Julianna Keyes's Blog - Posts Tagged "character"
Release Week Post 2 - Onions
RELEASE WEEK POST 2
ONIONS
I’ve now seen a few reviews describe “My Roommate’s Girl” as a slow burn romance, and I admit that description came as a surprise. Now that I’ve thought about it, however, I can’t disagree, even if that was never my intention.
The pacing is deliberate. The major plot points all land in the places I’d originally planned them for, but I guess the reason “slow burn” didn’t strike me as the right description is because I wasn’t *trying* to make it a slow burn. I wanted the first part of the book to be an unraveling, a peeling back of layers. The blurb for this book is not misleading, nor is the title. Aidan wants his roommate’s girl and he comes up with a not-so-honourable plan to get her. Because he enacts that plan fairly quickly, it seemed wrong to have him promptly be rewarded (sexually) for that action. First he had to pay. (heh heh)
The best part about what comes next (the slow burn, if you insist) is the character development. Aidan carries out his nefarious plan, but then his imagined next steps—get the girl, then forget about her—don’t go quite as planned. Because while Aidan looks at Aster like she’s some sort of golden trophy, the destruction of her relationship with Jerry and her subsequent friendship with Aidan forces him to see *her* layers. And seeing her hidden layers exposes his hidden layers and it’s a cycle that peels back piece after piece until they’re both in a more honest and open place—and ready to hook up.
At the start of the book, Aidan sees Aster only as a physical object. She’s hot, he wants her. Okay, she’s pretty nice. Still wants her. She’s smart, okay, that’s a bonus. Then he sees her when she’s sad, and realizes she’s not just a figurehead, she’s an actual person. And the more he begins to regard her as human, the more genuinely he wants her, in ways he’s never wanted anything. In ways that have nothing to do with sex, and ways he can’t ignore. And that increases the emotional stakes, which are so crucial in romance. (And in most genres.)
Now that I’ve said all that, I guess I’ve made a solid argument that this book *is* a slow burn. So stick with it and peel back the layers. There’s nothing special waiting for you inside an onion, but I’d like to believe there’s something special in this book. (Plus it probably won’t make you cry.)
ONIONS
I’ve now seen a few reviews describe “My Roommate’s Girl” as a slow burn romance, and I admit that description came as a surprise. Now that I’ve thought about it, however, I can’t disagree, even if that was never my intention.
The pacing is deliberate. The major plot points all land in the places I’d originally planned them for, but I guess the reason “slow burn” didn’t strike me as the right description is because I wasn’t *trying* to make it a slow burn. I wanted the first part of the book to be an unraveling, a peeling back of layers. The blurb for this book is not misleading, nor is the title. Aidan wants his roommate’s girl and he comes up with a not-so-honourable plan to get her. Because he enacts that plan fairly quickly, it seemed wrong to have him promptly be rewarded (sexually) for that action. First he had to pay. (heh heh)
The best part about what comes next (the slow burn, if you insist) is the character development. Aidan carries out his nefarious plan, but then his imagined next steps—get the girl, then forget about her—don’t go quite as planned. Because while Aidan looks at Aster like she’s some sort of golden trophy, the destruction of her relationship with Jerry and her subsequent friendship with Aidan forces him to see *her* layers. And seeing her hidden layers exposes his hidden layers and it’s a cycle that peels back piece after piece until they’re both in a more honest and open place—and ready to hook up.
At the start of the book, Aidan sees Aster only as a physical object. She’s hot, he wants her. Okay, she’s pretty nice. Still wants her. She’s smart, okay, that’s a bonus. Then he sees her when she’s sad, and realizes she’s not just a figurehead, she’s an actual person. And the more he begins to regard her as human, the more genuinely he wants her, in ways he’s never wanted anything. In ways that have nothing to do with sex, and ways he can’t ignore. And that increases the emotional stakes, which are so crucial in romance. (And in most genres.)
Now that I’ve said all that, I guess I’ve made a solid argument that this book *is* a slow burn. So stick with it and peel back the layers. There’s nothing special waiting for you inside an onion, but I’d like to believe there’s something special in this book. (Plus it probably won’t make you cry.)
RELEASE WEEK POST 3!
THE FOURTH DIMENSION
We all know we’re supposed to write three-dimensional characters, and if you read my books, you know I like to write character arcs and mess with tropes and general expectations. That’s why Finn starts this story as little more than a cardboard cut-out in the shape of a prince (which is, in fact, the number one item stolen from the local airport by his fans).
When he’s first described with his lapels and epaulets and brass buttons, that’s my childhood memory kicking in, transcribing its earliest memories of what a prince was. A sketch, a concept, but not a real, flesh and blood man. And Brinley, despite having known Finn since childhood, knows him as little more than this ideal as well. I’ve gotten comments that it took a bit of time to get to know Finn, and that’s very much intentional. Not only did I want someone more reserved to balance out Brinley’s impulsiveness, I wanted to play with the concept of a “cardboard” character and slowly use the fourth dimension to show his third dimension.
See how clever I am? I know about the fourth dimension! (The fourth dimension is time, if you’re wondering.) I read about this in a gardening article once—you plan your garden for all its 3D glory, but need to factor in time, the way the plants will grow, change, die. In this story wanted to use time to transform that cardboard into not just a prince, but a man.
When we first meet Finn he’s in a formal suit, greeting Brinley politely but cautiously. On their wedding night he eats a burger while wearing his royal wedding pants and a plain T-shirt, straddling the line between traditional prince and regular person eating a burger. He wears funny socks and boxers, hidden beneath his royal finery. He explores the castle’s hidden tunnels with Brinley, and the farther they descend, the more they leave behind the royal expectations, the more real they become with each other. He slowly reveals tiny parts of himself, becoming more accessible to Brinley, and accordingly, the reader.
With Brinley leaping off the first page without a care as to what awaits her, I wanted to counter that with Finn’s slower, more methodical approach, and transform him from a cardboard idea of Prince Charming to a real prince we can believe and invest in. I think I accomplished that, but I’ll leave the final judgment up to you fine (brilliant, beautiful, hilarious, generous, incorruptible) readers.
Do you have a favourite type of hero? Alpha, beta, billionaire, dom, athlete, computer whiz? I used to lean toward the strong, silent (sometimes jerk) type, but the more I write the more variety I want, so my “favourite” is much more flexible.
We all know we’re supposed to write three-dimensional characters, and if you read my books, you know I like to write character arcs and mess with tropes and general expectations. That’s why Finn starts this story as little more than a cardboard cut-out in the shape of a prince (which is, in fact, the number one item stolen from the local airport by his fans).
When he’s first described with his lapels and epaulets and brass buttons, that’s my childhood memory kicking in, transcribing its earliest memories of what a prince was. A sketch, a concept, but not a real, flesh and blood man. And Brinley, despite having known Finn since childhood, knows him as little more than this ideal as well. I’ve gotten comments that it took a bit of time to get to know Finn, and that’s very much intentional. Not only did I want someone more reserved to balance out Brinley’s impulsiveness, I wanted to play with the concept of a “cardboard” character and slowly use the fourth dimension to show his third dimension.
See how clever I am? I know about the fourth dimension! (The fourth dimension is time, if you’re wondering.) I read about this in a gardening article once—you plan your garden for all its 3D glory, but need to factor in time, the way the plants will grow, change, die. In this story wanted to use time to transform that cardboard into not just a prince, but a man.
When we first meet Finn he’s in a formal suit, greeting Brinley politely but cautiously. On their wedding night he eats a burger while wearing his royal wedding pants and a plain T-shirt, straddling the line between traditional prince and regular person eating a burger. He wears funny socks and boxers, hidden beneath his royal finery. He explores the castle’s hidden tunnels with Brinley, and the farther they descend, the more they leave behind the royal expectations, the more real they become with each other. He slowly reveals tiny parts of himself, becoming more accessible to Brinley, and accordingly, the reader.
With Brinley leaping off the first page without a care as to what awaits her, I wanted to counter that with Finn’s slower, more methodical approach, and transform him from a cardboard idea of Prince Charming to a real prince we can believe and invest in. I think I accomplished that, but I’ll leave the final judgment up to you fine (brilliant, beautiful, hilarious, generous, incorruptible) readers.
Do you have a favourite type of hero? Alpha, beta, billionaire, dom, athlete, computer whiz? I used to lean toward the strong, silent (sometimes jerk) type, but the more I write the more variety I want, so my “favourite” is much more flexible.
RELEASE WEEK POST 3
WHO’S THE BOSS?
With just one exception, all of my books have started with a character first, story second. In this case, I wrote TEAM PLAYER approximately six different times, all from scratch. And they were pretty terrible. Some of the fundamental elements were the same: Ty, Gwen, Strip, and the structure of the season. The rest, however…
It’s a really frustrating process to feel like you have the essential elements right, but still not manage to achieve the outcome you want. And the thing I struggled with most was pacing. I had so much back story in my head about Ty and Gwen’s pasts and too much of it was ending up in the book and holding up the actual plot. While I think it’s important for authors to know their characters and have done their research, sometimes that information doesn’t need to make it onto the page, and I was writing down WAY too much. It wasn’t being written well, either. Just random lumps and clumps that kept interrupting the momentum (what little I could build) and slowing things to a crawl.
In what ended up being the first draft of what ultimately turned into the final product, I still had much more back story than you see in the finished book. It just wasn’t working. And it’s one of those cases where the more you peel away, the more what remains stands out weirdly, so you take out a bit more, then a bit more… In the end, I went with very little back story. I tried to include enough details to give a sense of why and how Ty and Gwen had become who they were, without taking away from the present-day plot, which was already eating up my word count. I figured if I couldn’t work it into the story in a way that felt organic, then it wasn’t meant to be there. So essentially I wrote five books of character sketches, then one actual book. That is not an efficient process!
When I was in school we had to go out and write a piece about a random person. I was so shy about approaching a stranger that I’d rather have just died, but then I finally spotted a guy in a cigar shop, looking incredibly bored. I went in, asked if I could write a piece about him, and he agreed. Except when I tried to ask about himself, he just kept talking about cigars. I kept trying, he kept up the cigar chatter. Eventually I wrote a piece about cigars. (That turned out to be very interesting.)
In the case of TEAM PLAYER, I did a ton of (accidental) character work for Gwen and Ty, but then Baseball, which was intended to have more of a supporting role, showed up and demanded to be one of the leads. I kept trying to shunt it into the background, it kept insisting. Five drafts later, it had a starring role. That’s writing for you!
Heads up: Tomorrow’s the last of the release week posts, and it’s a deleted scene I think is short and sweet and worth the read!
With just one exception, all of my books have started with a character first, story second. In this case, I wrote TEAM PLAYER approximately six different times, all from scratch. And they were pretty terrible. Some of the fundamental elements were the same: Ty, Gwen, Strip, and the structure of the season. The rest, however…
It’s a really frustrating process to feel like you have the essential elements right, but still not manage to achieve the outcome you want. And the thing I struggled with most was pacing. I had so much back story in my head about Ty and Gwen’s pasts and too much of it was ending up in the book and holding up the actual plot. While I think it’s important for authors to know their characters and have done their research, sometimes that information doesn’t need to make it onto the page, and I was writing down WAY too much. It wasn’t being written well, either. Just random lumps and clumps that kept interrupting the momentum (what little I could build) and slowing things to a crawl.
In what ended up being the first draft of what ultimately turned into the final product, I still had much more back story than you see in the finished book. It just wasn’t working. And it’s one of those cases where the more you peel away, the more what remains stands out weirdly, so you take out a bit more, then a bit more… In the end, I went with very little back story. I tried to include enough details to give a sense of why and how Ty and Gwen had become who they were, without taking away from the present-day plot, which was already eating up my word count. I figured if I couldn’t work it into the story in a way that felt organic, then it wasn’t meant to be there. So essentially I wrote five books of character sketches, then one actual book. That is not an efficient process!
When I was in school we had to go out and write a piece about a random person. I was so shy about approaching a stranger that I’d rather have just died, but then I finally spotted a guy in a cigar shop, looking incredibly bored. I went in, asked if I could write a piece about him, and he agreed. Except when I tried to ask about himself, he just kept talking about cigars. I kept trying, he kept up the cigar chatter. Eventually I wrote a piece about cigars. (That turned out to be very interesting.)
In the case of TEAM PLAYER, I did a ton of (accidental) character work for Gwen and Ty, but then Baseball, which was intended to have more of a supporting role, showed up and demanded to be one of the leads. I kept trying to shunt it into the background, it kept insisting. Five drafts later, it had a starring role. That’s writing for you!
Heads up: Tomorrow’s the last of the release week posts, and it’s a deleted scene I think is short and sweet and worth the read!
#MeetMonday - Emmy (Big Wild Love Adventure)
Welcome to #MeetMonday, where I'll introduce the cast of BIG WILD LOVE ADVENTURE! Up first, our plucky protagonist, who, after a year of terrible luck, signs up for the show in a desperate bid to solve all life's problems. What could go wrong? 🤣
More details: http://juliannakeyes.com
Release date: June 20, 2022
Big Wild Love Adventure
More details: http://juliannakeyes.com
Release date: June 20, 2022
Big Wild Love Adventure
#Meet Monday - Wes (Big Wild Love Adventure)
Welcome to another #MeetMonday! Each week, I'll introduce another BIG WILD LOVE ADVENTURE cast member, and today we're meeting Emmy's love interest, Wes. He holds his cards close to his chest, but when this guy wants something, he goes for it, and when he falls, he falls hard...
Big Wild Love Adventure
Big Wild Love Adventure
#Meet Monday - Tad (Big Wild Love Adventure)
Time for #MeetMonday! Every show has that cast member, that person who thinks they're the epitome of greatness, and here, that person is Tad. You are LUCKY to know Tad! Tad can yoga! Tad can kombucha! Tad likes women! Tad likes Tad! But will we like Tad? He just might surprise us...
Coming June 20, 2022!
More info: www.juliannakeyes.com
Big Wild Love Adventure
Coming June 20, 2022!
More info: www.juliannakeyes.com
Big Wild Love Adventure
#Meet Monday - Karly (Big Wild Love Adventure)
🌴🌺💋
It's time for another BIG WILD LOVE ADVENTURE cast #MeetMonday! Karly is the show's bad girl - she's there for her 15 minutes, wants what you want, and will be your best friend...until she's not.
BWLA comes out June 20, 2022!
Details: www.juliannakeyes.com/big-wild-love.html
Big Wild Love Adventure
It's time for another BIG WILD LOVE ADVENTURE cast #MeetMonday! Karly is the show's bad girl - she's there for her 15 minutes, wants what you want, and will be your best friend...until she's not.
BWLA comes out June 20, 2022!
Details: www.juliannakeyes.com/big-wild-love.html
Big Wild Love Adventure
#Meet Monday - Alex (Big Wild Love Adventure)
Meet Alex, one of the first cast members Emmy meets on Big Wild Love Adventure! Alex is the nice guy who's there for the right reasons. He's looking for love and believes it's somewhere in the Panama jungle... #MeetMonday
BWLA releases June 20, 2022! ❤️🌴
Details: www.juliannakeyes.com
Big Wild Love Adventure
BWLA releases June 20, 2022! ❤️🌴
Details: www.juliannakeyes.com
Big Wild Love Adventure
#Meet Monday - Beth (Big Wild Love Adventure)
It's time for the final #MeetMonday before release day on June 20! This is Beth - she came on the show to escape her meddling family, find love, and/or maybe find herself. ❤️👍
Big Wild Love Adventure is just $2.99 until release day!
Details & links: www.juliannakeyes.com/big-wild-love.html
Big Wild Love Adventure
Big Wild Love Adventure is just $2.99 until release day!
Details & links: www.juliannakeyes.com/big-wild-love.html
Big Wild Love Adventure
