that getting the girl was his driving goal, not becoming a great guy. So “his” girl would have to be very special. Someone who could humble, er, handle a guy with lots of shades of gray.
When Doc first appeared inside my head, I was a bit dubious, but as I peeled away first one layer and then another, I realized she was more than up for the job of schooling Helfron Giddioni (I know, it’s a terrible name, because he wasn’t supposed to be a hero!).
I might not have listened to Hel’s whining, but I also started getting some requests for more from readers. It’s an awesome feeling, so you know I had to do it. And before I knew it, I’d written another Big A** Book (well, it seems fast looking back. Actually it almost made my brain explode.)
Have you ever written a character that was later ticked off at you? Read a book that you liked enough to write the author and ask for more?
Perilously yours,
Pauline