Vince Lombardi said, “Perfection is not attainable. But if you chase perfection, you can catch excellence.”
JUSTIFIED is back.
I’m in heaven.
It’s not just because I’m watching Timothy Olyphant. Though, he is nice on the eyes.
Talented actors; brilliant writing; pitch-perfect pacing. Justified is about excellence. I don’t say that lightly.
In fact, I’m such a big fan-girl, that a year ago—after the Season Two premiere—I blogged about this show over at Murderati.
You might think I’m blogging yet again about Justified so I can post pictures like this here at Murder She Writes. Not true. Not me, nope. That would be Lori
But I’ll let you enjoy this shot for a moment.
Or two.
Ready?
Okay, there are a lot of fantastic television shows out there—but most of them are no longer on the networks. Or, the big networks kill them too soon, without giving them an extra push or doing nothing to save them (PRIME SUSPECT & DETROIT 1-8-7 – two of my fave new shows – cancelled after one short season.)
Cable has succeeded because they’re lower budget and can achieve success with a smaller viewership. They break rules and take risks. They don’t fit the mold. This is good for television lovers like me who are frustrated with the ho-hum and predictable shows. Sure, I like BODY OF PROOF and CASTLE and others, but my favorite shows—the shows I put on my calendar—are all on cable.
As soon as F/X announced January 17th as the Season 3 premiere of Justified, it went on my calendar. I bought the season on iTunes, but because I could not wait for the show to air and download, I also recorded it on my DirectTV box and watched it last night
Justified, based on an Elmore Leonard short story “Fire in the Hole” about U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, is violent, edgy, and darkly humorous. I’ve often said that character is the single most important thing in a good book, and that’s true for television as well. Character is the foundation. Without character, it doesn’t matter how strong the writing is or how beautifully the film is shot, or how much money is spent on special effects. If the foundation crumbles, everything else falls with it.
Justified has the acting, writing, and pacing. But it’s foundation is rock solid. It’s about the characters.
Raylan Givens himself (played by Timothy Olyphant) is a flawed hero. Self-confident (cocky); smart; dedicated; bad-ass Western lawman in every sense of the word. DEADWOOD was just preparing him for this role.
Yet, if this show was just about Raylan, it wouldn’t be half as good. Boyd Crowder—played by the amazing Walton Goggins)—is even more complex than Raylan. He’s the bad guy … most of the time. But like any good villain, he’s not pure evil. In fact, he’s not evil, just not good. Boyd has his own code of honor, and when he and Raylan are on the same side, they can fight together. When they’re not? Raylan’s put him in prison a few times.
The other characters are all equally outstanding. Raylan’s boss, his colleagues (I hope they do more with Tim and Rachel, who have been strong secondary characters who add to the show, and can add much more as hinted in some past episodes.) The two primary female characters—Raylan’s whiny, bitchy, cheating, pregnant ex-wife Winona (yes, the baby is Raylan’s. I don’t have to like it.) and Ava, widow of Boyd’s brother who was with Raylan for season one and is now with Boyd. I like Ava. She has spunk, she stands up for herself, and she’s complex just like Boyd and Raylan.
Season three promises to be as good as the first two. Maybe better—and that’s hard to do. But if the opener is any indication, they’re on that road. My only skepticism at all is that the writers think that Winona can be redeemed. Because I trust them, I’m willing to give them the chance—but I think she should leave Raylan and go elsewhere. I mean COME ON. She cheated on him with GARY, a realtor. Divorced Raylan and married the weasel. I actually liked Gary more than her! (And I didn’t like Gary.)
At it’s core, though at times morally murky, JUSTIFIED is about good versus evil. No one is all good, or all bad. It’s also about all the shades of gray in between. It’s about choices you make and living with the consequences. It’s full of action, suspense, humor, crisp dialogue, and–of course–great characters.
And with it, Graham Yost and his crew have caught excellence.
Here’s a little commercial that played last year as a Super Bowl commercial:
And a teaser for Season Three:
I wish I could find the opening scene of season 1, episode 1 to show you — the scene that sold me on the series, where Raylan shoots Tommy Bucks. That scene has lasting consequences, even in Season Three.
Instead, here’s a music video of the opening song with some fantastic clips from season one. Gangstagrass performs the song, and because I loved it so much I bought their album, which inspired IF I SHOULD DIE. They were so gracious to give me permission to quote lyrics from another of their songs in the opening of DIE.
What show do you evangelize for? What show has characters so real you believe? Is there an opening scene that drew you in immediately, sold you on a show hook, line and sinker? Comment below for a chance to win season 1 or 2 of JUSTIFIED on DVD or iTunes; or season 3 gifted from iTunes … winners choice.
Please welcome my friend Misa Ramirez. For a short time, we were in the same critique group here in Sacramento. We have a lot in common! Five kids, lived in Elk Grove (she moved to Texas!), and a love of writing. I was very lucky to read her debut novel, LIVING THE VIDA LOLA, a terrific mystery and fun romantic mystery set in Sacramento. It was also the book she was working on while in our crit group! How fun is that? Please welcome Misa!
I’m a minimal plotter. I get a nugget of an idea and run with it, seeing where it takes me and my story.
This is true whether I’m writing my Lola Cruz Mysteries, my new Magical Dressmaking Mystery series, or my romantic suspenses (A Deadly Curse, available now, or A Deadly Sacrifice, coming in May). My ideas usually stem from something I’ve read, heard about , or have in my memory banks. From there, it develops, often requiring research to flesh it out.
This was especially true when it came to writing A Deadly Curse. It’s based on the legend of la Llorona. As an aside, I’d written this book in its current form, but because of my other mysteries, I thought about restructuring it to be more of a mystery with a little quirk. I discussed it with Alex Sokoloff when we were at a retreat in South Carolina, and boy, oh boy, she did not like the light treatment of the legend of la Llorona! I remember feeling like I’d been scolded for not taking a legend seriously, when in fact I had already taken it very seriously and written about it. But she was right, ad I went back to the original book, tightening it and making it even darker, respecting the legend(s) and all they represent. It was definitely the right decision. Gracias, Alex, for sending me back to my original manuscript!
Back to La Llorona. My husband, Carlos, grew up hearing the story. His parents, tias, and tios, and every other adult around, would tell the kids the story. Their purpose? To frighten them enough so they wouldn’t wander off alone. La Llorona was the Mexican boogyman.
I first learned about the legend of the crying woman after I met Carlos (we’ve now been married 20 years and have five children, so la Llorona has been part of my consciousness for a long time). We’d go camping with his brothers and sisters and their spouses, sit around the campfire, and invariably, the stories would begin. Before long, a low, haunting sound would float through the air. La Llorona. It was as if the ghost was right there, her wails coming from the banks of the river through the trees.
It didn’t take long to figure out that it was my husband making the haunting sounds, but the legend itself was spooky and stayed with me from the first time I heard the story. A woman kills her children by drowning them in the river. After she realizes what she’s done, she drowns herself. Legend has it that the woman has been haunting riverbanks ever since, looking for her children. Kids are warned to stay away from the rivers so la Llorona doesn’t steel them, thinking they are hers.
Creepy.
Yet fascinating.
When I began plotting A Deadly Curse, I needed to learn more about la Llorona. Why did she drown her children? That, I figured, would inspire my plot. Little did I know that the legend of la Llorona was far more complex than I’d ever imagined.
What I learned was that there are actually four different stories behind the legend. My husband’s family knew only one of them. Everyone I’ve talked to since then has only known one, or possibly two different versions. No one has known all four of the stories.
The woman in each story was called something different:
La Ramera (the harlot)
La Bruja (the witch)
La Virgin (the virgin)
La Sirena (the siren)
Needless to say, learning about the four different stories set my plot in a new direction. The knowledge created new opportunities and obstacles for my characters, and I couldn’t have done a better job if I’d painstakingly plotted. Research opens doors for me, taking my stories in fascinating directions I couldn’t have created if I’d tried. The uncertainty and reveals during the process makes writing that much more interesting, albeit nerve-wracking, for me. I always have a roadmap, so I know where I’m going to end up, but f I don’t always know the exact route I’ll take to get there. And if I don’t know exactly where the story is going, I can’t leave an subconscious trail of breadcrumbs for the reader.
In my opinion, a great book is most often the result of clever and tight plotting, combined with discoveries made by the author during his/her writing process.
As readers, do you find some books to have too clear a path to follow and does that spoil the read? Conversely, do you find that some books ramble, going in too many directions, leaving you wondering if there was a roadmap at all?
Misa Ramirez, who also writes under the pseudonym Melissa Bourbon, can be found online at:
She’s the marketing director for Entangled Publishing, teaches creative writing at Southern Methodist University-Cape, and teaches online with Savvy Authors.
I never knew why until I started writing this blog tonight and realized that I also love reading a book series more than a stand alone.
Sure, on occasion there is an amazing movie that transcends the plethora of so-so productions. THE DEPARTED, for example. Or INCEPTION. Or CASABLANCA, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and THE SIXTH SENSE. But more often than note, the movie is “good” but rarely “great.” (Had THE MATRIX or PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN ended after the first spectacular movie, I would have included them in outstanding feature films.)
There have been many great films produced throughout the years, but when you have one stand alone movie that’s it. It’s over. It has to be amazing, awesome, want-to-see-again thrills. The same thing goes for books. There are many great stand alone books that I count among my favorites: THE STAND by Stephen King; REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier; WELCOME TO TEMPTATION by Jennifer Crusie; and several of Nora Roberts big summer stand alones. (My mom just finished CHASING FIRE and thought it’s one of her best to date–how DOES that woman keep getting better after so many books? Amazing.)
But as I was glancing at my shelves of keepers, trying to find stand alone titles that are my faves, I realized that most of my favorites are because of a character in a series. Robert Crais’s Joe Pike. Michael Connelly’s Mickey Haller. J.D. Robb’s Eve and Roarke. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher. Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles. Lisa Gardner’s D.D. Warren (and of course Quinn and Rainey!). My shelves are full of series. Karin Slaughter. Ridley Pearson. Even my favorite of Dean Koontz’s books are part of a series– the Odd Thomas books.
You might say most romances are stand-alones, and in one sense they are–the reader follows one couple who has an HEA by the end of the book. But even in romance, writers tap into the human need of connection–writing trilogies or connected series with recurring characters. We (the readers) don’t want to let them go. I get more email about what’s going to happen with Patrick Kincaid, a recurring character who hasn’t had his own book than I do with simple, “When’s your next book coming out?” Our own Rocki has created two amazing worlds with first her Bulletcatcher series, and now her Guardian Angelinos. Different heroes and heroines in each stories, but within the same world so you can follow them over multiple books.
Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know. But I equate my love of series characters with my preference of television to the movies.
With t.v., the viewer doesn’t have to have a complete “story” in the macro sense. Yes, we need a resolution to the immediate one-hour situation, but we know we’ll be visiting the characters again next week. We look forward to finding out what’s happening, even against the backdrop of whatever genre we’re watching.
Some television shows have limited character growth. Most of the crime shows are limited in this scope. Though I love LAW & ORDER: SVU and over umpteen seasons Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler have grown as characters, but the show is primarily about the one hour story, not the characters who populate it. In this regard, it’s the one exception in my television preferences. I’ve given up on CSI and CRIMINAL MINDS and many other shows because there was little to no character growth–or if there was, it was a sudden change necessitated by a cool plot in one or two shows.
When I first seriously started writing, I had three kids and worked full-time. The only way I could make the time to write was to give up television. I did–for three years. Television had become a habit, because there was a lot of crap on. The early 21st century hadn’t yet seen the explosive growth of cable television series. The good shows (like DEADWOOD) were on paid television, which I didn’t subscribe to. I found that series on DVD. Or they weren’t promoted or supported (like FIREFLY) which I discovered only after I saw the movie SERENITY.
When I started watching television again, I did it first by watching a complete season on DVD. I’d missed a lot in giving up the tube for three years, that I needed to catch up on what was popular. I watched VERONICA MARS on DVD with my teenage daughters and LOST and DEADWOOD with my husband. I fell in love with television all over again, but on my terms.
When I got my Apple TV and started downloading seasons from iTunes, I realized there was still a lot of crap out there — but cable was coming into its own. I discovered LIFE (thanks Toni!) which unfortunately was cut short to only two seasons by short-sighted television executives who didn’t know a good thing–oh, wait, LIFE was NBC. Network. No duh, they were making a lot of crap, no wonder they didn’t see a good thing! And JUSTIFIED (FX), SUPERNATURAL (W/B) and now THE KILLING (AMC). And more.
What do all these shows have in common? Character. Not only characters, but characters who matter. Characters who are flawed. Characters who screw up and do the wrong thing for the right reasons or the right thing for the wrong reasons. Characters who are growing and changing in each and every episode. Characters we connect with. And one more critical factor: story.
You can’t have a solid series, even with great characters, even with Timothy Olyphant, without the backbone of a good story.
Nothing stood out more clearly to me than the blend of story and character than when I saw LUTHER.
Philadelphia Inquirer reviewer Johnathan Storm summed it up best:
“With the tormented Luther, it’s sometimes tough even to identify who is the cat and who is the mouse. Writing and acting come together to produce characters, more than stories, who are powerful, surprising, ambiguous, and all that other stuff.”
While I disagree that it is the character MORE than the story, I think that because the characters were so real that they BECAME the story. It was seamless.
LUTHER is a BBC show that I would never have discovered if not for my cousin Ginny mentioning it when I was visiting her and my great-aunt. So thank you Ginny!
LUTHER best illustrates my point because it is a limited mini-series. Six episodes (though I read they are producing two two-hour episodes for later this year) that have a complete story arc within the episode, and a continuing (and complete) story arc over the six-episode season.
Maybe Matt Roush with TV Guide is more succinct:
“This bold British import is among the best TV I’ve seen in a mediocre (on network TV, anyway) fall season. Fast-paced, constantly surprising and darkly entertaining, Luther is about as far as you can get from a cookie-cutter procedural.”
I wouldn’t say that LUTHER is better than JUSTIFIED … it’s different. I went into the series knowing it would end in six episodes (it was only later I discovered the two future shows.) It hooked me from the beginning, when Luther is chasing a child predator who had molested and killed many young girls. He’d left one of his victims in a box and she would die if Luther couldn’t get the bastard to talk. Luther chases him and the killer falls and is hanging precariously off the edge of a catwalk. Luther stands over him and demands to know where the girl is. He knows that the killer will not tell him if he’s safe, so he lets him hang. And keeps him hanging until he knows the girl has been found and is alive.
And keeps him hanging a beat longer. Another beat.
He falls.
Brilliant, daring television.
LUTHER isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. What it must do, and does better than most shows I’ve seen, is draw the viewer into the lives of not only the main character but the people who surround him. Alice Morgan, the brilliant sociopath who John Luther knows killed her parents but can’t prove it, is the mouse to his cat . . . or is it the other way around? (Honestly, she is better than Hannibal Lechter. Just as smart, but subtle.) And Luther’s estranged wife (no, I didn’t like her any more than I like Winona in JUSTIFIED) was perfectly played (for a weak-willed don’t-know-what-I-want female who did, fortunately, redeem herself in the end.) His partner Justin Ripley, a rookie I adored–young, idealistic, with a conscience that both supported Luther and criticized him when warranted. He played by the rules, but at the same time believed in his senior partner. And Ian Reed, Luther’s best friend and staunchest supporter and . . . more. I don’t want to give anything away.
And while Idris Elba as John Luther was the core of the show, it only worked because everyone rose to the challenge. The writing was sharp, the acting top-notch, the stories psychologically terrifying and interesting, and the character development deep and real.
Perfect? No. But without watching it again, I wouldn’t be able to point to the flaws. As an American, some of the British rules were a bit different. Cops don’t all carry guns, for example. And sometimes they talked so fast that, with their accents, I couldn’t quite understand everything they said. But I got the gist, and didn’t need sub-titles
What I loved most of all, however, was the relationships. Between Luther and his estranged wife, Zoey. Luther and Alice. Luther and Ian Reed. Luther and his partner. Luther and his boss. And how they all interacted. How each episode stood alone, but built the foundation for the last two episodes.
Writers, mark this down as the next series you watch. Less than six hours of time, it’s worth it. Crime show fans? Mark this down as a thrill ride with great characters you won’t want to end.
After watching LUTHER, I knew exactly why I preferred series to stand-alones, and television to movies. Character depth and growth against the backdrop of a great story.
It just doesn’t get any better than that.
So tell me — what television series stood out so much that it reignited your love of t.v.? What book series is a must read as soon as the book comes out?
As an aside . . . this weekend we’re starting a new hopefully monthly feature of guest bloggers. So come visit us on Saturday and say hi to my friend Misa Ramirez!
Characters make the story, and nothing is more important to a successful series than good characters. This is doubly important for a romantic suspense series. There are very few out there where the hero and heroine have a growing relationship over the course of several books. JD Robb’s IN DEATH series is perhaps the best known example. 32 books in (which doesn’t include numerous short stories and novellas!) and Eve Dallas and Roarke are still interesting characters who are working through their conflicts without losing sight of the fact that they love, admire and respect each other. All while battling the bad guys and solving a mystery.
Lucy Kincaid has a well-documented backstory. In FEAR NO EVIL, she was kidnapped on graduation day and raped live on the Internet and would have been killed if not for her brother Dr. Dillon Kincaid and rogue FBI Agent Kate Donovan. Fast forward nearly seven years and Lucy now has a Masters from Georgetown in Criminal Psychology and a degree in computer science, with a specialty in cybercrime. She’s interned for the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Arlington County Sheriff’s Department, and the D.C. Medical Examiners Office. She has her life planned out–every job was selected to make her more appealing to the FBI, she knows exactly what she wants to do for them, and she has a clear plan to get there.
Sean Rogan has a more interesting and, dare I say it, mysterious past. He’s 29, and like Lucy the youngest of a large family. Unlike the Kincaids, his family wasn’t close. When Sean was 14, his parents were killed in a plane crash and his older brother Duke came home to raise him. The other three Rogan offspring all live out of the country. They all have obedience to authority issues, except for Duke, and Sean has gotten into a whole bunch of trouble over the years. He’s broken a lot of laws, all for the right reason, and accepted the consequences.
But instead of telling you about the hero of the Lucy Kincaid series, I thought I’d illustrate his personalities through excerpts. It was hard to pick pivotal scenes that don’t give away spoilers, but I think these work! (Though if you don’t like excerpts from the middle of the book, don’t read on.)
In LOVE ME TO DEATH, Sean is running his own investigation into the murder of a convicted sex offender parallel to the FBI—and is about to be called on the carpet for it. This scene from the middle of the book gives readers a clue as to why Sean is distrustful of law enforcement. Lucy is at work while Sean goes to Dillon Kincaid and Kate Donovan’s house. Dillon is Lucy’s brother, a forensic psychiatrist, and Kate is an FBI Agent who teaches cybercrime at Quantico. And my long-time readers will know profiler Hans Vigo, now an assistant director at FBI Headquarters, and close friend to the Kincaid family. Hans has been a secondary character in many of my books, starting with THE PREY.
Sean followed Kate down the hall. Like Lucy, she looked exhausted. Her hair was still damp from her shower, and thick sections fell in her face. She impatiently tucked them behind her ears.
Dillon was sitting at the kitchen table reading a thick file. A man of about fifty with glasses, a slight paunch, and graying hair sat across from Dillon.
Dillon glanced up. “Sean,” he said, gesturing to the stranger, “this is a good friend of ours, Dr. Hans Vigo. He’s FBI.”
“Vigo.” Sean knew that name. “You’re the profiler?”
“Good memory.” Hans shook Sean’s hand. “We haven’t met.”
“No, but my brother Duke—everyone at RCK— speaks highly of you.”
“How is Duke?” Hans asked.
“Same as always.” Sean had been inching closer to see what Dillon was reading.
Kate stood next to Sean and said, “It’s Fran Buckley’s personnel file from the Bureau, Mr. Nosy.”
“Is that why you asked me here?”
“No, Noah Armstrong wants to talk to you.”
Sean abruptly turned to her. “You’re setting me up to talk to a Fed?”
It was Hans who answered. “You were seen on a surveillance tape entering a restaurant owned by Sergey Yuran. Considering his name has come up in the course of this investigation, we need to know what he said.”
Sean frowned. “If I learned something that would have helped, I would have shared the information with Agent Armstrong on Saturday.”
Sean didn’t feel comfortable talking to the Fed about something that could get him in hot water—he stood by his decision. He considered calling Duke for advice on whether to pull in a lawyer, but quickly dismissed the thought. He wasn’t going to lean on his brother every time he came head to head with law enforcement. He was a big boy, he would make his own decisions, and he knew he hadn’t been out of line in talking to Sergey Yuran. There was no way Yuran would have spoken to a cop, and if it was true he was under surveillance, Armstrong wouldn’t even be able to get in there. Shaking the trafficker down for the murder of a scumbag like Morton was way down on the priority list from trafficking in guns and human beings—which told Sean that Noah wanted this meeting off the record, hence here at Kate’s house. Maybe the Fed wasn’t the “by-the-book” hardass Sean had thought when he met him on Saturday.
Yet, every time Sean had spoken to cops in the past it had come back to bite him in the ass.
Before he’d been kicked out of Stanford, Sean discovered one of his professors liked child porn. Sean exposed his repulsive obsession so everyone would know what kind of pervert he really was. The Feds promised nothing would happen to Sean if he told the truth about how he’d hacked into the professor’s system and what initially tipped him off. Sean told the truth. Next thing he knew, Stanford expelled him for hacking into the school database. Duke had said the FBI did what they could, and Sean was damn lucky he wasn’t in prison. They’d agreed to expunge the record; however, Sean was certain his FBI file was an inch thick. The incident with the sick Stanford professor wasn’t the only time he’d been in hot water when trying to right wrongs.
Kate said, “Sean, you’d better watch yourself around Armstrong. He’s good, and he doesn’t like interference.”
“I didn’t interfere with anything.”
“Showing up at Ralston’s apartment wasn’t interfering?”
“I’m not going to rehash this. You know why I was there. I didn’t screw with his investigation.”
Hans said, “No one is looking to get you in trouble, Sean.”
Sean didn’t know whether to believe him, but Duke thought Hans Vigo walked on water, and that couldn’t be said of a lot of people, so Sean gave the profiler the benefit of the doubt.
“All right, but if Armstrong arrests me, you’d better be the one to post bail.”
Hans smiled. “I give you my word.”
In KISS ME, KILL ME, Sean and Lucy are looking for a missing teenager in New York City. A habitual runaway, they don’t know if Kirsten has run away again—or is in danger. When Sean tracks down a guy who partied with her the night she disappeared, he wants to make sure the college kid learns a lesson.
Sean waited across from Ryan’s apartment to sure that Trey didn’t circle around and go back. Sean considered going up himself—he didn’t think Ryan knew anything more, but he needed a lesson in how to treat women. Trey hadn’t quite figured out what “a little action” at a rave meant, but Sean knew exactly what Ryan was doing. Had he been the one to drug her? Would he do it again to another girl?
Sean crossed the street and went back up to Ryan’s apartment. He didn’t need to be buzzed in—the buzzer was a standard electronic gadget that Sean easily bypassed.
Ryan was leaving with a basket of laundry. “Hey,” he said, nervous.
Sean grabbed the basket and dropped it to the floor. He got in Ryan’s face until Ryan backed up against the wall.
“I don’t like you,” Sean said. “You use women without a thought.”
“I-I d-didn’t,” Ryan stuttered. “Sh-sh-she was will- ing. I swear.”
“Did you drug her?”
“No!”
“I know she was high on something.”
“Everyone was. The drinks were spiked. It was a really wild party, but I swear, I didn’t give her any- thing. I wouldn’t do that! P-p-please believe me.”
Ryan tried to squirm away and Sean put his forearm across the skinny kid’s chest and held him there. “You may not have given her a mickey, but you sure took advantage of it.”
“I’m s-sorry!”
“I have a lot of friends. I’m putting the word out on you. If you ever show up at another rave and take advantage of another girl, and I find out, you won’t have a dick left to screw around with.”
Sean turned and walked away, confident that the kid believed everything he’d said.
And with Lucy, Sean is determined to teach her how to have fun. Lucy is serious most of the time, an “all work, no play” kind of woman. And Sean is a “work hard, play hard” kind of guy. He has just taught her to ice skate, both of them unaware that someone is watching them from the crowded outdoor rink. From LOVE ME TO DEATH:
“I’m proud of you, Luce.”
She cleared her throat. “Why?”
“New experiences.”
“I suppose I’m willing to try anything once.”
“Once?” He frowned and looked worried. “You’re not having fun?”
“I’m having fun. Much more than I thought I would. You’re pretty amazing.” He grinned and winked at her, then kissed her cheek and nipped her ear playfully.
“I am, aren’t I?” he teased.
“My, what a large ego you have!”
“All the better to impress you with, my dear.”
Lucy raised an eyebrow and glanced around Sean to make sure no one was in their way. She turned suddenly, in a full circle, surprising him, and he tried to regain control, but she’d gotten her “skating legs” and spun him until he fell on his butt. She grabbed the railing to keep from falling and laughed.
“So that’s how it is.” He grinned. “You’d better watch yourself, Ms. Kincaid, because payback is a bitch.”
“I can hardly wait.” She surprised herself with how easy it was to joke with Sean.
He got up easily enough and pushed her against the railing. His blue eyes sparkled with humor as he said, “You won’t know when or where, princess.”
“I’m so scared,” she said, suppressing a giggle.
He kissed her, opening his mouth slightly, warming her lips, sending a shiver through her body. His hands were on her face, his leather gloves cold but she barely noticed. He held her there, holding the kiss. His body pressed against hers and she was effectively trapped against the sidewall but didn’t panic, didn’t feel anything but the powerful presence of Sean Rogan.
He sighed, put his forehead against hers and whispered, “How about some hot chocolate?”
She nodded, because suddenly she couldn’t talk.
They left the rink and returned their skates. “Thank you, Sean,” Lucy said and kissed him spontaneously. “I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”
LOVE ME TO DEATH is on sale today! It’s almost surreal, because I’ve been waiting for this date for a long time. I’m currently writing book three in the series, where Sean is the one in jeopardy
I always get really great fan mail, which, frankly, is like receiving Grace from God, especially on terrible writing days when I am absolutely sure I cannot write a coherent grocery list, but every once-in-a-while, I’ll get one that’ll sort of stump me, and I’ll actually have to go back to my own book(s) and look up the answer. These letters usually involve questions about some detail that I wrote a while back, and they want to know more about that choice or the repercussions down the line. I love these questions, though I get annoyed with myself that I’m so stumped, I have to go look it up in the book to refresh my memory. Generally, I am steeped so deeply in the characters, even the minor ones, I know all of the details of their lives and what they would do next or what they did years ago. After all, they’re my characters–I made them, in the same way I made my children: with lots of pain, sweat, tears, hair-pulling (my own), cursing (not always my own), labor labor labor, laughter, tears, more tears, still more tears, lots more laughter, begging (lots and lots of begging to please, for the LOVE OF GOD, just BEHAVE!).
The other day, though, I received a fan letter that asked me a simple question, and I was momentarily confused, but the back-and-forth the fan and I had not only made me smile, it made me realize I had to re-think whose characters these characters really are.
She asked:
“Why on God’s green earth did you have to make Cam a brunet? He was blond in the first two books, was he not? Ok. So I have OCD and have trouble letting go of little inconsistencies. But I love Bobbie Faye so much that I was willing to file most of the discrepancies away in my brain under the heading “Artistic License.” I even sort of managed to get past the fact that Cam grew an inch between the first and second books. (Apparently, I’m still working on letting it go.) But giving him dark hair? The way you had everything originally was just so perfect! A hot blond and a hot brunet–reader root for your own personal preference. But now both Cam AND Trevor have dark hair, and if you count Bobbie Faye, that’s all three of ‘em.
Of course, I AM only halfway through the book. If you end up explaining that Cam had to dye his hair as the result of losing some kind of bar bet, this email is TOTALLY irrelevant. So I guess I’d better get back to it. Just so you know, though, Cam is going back to being a blond in MY mind. (No offense!)”
Here’s my letter back:
This cracked me up. I had to go back and look in the first book, and now that I have, I’m not sure where in the heck I described Cam fully. I checked out the beginning when we (as readers) first meet him, and on page 66, when Bobbie Faye’s coming up out of the water, she looks over and sees Cam standing on the other bank:
She saw Cam; his lanky frame, shock of dark, straight hair shorn too short for her tastes, and easy rolling gait of an athlete were unmistakable.
I think somewhere else, I describe him as 6’4″ — I’ve always pictured him tall because he was a former LSU quarterback, and generally, those guys are tall.
He’s dark-headed because both he and Bobbie Faye are Cajun, and while there’s a big mix now in Cajun heritage, there are whole areas where it’s much more common to be all dark headed. Trevor’s the one who (in my mind’s eye) kept changing. In book one, I always pictured him as brown wavy hair, longish, and then in book 2, when he comes back as the biker, I’d thought (or meant) he’d have blonder hair, something that he’d had changed for the undercover op he was on. Book 3 is darker again.
Which… is really weird, because it never even occurred to me that I had given them all dark hair!
But you know, if you wanna see Cam as a blonde, go right ahead. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read something and I’ve *known* the color of a character’s hair and then felt thrown out of the text when the author mentioned a different color. I love that–I love that he’s *your* Cam.
Thanks for the note–and I’m thrilled that your’e enjoying the books!
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read a book and gotten it into my head that a character looked a certain way, and then later in the book, saw another description of them and thought, no, no, that’s not right, they’re ____! And furthermore, it just annoyed the hell out of me if I kept stumbling across descriptions that were completely incongruous with the way I saw the character, because the author, however well-meaning, was slicing into my suspension of disbelief, and ruining the moment. [I cannot tell you how much flak I got from fans (grin) because the video up on my site features a blonde Bobbie Faye. I adore the actress who volunteered for the multiple-day shoot–for free–and the original plan was that we were going to go have her hair dyed a rich brunette. It was supposed to be a temporary wash-out dye, and she was game for it, but a couple of days before we filmed, she landed a paying gig, and her hair had to be blonde for it. She was, rightfully, afraid the dye might not wash out well or in time, and asked me if she could wear a wig. I didn’t have time to order a really great wig that wouldn’t look like a wig, and couldn’t find something local that didn’t look like she was trailer trash straight from hillbilly hell, so we canned the wig and shot it blonde, and I swear to you, I actually had the thought, “It won’t matter, no one will notice.” HA. Little did I realize how proprietary people feel about the character they’re reading about.)
The problem is, of course, that as an author, we need to describe the character enough and give them unique enough traits so that they leap off the page and become iconic for the reader. We want them so memorable that readers talk about them as if they’re real. I am, perhaps, the *most* delighted when someone tells me, “Nuh uh, Bobbie Faye wouldn’t do that!” My editor, once, gave me the biggest compliment one time. We were having a rather fun discussion (we never argued) over what Bobbie Faye would or wouldn’t do in a particular moment, and she was pretty emphatic about a certain point and I was pretty emphatically disagreeing with her, and, exasperated, she said, “Well, if you’d just ask her, she’d tell you!” And there was a moment of silence there as we both realized what she said and we cracked up. (Turns out? She was right. It was one of the very very few times we ever really butted heads over character, and I had a certain preconceived notion about a situation and was contorting Bobbie Faye to fit that notion, without even realizing it. And I had it completely justified in my head as to why I was right, but she had an entire arsenal of previous comments and actions from Bobbie Faye to counter-argue, and, after looking at that, I realized, she was right. And that specific point is something I’ve gotten tons of fan mail about, people who were glad to see Bobbie Faye didn’t do X (my original plan) and instead, did Y (my editor’s plan), because the latter choice was stereotypical and would have ruined the book for them if she’d gone down that path. And this, my friends, is why we love love love love LOVE our editors, and pray we continue to get people who care so much about the books they edit.)
Back to describing… it’s critical, to me, to find ways to describe a character which goes beyond the physical and gets to who they are, and the kind of choices they’ll make, and then let the reader’s mind’s eye take over. Trevor, for me, was always stockier than Cam, bad-to-the-bone. A sort of lean, hot, younger Russell Crowe, or Gerard Butler (a la 300, but without the beard). I don’t necessarily go into a lot of physical specifics each time… here’s what Bobbie Faye sees when he shows up in book 2, GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE GUNS:
In his scuffed biker boots, he stood a little taller than six foot, a baseball cap pulled low over longish brown hair in a ponytail; a mustache and goatee registered, but mostly, she’d first focused at her eye level where incredibly tanned, muscled arms were covered with tats and scars. She registered the hottie factor, the flat abs and nice ass, in the moment it took her to try to sidestep and spin away from where they’d rammed into each other. Something intangible, some scent, jumpstarted her Hormones, which backpedaled with a whoa and in an overriding show of power, halted her entire body with a flood of heat, and that was kinda weird because the last time that happened was when Trevor… holy shit.
Trevor was here. Undercover.
She stumbled as she caught the expression in his eyes that warned her not to show she knew who he was, and his hands were instantly on her waist, keeping her from crashing into the concrete parking lot. Those hands felt goooooooooood. Thank you, Jesus, for loving me a little.
Appearances end up mattering even more in book 3, WHEN A MAN LOVES A WEAPON, especially when Trevor changes his so drastically when he’s undercover again, and she sees him for the first time in his new guise, wearing a very expensive suit, beautifully tailored for him, and a watch that was worth more than her home and car put together. It starts a chain reaction between them that makes them confront who and what they are to each other, and what that means for their chances together, so descriptive details matter.
All that said, and even with as much thought and intention as I put into every character, every description (and whether or not to reiterate the physical or the internal, etc.), I am actually happiest when a reader feels like they know that character, and can see them, and would know them on the street. I’m really seriously ecstatic when they write to me and talk to me as if these guys are real. (You wouldn’t believe the Trevor vs. Cam email I got for a long while there after book 2. Seriously, I thought, by the end of that book, that it was pretty clear what Bobbie Faye’s choice was, and why–and yet, there were many many emails debating the issue, voting for their favorite, and the vote seemed pretty 50/50, which, frankly, surprised me.)
But then, I feel like these people are real, not just words on a page, and I do miss them. It’s like having family move away and you talk to them every once-in-a-while, and maybe visit in person twice a year, but you don’t get to see their zany facial expressions every day.
What characters have you read where you feel like you know them well enough to recognize them on the street? Or is there a character that was described one way by the author, but you see them differently?
A TWO-FER contest — all commenters are eligible for a $25 gift certificate to an online bookstore of their choice AND they get to pick a friend to receive another $25 gift certificate to an online bookstore of their choice. So bring your friends around and double your chances.
You might think I’m blogging yet again about Justified so I can post pictures like this here at Murder She Writes. Not true. Not me, nope. That would be Lori 
Justified has the acting, writing, and pacing. But it’s foundation is rock solid. It’s about the characters.
Other Posts by Allison Brennan 
Subscribe to Posts 