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Monday, April 11, 2011

Author Guest Post: Ramona Wray


As part of the Hex Book Tour that I’m spearheading, author Ramona Wray is joining us today with a guest post. Here it is:
Ramona: Hi guys. Thank you, Ash, for having me, and for coming up with this brilliant idea for my guest post - Characters we love to hate and hate to love. How do you write a character like Lucian, with whom the reader both hates and loves?”
Well, for one thing, I’d say you have to have some love for bad boys (no, not the actual individuals, but the concept of someone who, essentially, is bad to the bone). I think there is a terrible beauty to a character that is absolutely, purely, 100 % either bad, or good. For a while, I did toy with the idea of making Lucian all-bad, but here’s what I think. I think perfection can be perceived as flat. I’m a hardcore reader myself, and yes, I can appreciate the aforementioned purity but, at the same time, I don’t want to read about someone I can’t identify with. Because life is far from perfect and likewise, people - good, or bad - aren’t all good, or all bad. As a reader, you want to be able to relate to the characters, even to the villains. You want to be able to follow the drive behind their actions. You want to be able to answer some questions before the writer does it for you. Reading should be a fulfilling experience, one that lets you feeling a bit smarter than the rest, a bit special, definitely inclined to read more. 
So this was my general line of thinking while I shaped and reshaped Lucian. I wanted him to live up to his status as villain but, at the same time, I tried to “flaw” his predictable halfling cruelty by adding something that would make him a little less alien in the eyes of a reader: some human touch. 
I love flaws. I love when a good guy slips up, and I definitely love the moments when a villain forgets to be the villain. Lucian was hard and manipulative, but that’s not why we love him. We love him for his Achilles’ heel. We love his arrogance because it makes his surrender to Lily that much meeker. We love his cruelty because he’s using it to defend her. We love his diabolical ways because they make him seem petty, because all his schemes only target one thing: getting the girl. And that’s what paints him human, making it possible to relate to him, regardless of his otherworldliness. 
How do you write someone like him? Essentially, you have to make his flaws, his qualities as well.  

Thanks Ramona for this awesome post!

These are the rest of the dates for the tour. Be sure to check them out!

April 18th- Call Me Crazy
April 22nd- Oktopus Ink
April 29th- Dreaming In Books
May 6th – Consumed by Books
May 13th- Mundie Moms
May 20th- Reading Teen



4 comments:

  1. Thank you for having me, Ash :-) And, for everything else...

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  2. Great post! I totally Team Bad Boy. I haven't read Hex, A Witch and Angel Tale yet, but I can see that I'm going to have to now if there's a hot baddie in there.

    I agree, I think 'villains' are much more likeable, in an unlikeable way, when they have that one flaw.

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  3. Great guest post! I loved and hated Lucian at the same time if possible lol!

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