By Barbara Barrett, Guest Author
Apparently readers don’t like their heroines to undermine
their best friends. My heroine in Saved
by the Salsa, Lacey Rogers, took quite a beating from judges’ comments and
ratings in the contests in which the early rendition was entered. What really
brought the point home to me was when I pitched to one of my dream agents.
After I’d taken a minute to lay out the main theme, she immediately put the
kibosh on my idea by telling me there was only one other author of whom she was
aware who’d successfully used a similar theme, and that was probably because that
author had already made it to the New
York Times list. (No, she still hasn’t indicated an interest representing
me.)
In that version, Lacey was convinced her best friend had
made a horrible mistake by immediately taking up with the office Lothario, Jack
Dalton, within days of being dumped by Lacey’s brother. So Lacey decided to
“seduce” Jack away from her friend, rationalizing that Jack was too much of a
player for her friend. She wanted her friend and brother back together.
At the time, I was influenced by the film, “Her Best
Friend’s Wedding.” Not at all the same plot, other than that heroine set out to
break up her friend’s marriage, because she didn’t feel his fiancée was “right”
for him. I thought both the Julia Roberts character and my own heroine were
quite noble for trying to save their friends from themselves.
Nonetheless, I went back to the drawing board. How many of
you have done that? I reexamined the basics. What was the essence of the book?
For Lacey, it’s twofold: not only does she want to be a top-notch architect,
she also wants the family she lost after her father deserted them when she was
a child and her mother died when she was a teen. Thanks to her father walking
out on them and being jilted by her fiancé, Lacey doesn’t trust any man other
than her brother to stick around. So the family she so desires must come from
her brother, hence the reason for reuniting him with her best friend.
In the revised version of the story, I kept the break up as
well as Lacey’s desire to get the two lovers back together. But rather than
work against her girlfriend, I had Lacey and her friend join forces to make the
brother jealous with Jack. Jack knowingly agrees to serve as the fake
boyfriend, so he won’t be hurt by their plan. Yes, there’s still some scheming
going on, but I felt it was the kind of plot device readers would accept,
especially since it serves to keep Lacey and Jack apart during the early
chapters.
I continue to struggle with the “likeability factor” in my
stories. It’s a constant push-pull to create interesting, compelling characters
that readers can also relate to and like. But from my own experience as a
reader, I lose interest in a book if I don’t like the characters. So I know
it’s important. It’s just darned hard to accomplish sometimes and still tell
the story you want to tell.
Junior architect Lacey Rogers welcomes the opportunity to
work with Jack Dalton, the firm’s golden boy, that is, until her hormones can’t
resist his charm and spectacular looks. How can she keep her mind on their
design project when her most potent designs are on him?
Jack Dalton has always worked alone. Now he’s got a partner.
Is he losing his touch? Is that why he hasn’t been named principal yet? To make
matters worse, he can’t take his eyes off the petite piece of fluff. If he
can’t find some way to cool his jets, he won’t be able to keep his hands off
her either.
Here's an excerpt when they're on the dance floor:
Jack took them through routines she had never encountered
despite numerous visits to Salsa clubs. But she met him step for step,
exhilarated by the challenge. Jack’s eyes burned. Her skin glistened from the
exertion and the heat of the moment.
They floated and swirled, awash in the music, but her eyes
couldn’t leave Jack’s. If possible, the glint from earlier had sharpened into
the undeniable look of desire every woman instinctively recognized. In
response, strange sensations pulsed through her body— sensations which blended
physical arousal with emotional need while her heart pounded in rhythm to the
Latin beat.
She noted vaguely how the crowd parted to make room for
them. When the dance ended, the two of them stood there, chests heaving,
suspended in a moment only they shared.
A wave of applause broke the spell, as other couples came up
to congratulate them.
“You were fantastic!” a fiftyish-looking woman cried.
The man with her chimed in. “The couple on our CD does
similar steps, but I’ve never seen them done in person. You guys are great.”
“How long have you been dancing together?” another woman
asked. “You were so well synchronized.”
Fanning her face, Lacey didn’t know what to say. “Uh, well,
uh, no…it was spontaneous.”
Apparently Jack’s lungs had survived better than hers as he
was able to address the crowd. “My partner’s still a little winded, folks.
We’re giving a class, if you’re interested. Monday night at seven. Mackenzie
and Associates.” Announcement delivered, Jack grasped her hand and led her back
to their table.
“A class?” she gasped between breaths. “Are you crazy?”
“I enjoyed dancing with you too.” He pulled out her chair
for her. When she was seated and he was in his own chair, he leaned across the
table conspiratorially. “Did you happen to notice anything our group of
admirers had in common?”
She chugged down her entire water glass before replying.
“They were able to breathe normally?”
“Try again. Never mind, catch your breath. I’ll tell
you—they were all boomers!”
Saved by the
Salsa Buy Links
 |
| Barbara Barrett, Author |
Barbara Barrett spent her professional career as a human resources
analyst for Iowa state government, and that training has stayed with her in her
writing of contemporary romance fiction. Now retired, Barbara spends her winters basking in the Florida
sunshine and returns to her home state of Iowa in the summer to “stay cool.” She
has published three romance novels with The Wild Rose Press, And He Cooks Too, Driven to Matrimony and Saved by the Salsa, the first in the
Sullivan’s Creek Series, was released in August 2014. Her fourth book, The Sleepover Clause, the first of the
Matchmaking Motor Coach Series, will be released in
upcoming months.
Contact Information for Barbara Barrett
Website and blog: http://www.barbarabarrettbooks.com
Email: barbarabarrett747@gmail.com
Facebook: http://on.fb.me/11jvO3Q
It IS hard to keep them interesting as well as likable, I think, but so worthwhile. Unlike flesh-and-blood friends, whose foibles I always forgive (and vice versa, thank goodness), an unlikable heroine's story never gets finished. If I'm going to invest time in a book, it needs to be girlfriend-type time without the things that make you wonder why you and so and so are friends at all.
ReplyDeleteI love the changes you made to Lacey's story!
Thanks, Liz. It wasn't easy, and I didn't make this decision overnight. At one time, I also had four POVs, the H/H plus the brother and the best friend. It was so much easier telling the story that way. So besides revising the relationship with the girlfriend, I had to switch everything to two POVs only.
DeleteBarbara
Liz, loved your post. SAVED BY THE SALSA sounds too good to miss.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the opportunity to talk about my latest release, Caroline. I hope readers have the same attitude about reading "Salsa."
DeleteBarbara
Saved By The Salsa sounds intriguing! It has immediately been put on my TBR list! I love the story line and am so looking forward to reading it!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Karren. I hope you'll enjoy it when you get to it. As I reread it through numerous revisions and edits, I decided I'd made the right move.
DeleteBarbara
Yes, characters need to be likeable for me. Not perfect by any means and not wishy-washy doormats, either. It's okay if everyone thinks the heroine is a b*tch as long as the reader knows differently! ;-)
ReplyDeleteJoMarie, this was the first book I ran by beta readers, after I'd switched the story line around. They still had MANY comments, but the likeable part didn't come up. So I passed that test at least. :)
DeleteCharacters must be likable, but that doesn't mean they have to start out that way, for me at least. If there is a traumatic backstory that warrants a character being the way they are, I can deal with it, as long as that history makes an appearance earlier than later in the book. I love a character I can sympathize and cheer on to a happy ending after all of the trials he or she endured. I have a serious soft spot for flawed characters because that makes them so much more real. In the end, though, likable is key. Great post Barb!
ReplyDeleteAppreciate your thoughts, Rhea. I've never struggled with the likeability thing until this book. One or two judges' comments might not have convinced me to take another look, but this was too frequent. Thanks for stopping by.
DeleteBarbara
I have to like my hero and heroine too. One of the few things that will make me give up on a book is disliking either of them - in fact one of the classics I couldn't finish was Gone with the Wind, simply because I disliked Scarlet so much. Without doubt our readers need to empathize with the main characters in a romance, even if she may occasionally do something less than admirable. Nice to hear your thoughts on the topic, Barb.
ReplyDeleteKaren Ann, it's a real challenge sometimes to make the character flawed but still likeable, but I think one of the key factors, if done successfully, for readers to embrace a book.
DeleteI had trouble with GWTW after Bonnie Blue died, but I stuck with it.
Barbara
Hello Barbara. Greetings from a fellow WRP author. I thought I already posted this comment so if it shows up twice, oh well. Interesting post. Not a plot dilemma I'd considered. Way back when, I tried to pitch my GH finalist novel, Through the Fire, to NY and got a lot of 'we don't do NA themes' back then. Sometimes you never know what they want or don't want until after you've already written the story. Congrats on a fabulous release.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by and commenting, Beth. WRP authors are so supportive of each other. I hope you asked to be notified if anyone responded to your post, because I just got back to this blog today after taking a day off. I'm vacationing in Arizona, but as a pubbed author, you can't just leave things completely alone.
DeleteBarbara
Characters have to be likeable, and they should also be memorable and unique. I want to read about a H/H that I can root for! Good luck with your new book, Barbara.
ReplyDeleteJana, the problem sometimes is who is defining "likeable." I thought readers would still like my heroine even though in the first version she tried to steal her best friend's boy friend because she thought she was doing it for her friend's benefit. Others didn't see it that way, which is why the change of story line.
DeleteBarbara
This looks so good! Added to my tbr list. I can relate. In all of my books the heroine is a work in progress. Even though later in the book she learns from her mistakes, she takes a bashing from reviewers. I just keep writing the flawed heroine, to me she's real.
ReplyDeleteI hope you like the book when you get around to reading it, Lisa. There's a lot more to my H/H than I wrote about here. I wanted to focus solely on the "likeable" angle. Sorry about the bashing you've received from reviewers. Sometimes it's a matter of opinion and who gets to state their opinion of someone else's work.
DeleteBarbara