A reader emailed me recently, asking why I’d caused Lyon so much difficulty in certain chapters of Lyon, The Lords of Satyr. She listed the chapters and events in which I’d beat up on the poor guy. It came through that she had been genuinely hurting for my hero. I was taken aback, but—okay I’ll just say it—I was secretly pleased.
Causing trouble is part of my job as an author, and it’s a part I enjoy. I create characters, heap trouble on them, and make them fight their way out of it to become stronger, better people in the end. I try to make the perils they face feel real, so you the reader will worry that the hero/heroine might wind up physically or emotionally dead. That’s what I did in Lyon. He came close to death.
A mix of Satyr and Human blood flows in his veins, and it drives him to indulge in a carnal ritual once a month in the ancient vineyard/compound he and his brothers inhabit in Tuscany. What happens if the Satyr don’t engage in this ritual? They die. When Lyon locates his intended fey-bride on the night of the ritual, she unleashes magic, which sends him into slumber. He awakens feeling confused and ill. But he remembers one thing—the woman he’d been with.
Which brings me to another part of my job that I relish: creating sexual tension. Although I like writing the graphic sex scenes in my satyr novels, there has to be a reason for the sex to occur. A believable reason. A building of reasons that creates taut, sexual tension between the hero and heroine.
”I need sex from you Juliette,” said Lyon. “By tomorrow or the next day or at most one day beyond that, I’ll be dead for the lack.”
Juliette stood and moved away to warm her hands at the fire. “Perhaps tomorrow in the village, you’ll locate someone else to accommodate you.”
“No one else will do.”
“Oh, please,” she said, scowling at him over her shoulder. “I’ve heard better excuses from other men seeking to bed me than to believe such nonsense.”
Lyon lay his head back with a long-suffering sigh. “I am pathetic, am I not? You may find it difficult to credit at the moment, but I generally do not find it necessary to plead with a woman for the use of her body.”
A small silence fell.
Then she shattered it with a quiet admission. “I don’t find it difficult.”
His gaze shot to hers, but she wouldn’t allow him to catch her eyes.
“I don’t find it difficult to believe women want you,” she repeated. “But I can’t indulge you. It would be…unwise. For both of us.”
Lyon doesn’t die. But I understand the character-empathy, which motivated that reader to email me. I become far more engrossed in the lives of characters in movies and novels than my husband or my best friend do. When characters are wounded, I ache for them. I cry. If I know a movie will be sad—I wait for the DVD so I don’t embarrass myself sobbing in the theater. My husband is fond of telling me, “Those characters aren’t real, you know.” I guess they are to me, at least for the time I’m watching them on the screen or reading about them.
Even though I had already planned Lyon’s entire story in my head, I still fretted over his well being as I wrote his novel. I felt an urgency to see him through his trials to his happy ending. That’s one advantage I have in my own writing—I always know that though there will be trouble and tears along the way–somehow I’ll get my deserving hero and heroine to their Happily Ever After!
So, which books or movies have moved you to tears or moved you emotionally, and have you ever rewritten the ending of a book/movie in your head because it didn’t have the ending you wanted? If you were (or are) a romance author, do you think you’d have more fun making trouble for characters or writing the sexual tension? Do you prefer an HEA or are you okay with a HFN ending? Why?
Read excerpts from my satyr novels, including two chapters from my upcoming March release, Dominic, The Lords of Satyr, at www.elizabethamber.com
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Lynda
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 1:41 am:
I prefer the illusion of a HEA. I know that reality is more like HFN so in my fantasy world I always want a HEA. I have rewritten books in my head to give them a HEA.
There was a movie with Richard Gere and Jodie Foster that left me really flat. He dies at the end. i didn’t care that it was an honorable death, he was still dead. And there was a movie with a teenage couple that met as she was dying. I was a little PO’d at my sister-in-law for putting it in the DVD player. She had already seen it, knew the ending, and knew I prefer HEA. Somehow she imagined i’d change my mind if I just saw the right movie – NOT!
Kati
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 9:25 am:
Hi Elizabeth! Welcome (back?) to RNTV! I’m glad you’re with us today.
Great topic! Oh, I *love* sexual tension. It’s what makes Linda Howard romances SOOOO delicious. I always end up screaming in my head “JUST DO IT ALREADY!” For me the yearning is such a wonderful thing!
As far as rewriting the endings, to this day I maintain that in the movie CATCH AND RELEASE starring Jennifer Garner she ended up with the wrong guy. And I’m still bitter about it. I refuse to watch the movie now because of it.
PJ
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 9:34 am:
Note from Marisa: She apologizes for not being here first thing to welcome you, Elizabeth. Her computer is on life support and a technician is doing everything he can to save it. She’ll check in just as soon as she can get to the library and an internet connection.
PJ
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 9:40 am:
Welcome Elizabeth! I adore sexual tension but only for so long then I want some action.
I’m an HEA girl but I’ve learned to be happy with HFN if the potential for an HEA in future books is there. I do not like books or movies with sad, hopeless endings. My neighbor talked me into going to see Nights in Rodanthe with her. I told her it didn’t have a happy ending but she kept saying it was Nicholas Sparks and supposed to be so good. I tried to tell her he doesn’t write happy endings but the trailer looked so good and she was sure I was wrong about the ending. We went to the movie. The ending sucked. She hated it. So did I. Honestly, there’s enough sadness in the world. Why should I spend my entertainment dollars to watch a love story that ends in death?
Elizabeth Amber
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 12:23 pm:
Hi Lynda, you took the words right out of my mouth!
Hi Kati, Thank you for the welcome. It’s great to be at Romance Novel TV! Catch and Release is a movie I had in mind when I wrote this blog.
PJ, thanks for letting me know what’s up with Marisa. That’s a bummer about her having computer issues. Here’s wishing her technician is able to provide her computer with an HEA. Or at least an HFN.
) Entertainment is what it’s all about for me too, and that doesn’t include death or even a horrible break-up as an ending.
Beth C.
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 12:53 pm:
I think one of the first movies I hated the ending to (and it made me cry) was The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. I so wanted their characters get together. In my head I understood they couldn’t…but in my heart I wanted them to be a couple.
Heather D
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 1:27 pm:
Hi Elizabeth,
I am a hopeless romantic…I love my HEAs. I don’t believe I have ever read a book that didn’t have one. I have come to expect them in everything that I read.
I am also a sap, finding myself crying while reading a book or article and watching movies. I absolutely loved the movie P.S I Love You, still cry every time I watch. I refuse to read the book, I just know that if the movie is that big of a tear jerker the book is going to be on a whole ‘nother level. In my mind I rewrite the ending so that she ends up with the other Irish guy and mom ends up with the dad. I know its all wishfull thinking but I am a sucker.
PJ, I read three of Nicholas Sparks novels and saw a few of the movies. A Bend in the Road and the Rescuer had HEA’s if I remember correctly, and I guess you could say that The Notebook had a HEA too, depends on how you look at it. I haven’t read Message in a Bottle or A Walk In the Clouds (which I believe is the movie that you are referring to…teens meeting as she is dying). Neither of these had HEAs, which I guess is why I gave up on Sparks.
As for sexual tension… Give me lots, but give me action too! I love it. It makes a romance all the more believable. If you are relating the romance between the H/H to real life then you would expect to see the sexual tension, which you know is occuring between a real couple.
Thanks so much for sharing your thought process on creating Lyon’s turmoil!
Larena Wirum
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 1:27 pm:
I HAVE to have an HEA.
Some books that have brought me to tears are Joey W. Hill’s vampire ones and her mermaid and angel one. OMG I love her stuff. She has a tendency to get me everytime.
I have to say your satyr book series is great. I really get drawn into the books and hate to see them end.
Jan
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 1:39 pm:
Aloha Elizabeth,
Thank goodness you are a happy ending wanter like me. Frankly any movie or book that has the main character dying or going off with the wrong person just is wrong in my opinion. I go to movies and read books, especially romance books because I want the damn happy ending. If I wanted sad or what I term “real life” endings, I would just switch to CNN and watch the dreaded news.
It’s probably why, though I love Oscar movies, I won’t watch them over and over. Some of them have horrible endings.
I have noticed my intolerance for such has grown with the passing of the people I love in my life and with the increasing problems we face in real life. It has become more important to get that happy ending of late.
I don’t mind tension. I love mystery. I love the sexual banter that comes with watching two strong invidivuals fight that attraction. I want to smack the heroes and heroines upside the head for being so slow sometimes but it just ads to the satisfaction of that happy ending. And “hurrah” for those awesome sexy scenes that I look forward to in your books, too. But you are right, it has to happen in the right time or it’s more like porn than adding to the relationship or story.
What I also find is that when a series is ending, I just can’t seem to bring myself to read that last book, hence the Harry Potter book that stares at me from my nightstand for months. I don’t like knowing that I won’t know more or find that they are doing okay. It’s so “final” like a death. For as much as you writers invest in your characters, so do we readers. Frankly I think if you get your readers being sad or torn over a character’s struggles enough to put pen to paper and write to you, it’s really great praise and kudos to you and your books.
Thanks for sharing them with us.
Karin
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 1:40 pm:
I, too, am a reader who needs the HEA at the end. I want to know that the characters I’ve spent my time with will always be happy together and not just for the moment.
Bonnie Edwards
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 2:19 pm:
Put me firmly in the HEA camp. I don’t need to watch or read stories with death as an ending. We all know it’ll happen eventually…it’s the hope-filled journey I want for characters. Mine and everyone else’s.
I, too, feel more than my dh when it comes to movies. I get engrossed, care, sigh! Laugh…far more than he does.
As for sexual tension, I agree with the Linda Howard to-die-for tension. So wishing I could write like that! But I get antsy and get them into the sack.
What a fun topic!
Bonnie
orannia
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 4:05 pm:
Hi Elizabeth,
I’m another reader who liked the sexual tension, especially if it builds slowly….Bolero like
As for books that make me cry – the same ones always pop into my head when I think of that question: The Last Herald Mage series, particularly the last book Magic’s Price, by Merceds Lackey. Yes, it’s classified as fantasy but…the ending is so sad. The other book that springs to mind is another fantasy book – To Ride Hell’s Chasm. The two main characters went through so much but had to part. No matter how hard I try I always have tears pouring down my cheeks after reading these books.
Elizabeth Amber
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 5:38 pm:
Hi Beth, I’ve noticed that I tend to remember books with unhappy endings. I don’t want to, but I do. Before I started writing my first novel, I rewrote endings to movies and books with unhappy endings. Only in my head, not on paper. The Bodyguard is a perfect example of one of those movies I remember well and rewrote the ending I wanted them to have.
You’re welcome, Heather (re your comment about the process of writing Lyon’s turmoil). I’m surmising you must be one of those people like me, who read the endings of books to be sure there’s an HEA before you buy or check it out of the library. And by coincidence, I just got back from lunch out with five other authors, and we discussed this topic. Someone (the only guy at the table) mentioned Nicholas Sparks and said he won’t read any more because of the unhappy endings of those you mentioned. Even though he enjoys NS otherwise.
Hi Larena, thanks for your kind words about the satyr series. I love writing them and although I’m deliriously happy every time I finish one and send it off, there’s a part of me that wants to keep writing about those characters because it’s hard to let go. I’m not a vamp reader, but I’ve heard J. Hill is great. I’ll have to try to angel and mermaid books. Thanks for the suggestions.
Ah! I’m visiting my mom and she just called me for happy hour, so I’ll be back in a few.
Elizabeth Amber
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 5:50 pm:
Aloha Jan, and thank you so much. I’m glad you came by, and I’m thrilled that you’re enjoying the satyrs. I know what you mean about sadness in your own life making you turn more toward HEAs. With the bad economy, I find I’m reading more HEA romance novels. Other than that, I usually read nonfiction. I think the first book I ever read with an unhappy ending was Gone with the Wind. I LOVED that book, but I think I rewrote that ending in my head for years. I couldn’t stand that Rhett and Scarlett didn’t get together because I cared so much about them. I love good, realistic banter, too. We were talking about that on Claudia Dain’s blog here on Romance Novel TV a few days ago. Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Susan Andersen are great at that. Oh, I so agree about a series ending. Even if there’s a happy ending, sometimes I’m so wrapped up in the characters that it’s almost as if the author killed them, because they’re suddenly gone! I know other readers feel that way because I hear from them asking about what happened to characters after the book ended, and I’ve heard other authors saying that happens to them as well. Hugs, and take care.
ChrisseyAnn
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 6:04 pm:
I neither want, nor need a HEA at the end of EVERY story I read. And it really all depends on the story. I know that sounds lame, but it’s true.
Sometimes I think that the two people are better off without each other by the end of the book. Perfectly normal, well adjusted people don’t always belong together after the initial sexual tension has worn off a little. Much less some of the characters in books….
And as for liking sexual tension, or heaping trouble?? Well, I like both. It’s very plausible for there to be trouble because of and in-spite of the sexual tension. And vise-verse.
I have totally rewritten stories in my head before. Case in point: Bertrice Small wrote some books about a character named Skye and her daughter Velvet (Skye’s youngest child from the O’Malley Saga), and in the first one about Velvet (This heart of mine, O’Malley book 4) Velvet’s daughter, Jasmine is left in India and raised without her. That was a real tear jerker. But it was in the middle of the book! I soo wanted to rewrite that in my imagination into a happy ending right there, and quit reading… but it was worth it for Velvet by the end of the book. She did have a HEA with her first husband, in the end, just not the one I wanted her to have, (but then she’s not my character). The trade off for her HEA with Hubby #1 was that, her second husband had to die and she had to go through some pretty major emotional turmoil.
But I respect the decision Ms. Small made, to make Velvet’s life such hell, it spawned a whole half dozen (or so) more books about Velvet and Jasmine’s descendants.
So like I said, I think it all depends on the story or book… It wasn’t the Happy Ending I would have picked for Velvet and Jasmine, but it wasn’t my story to write and it all worked out in the end. It was still a good book and a well written story, and I don’t think it detracted from the Saga, over-all.
Elizabeth Amber
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 7:49 pm:
Hi Karin,
Thanks for stopping by. I agree wholeheartedly!
Hi Bonnie,
Nice to see another Kensington author here. Linda Howard is a major favorite of mine and great with building sexual tension. Her early books were among the first romance novels I ever read. I also thought Kresley Cole did a fantastic job with building sexual tension in her A Hunger Like No Other. And Bonnie, you write wonderful stories and characters, which I hope everyone gets a chance to read!
Hey Orannia,
Thanks so much for your thoughts. My heart aches for characters when I read books like this. Sometimes I’m in the mood for that, and at other times I want the assurance of that HEA. Just hearing that the main characters go through a lot and then have to part kills me! And it means I probably won’t read a book. Sadly for me, because that means I’ll miss out on some great books!
Elizabeth Amber
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 7:57 pm:
Hi ChrisseyAnn,
)
I remember Skye O’Malley, too, and I really enjoyed it. Honestly, I never read the rest of the saga, only because of my life at that time took me away from reading for a while, so I didn’t know about the Velvet/Jasmine books. Having someone else raise a heroine’s child is a definite tear-jerker–I get more upset about the unhappiness of a child in a story than that of the hero/heroine. However, even though I might be upset by one book within a series not winding up happily, I’ll still give the other books a shot once I’m invested in the characters. I envy you in a way. My reading horizons would certainly be broadened if I liked HEA and non-HEAs!
Susan Kelley
on Feb 25th, 2009
@ 10:11 pm:
I like HEA even in the books I read that aren’t romance at least for the main characters. I recently quite reading a suspense author because in the most recent book in the series she killed the hero who had slowly been working his way into the heroine’s good graces. Live is too rough and difficult at times to look for more sadness in my entertainment. But go ahead and make it a battle to find that HEA, but they have to get there to make me happy.
Elizabeth Amber
on Feb 26th, 2009
@ 12:31 am:
Oh, man, Susan, the death of the hero or heroine that I’m rooting to get together would drive me crazeee! I’d be rewriting that one in my head for sure. I’m visiting my mom this week, and she and I were talking about HEAs. She doesn’t need an HEA. She wants to be moved by a story even if it causes her to feel the characters’ pain. I agreed that I want to be moved and that it can be a painful battle to find happiness, but I need the characters to prove themselves deserving of and to find the reward of that happiness. ~ Thanks so much for stopping by to chat!
orannia
on Feb 26th, 2009
@ 2:34 pm:
Susan – I think I know which suspense book you’re talking about…and yes, I was shocked too, although I can kind of understand the author’s reasonings for doing so… It was still a huge shock!