The hero of our heart, what can I say about him? In reality, hero material is sometimes
hard to come by. A good hero is going to be a noble man, good at heart. Not unlike the
same men we marry. Oh, he's going to mess things up occasionally. If he's human he will
make mistakes. A flawed man is human. Someone we can fall in love with. He's not fluff to
fill the pages of a book. The tone of his story will dictate his every move…what he
says, how he says it, his facial expressions. A big one with me is his actions. How his
hands move to portray his feelings, how he shows he cherishes her. He walks a fine line
between being dumped by the heroine and being the kind of man she's unable to live
without.
This brand of man is determined not to fall for his destined mate. Then he'll agonize over
his change of heart about her. Then he'll do the thing we all go melty-butter-soft over
and go down on his knees for her. He lives and breaths her name, her essence…he can't
have enough of her…and then blam! we hit him with a black moment when his life is
turned upside down and inside out because he truly believes he's lost her.
We all thrive off the excitement of waiting to see what he'll do next to get her back. How
far he'll go for the woman who has captured his elusive heart. He'll be proud, handsome as
sin in the heroine's eyes, irresistible, and infuriating all at once. He'll hold her with
tenderness, his every gesture worshipful, poignant. And we sigh and feel that cherishment
wrap around us like soft sable, we revel in it and that's what keeps us coming back for
more of the same.
It's our thirst to be loved like that which makes us perfect candidates for vulnerability.
It's real life stuff. Heroes go straight for the heart, leave you shaken up, intense.
Uncensored. The pages of a hero's life should be as close to reality as we can get. Just
as there are movies out there with intense moments like our beloved "Titanic."
It all depends on if your hero is a mainstream kind of man or a "Love and
Laughter" kind of man. Nice thing about it, there are all sorts of tastes out there,
just as there are different tastes in the men we settle down to spend our lives with.
Our personal passions as writers will influence our heroes, permeate from them, mold them
into the men we adore. Or at least I have to completely adore my hero to make him come
alive for a reader. I put my heart and soul into him, I invest my every emotion in him,
walk his tortured path, and then let him disappoint me, so when he does get down on his
knees for me, he's baring his soul. Perhaps best said, "No man as a general rule
shows his soul to another man. He shows it only to a woman." ~ Lafcadio Hearn
This hero is baring all to you, the reader. He's earned his right to his story. He's going
to be remembered long after you put the book down. Otherwise, why would I invest months in
a hero to have him disappoint you on the last page? If I want for you no less than I want
for myself, write his story the way this man wants his story written, then I know I can't
go wrong. And if he's a sensual man, which mine always are, then I have to get words on
paper to adequately express the emotion in his gestures, the passion behind his movements,
the stiffening of his broad shoulders when he's just learned he's been played for a fool.
Or so he thinks.
My heroes come with emotional baggage…the more tortured kind of hero. I don't think
about how hard it's going to be to write his life's story or turn him around. The
challenge is clear from the start, but I have no choice. My passion is these tortured
souls. But he'll be a man worth keeping. Right from the back cover blurb you will know
he's not whimsical material. He's high drama. High maintenance. When a hero comes to me
with his story, he usually has some notion or another about being wronged. He's been dealt
a blow in another relationship that has left him scarred. It's this baggage that drives
him as it drives our motivations in real life. Our experiences.
When I started out writing heroes, they didn't have archetypes or better terms for their
traits. For me it was simply things that drive human beings. Love, hate, revenge, hurt,
compassion. I used Suzanne Forster's "Fatal Appeal of the Dangerous Male"
handout. Characterizing the dark hero. She explains, "Dark heroes (Alpha Men) tap
into the unexpressed rebel in each one of us. They break the rules, live by their own
code." And Suzanne's academic background in clinical psychology clearly comes across
in her own heroes.
When all is said and done, it boils down to how the heroine looks upon the man sitting
across the seat from her in a semi-dark carriage traveling through the dead of night to a
destination she knows naught. She's watching his brooding expression from beneath her
lashes, his shadowed profile turned to her and finds herself both tantalized and fearful .
. . a snowy white cravat enhanced his square jaw and devastating features, his eyes a
ruthless cobalt that reminded her of storm-battered skies. Her fiercely intimidating
companion was perfection chiseled from the womb of darkness. His beauty staggering, his
masculinity confounding to the senses.
A recipient of his wrathful glower, she's a courtesan he despises for whatever reason he
has yet to explain to her . . .
So you see the stage is set for an emotional battle of wills. The drama laid before you
and how this dark and tortured hero has every intention of trying to destroy her for the
suffering she's caused him. Though, like the heroine, you don't know yet what he has in
store for her. But you know right here that he's going to go down hard, fighting and
resisting the attraction all the way. But when he does drop to his knees. . oh, the
sweetest of moments, because you know he will love her to the depths of his soul. There
isn't anything he wouldn't endure for her. Oh, the Hero Of Our Hearts.
Known to readers as Desiree Lindsey, Anita Moore's way of transforming your world
through her characters comes with a warning on the cover of her ultra-sensual romances
will leave you breathless. Tantalizing to the core. Owner of Lindsey Publications, Anita
says Ingram Books now recognize her independent publishing company. PRISONER OF PASSION, a
finalist in the Award of Excellence 2000, will tantalize you with Stephen and Sarah, her
uncommon heroine.
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