Carrie and PatriciaW, you each win a copy of Her Last Line of Defense! Please email your address to me at marie @ mariedonovan. com and I will send it out to you.

All the best in your reading and writing endeavors!

Marie Donovan

carrie

Thanks so much for being with RU. We appreciate your time!

I’m hoping to start plotting a Blaze-type book this fall or spring and your hero thoughts will be very helpful!

Best,
Kelsey

You are right! Sensitive almost made it onto the list as the 5th S, but I thought it may have dovetailed too closely with Sweet. I do agree that Sensitive is essential, especially as the story moves along and they start to fall in love.

I also enjoy all those authors you mentioned. Stephanie Bond, by the way, is a genius when it comes to managing a writing career. I went to her 2-hour presentation at this past RWA conference and was just fascinated by all the things we writers can do to make a living as a writer. Number one–write for Harlequin because it is bread and butter money that keeps you going. She sells article reprints through Amazon Shorts. HIghly recommended!

Marie

I actually think of, what would be a cool place for my hero to come from? So far, I have Cuba, South Side of Chicago, Milwaukee, a farm in Wisconsin, a Greek island, Louisiana Cajun country and my next hero Beck(coming out in March) is an East Coast rich polo player.

I find that once I choose their background, many qualities spring up. For Luc the Cajun, his is loyalty to his large family (six sisters!) and loyalty to his fellow soldiers.

For Beckett Emery the polo player, his qualities are daring, charm and a bit of a playboy attitude.

I do a ton of research on what these men would wear, eat, drink, who their previous girlfriends would be like, etc. Languages come into play as well, since most of my heroes are at least bilingual.

Marie

Thank you all for inviting me to blog. It gave me a chance to put onto paper what lurks in my subconsious when I create heroes.

Marie

A lot of my hero ideas just come out of my head but to refine them I use The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines by Cowden et al. It deals in archetypes with specific examples from literature and movies. I also do some thinking about, “What would be the worst thing to happen to him?” and “What would be the best thing?” Often the answer to both is “Fall in Love” .

As for time, I usually write a thorough first draft within a few months and edit with my editor’s comments for a couple weeks. I put *** in the story if I need to fill in the blanks or look something up later so I can avoid getting distracted with research if the words are coming well. I know some authors do extremely bare first drafts but I don’t like to keep going back over scenes. I bore easily

Marie Donovan

Marie

Believe me, I don’t analyze my writing as I go along. I just came up with these after writing seven of them, plus asking my editor and author friends. I find that too much analysis before I finish tends to suck the fun out of writing.

Marie

I don’t read Blaze a whole lot, but when I do, I usually enjoy the stories. Leslie Kelly, Julie Leto, Wendy Etherington, Stephanie Bond, and Brenda Jackson are some of my fave authors in the line.

Thanks for posting – great read! Do you think of the hero first and then in the qualities? or think of the qualities and invent a hero from there?

carrie