Tag Archives: heroes

Friday Fun: Rogues

15 Mar
ollie

Ollie Reed as Athos

by C. Margery Kempe

I’m sure if I could unlock the source of my attraction to shambolic rogues, all of my life would fall neatly into some kind of logical coherence, my mind would be suffused with peace and tranquility and doubtless my days would be filled with a calm success and fulfillment.

But I doubt that’ll ever happen.

From an early age I can remember being drawn to these wild and unpredictable characters who are likely to cause trouble, wreak havoc, drink to excess and feed all their appetites to excess. Of course I also wanted to be Jim West from Wild Wild West, too. Surely a certain amount of the attraction is wanting to be like that myself. To care for no one, scoff at any rule and devil take the hindmost — it certainly appeals to a young person who feels as if she meets resistance in every direction.

I should say my weakness for these trouble makers is almost entirely in fiction; in real life (at least since I got over my wild years) I like responsible and thoughtful men who are passionate, sweet and funny.

My sweetie and his boy

But fictional rogues have an indelible appeal that surely has something to do with vicarious enjoyment. Some of my favourite rogues:

Oliver Reed

If you look up rogue in a dictionary chances are there’s a picture of Ollie. Whether he’s playing the wounded Musketeer Athos, the wild Uncle Frank, a werewolf or simply rolling around naked with Alan Bates (yes, please), he’s just so wonderfully irresistible. He doesn’t fit the traditional view of ‘good looks’ but there’s something devilish in his grin and those eyes that works anyway.

I need this book!


Keith Moon

My favourite drummer comes from a fairly shambolic band, The Who — or as they’re known to their fans, The ‘orrible ‘oo. There is not nor will there be another drummer like him. He played like a madman possessed. He lived like there was no tomorrow and eventually there wasn’t, but he made amazing music, created legends of mad behaviour and hung out with fellow rogue Oliver Reed committing further havoc. Wonderful.

Shane MacGowan

As long as we’re on musicians, who better than the pope of the new Irish lyricism? Legendary drinker supreme, kicked out of his own band the Pogues and replaced with Joe Strummer, he has survived despite every one’s expectations that he was at death’s door — and has even returned to front the band once more. He writes lyrics that will continue to be sung as long as there are voices to be raised. I couldn’t pick one favourite, but this one’s right up there.

 

Dylan Thomas

And speaking of poetry, there’s Wales’ most famous son who drank himself to death at the tender age of 39, yet left poems, stories and even a play that will live on forever. He had the most amazing voice, one that continues to resonate across our culture.
Who else? Ash in the Evil Dead films, especially the third one — and Bruce also plays rogues in Xena and Jack of All Trades; Wilmore in Aphra Behn’s The Rover, most of Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis’ characters — who wouldn’t love Lucky Jim? Or how about Han Solo — or his alter ego, Indiana Jones?

Who are your favourite rogues?

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A Hero or a Zero? Finding Inspiration in Real Life Detectives

4 Mar
Real detectives don't look like this.

Real detectives don’t look like this.

Hidey-ho,  readers! Madeline here.  I’ve been doing research lately on my current WIP by studying real men who fight crime.  It started with grilling a cop who came by to investigate our car when it was broken into, and has continued with taking notes on news programs or real-life cop shows that go through a homicide case from soup to nuts.  Sometimes I feel like a sleuth myself tracking down a difficult-to-find source.  For instance, I knew about an out of print video of an FBI profiler but had to track it down in live streaming format when all other sources failed.

So far I’ve filled up three note pads with the details surrounding detectives–mainly the jargon they use.  There’s a certain way that these detectives use language in their reports, and they tend to fall back on this kind of nomenclature when talking to each other or when picking their words with care as they interact with civilians. Not bullet holes but defects.  Not people, but certain individuals.  Post-mortem abrasions vs. peri-mortem contusions.

While I’m soaking up the lingo, my mind is performing a casting call.  I need some heroes and some zeroes.

Picking my heroes is easy.  I spot them right away.  Picking the true zeros is much harder.

They look like this. (Blue tooth earpiece not shown.)

Hero or Zero? (Blue tooth earpiece not shown.)

I was surprised by how fast I identified the heroes.  Some are real diamonds in the rough.  I was watching one captain, for instance, who’s fast on his feet and relentless.  Sounds like a hero, right? Sure, except the guy sports a pervy little mustache and has a phone headset in his ear at all times.  Ish.  At the same time, whenever I watched him in action, for some reason I felt an inner thrill.  Yes, he was pouring through the garbage at an apartment complex in the middle of the night.  Yes, I know that doesn’t sound romantic or cool. When he came up with dumster-diving gold: a scorched t-shirt used in the shooting I wanted to clap. How did he know? How did he find it? The man is a genius. When it’s clear that the trial is going to be a slam dunk, I’m scrambling to finish up my notes while Captain ‘stache hands out all the credit to his men. Now that’s a hero.  I’ve resolved to give him a little make-over before he goes into my book.

The make-over.

The make-over.

The rest of the men I watch who aren’t heroes aren’t really zeroes either.  Mostly they’re  just normal.  Obviously they’re very hard working guys, I just wonder if they have insight into how criminals think? I’m not seeing it.  Can their mind remain agile when they’re tired after forty-eight hours without sleep?

I’ve found one spectacular zero.  He complains on camera about the heat and how overwhelmed he is.  Poor thing.  Yet he’s got five senior detectives on the scene with him.  They’re helping him keep up his paper work, they’re canvassing the neighborhood for him, and they’re all wearing long sleeved shirts and ties just like he is.  But while they are doing whatever they can to help him solve this case, he is wondering where he can find some water and wanders off camera saying he thinks he’s maybe going to pass out.

Excuses, excuses.  What I’ve learned by doing this research is that a zero feels entitled.  He is always pretending to be more than he seems.  In fact, he’s less.   The heroes, meanwhile, may not look like much to the eye at first, but they have hidden depths of fire and nerve.

Do you think women romance readers can enjoy a hero who’s not an Adonis with a strapping build?  I could.   Based on guys I’ve dated, I can confidently state I could get into a hero who’s a little ugly.  But, sorry Captain, even I draw the line at a hero with a pervy little mustache.

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Wronged By Romance

23 Jan

Scorned There’s been a lot of talk in the sports world lately about athletes who’ve misled us. There’s Lance Armstrong, of course. He lied and lied and lied about not doping, and then finally fesses up and admits that well, actually, he was doping. Then we’ve got the Manti Te’o story and the girlfriend who died of leukemia hours after his grandmother passed away. Except that apparently the girlfriend never existed, or maybe she existed but he never met her, or maybe he was the victim of a giant hoax. Or something.

Whatever the situations with these athletes, they did get me thinking about being duped. Misled. Outright lied to, and how bad that feels. And then I started thinking about how that’s happened to me, and I bet to some of you, when it comes to the covers of romance novels.

Remember back in the 80s and 90s when it seemed as if the buff bod and streaming long hair of Fabio was plastered on nearly every historical romance being published? It didn’t matter if the hero was a pirate or a Viking or a cowboy, Fabio’s mug graced the cover. Eventually that started to change and publishers realized that if the hero of the romance is the sexy CEO of a global securities firm, he’s not necessarily going to be spending his time 24/7 in the gym and looking like The Rock. In essence, they’d been duping us. The cover models started resembling the story’s hero. Personally, I’m on board with that. I want my guy on the cover looking like the guy in the story.

But wait! There’s more. We readers of romance are a proud, smart, devoted bunch, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we  want to hold up a sign every time we pull a romance out of our bag that practically screams, “Hey everyone! Look what I’m reading!” So the covers started going to the opposite extreme. Instead of misleading the readers with cover models who look nothing like the story’s hero, we had no cover models at all.

9780821773994[1]

My book, Season of Splendor, is a perfect example. Published in 2002, it depicts a garden path on the cover. It’s not about a garden, or a gardener, nor does it take place in a garden. No, rather it’s the story  of a poverty-stricken hero growing up in the slums of 19th century London who finds a way to get a servant’s job in a noble family because the daughter in the family unknowingly witnessed the murder of the hero’s’ best friend. With no other way to speak with her due to the chasm of their class differences, he infiltrates his way into the family via the job so that he can talk to her about the murder. Do they fall in love? Sure. Have sex? Of course. But not in a garden, I can assure you.

Now, of course, I’m very aware that publishers started doing the benign cover thing (a picturesque house, jewelry atop a nightstand, perhaps just the heroine standing demurely by herself in a pretty dress) because the cheesy “bodice ripping” covers were, let’s face it, embarrassing. But now we’ve got e-readers, and we can read all the super steamy erotic romance we want on a bus, in a plane, sitting on a park bench, without anyone being the wiser about what we’re reading. So why do covers still sometimes mislead us? Why don’t the models always preview a taste of what the hero and heroine look like? Alternately, do we care?

When I see a picture in a magazine of a model wearing some kind of makeup, I’m fully aware of the fact that no matter what, I’m just not going to look as good as she does with that same makeup. Perhaps romance covers are the same. It’s not that the hero and heroine in the story are going to resemble the beauties on the cover, but that you will indeed get a tale of some really attractive people, having hot sex, and spinning a good yarn. Maybe I just need to rejigger my expectations. I can – and do – read the blurb on the back and usually . . . er, sometimes . . . it tells me what the story’s about.

What do you think? Do you ever feel that you’re duped by the cover?  Do you expect the cover to give you a glimpse of the kind of people you’re going to read about? Or could you care less, assuming that no matter who’s on the cover you’ll paint their pictures as you would depending upon the author’s talent at describing them and the depths of your own imagination. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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