Getting On With the Search

I'm posting Tuesday because tomorrow is New Year's Eve. Not too many people around on that day!

Do you know this guy? Yes, you saw him yesterday, in the original black and white photo. This rendering came about quite by accident, when I was just following whims, trying out new ideas. It's become symbolic to me of Romance Heroes in general, and mine in particular. He has a dramatically unreal quality about him, like a bronze statue, a monument to heroes. I knew his story the minute his image evolved. I haven't written it yet, but it's on my list to do this year.

Now, back to business:

For Starters, I've made a list of topics I'd like to explore. Thisis just a rough list, and some ideas overlap. But overlap can be good, because it means looking at something from a different angle. I have a few guest bloggers lined up, and would like to have a lot more, and I'll be interested in not-yet published authors, readers and other publishing professionals as well as published authors. So if you have an idea or topic and would like to share, let me know. Photos and other visual aids are always welcome.

Are there other topics you'd like to discuss? If so, and you don't want to do a blog yourself, let me know. If there's an angle to heroes, there's certain to be an author who can write about it. And if you have favorite authors who write really great heroes, please suggest them. Lots of authors love to talk about their heroes!

Great Expectations, or, But What About My Marriage?
- Maggie Jamieson, President of Rose City Romance Writers
I Need a Hero
Romance and Real Life
What Romance Heroes Do For Us
Real Life Heroes
Authors on their Favorite Fictional Heroes
Author Slants on Heroes
The Hero's Story
Living the Fantasy
Ancient Heroes
Regency Heroes
Fantasy Heroes
Contemporary Heroes
Writing the Musician Hero
- Genene Valleau, author of Song of My Heart
The Hero-Making Process
Heroic Types
Alpha Males
Beta Males
The Dark Hero
The Wounded Hero
The Wrong Hero
Is There a Market for Nerds?
The Hero Market
What the Reader Wants
Sexy Heroes
Reforming Heroes
Where's the Line Between Alpha and Jerk?
Adventure
Travel
Exotic Heroes
Adolescent to Adult Changes
The Evolving Hero
Hero and the Heroine
Making Sparks Fly

What Do You Mean, Only One Hero?

Only one hero? You've got to be kidding! We all know heroes are what romance is all about.

It's kind of a paradox, though, that the heroine in a romance is expected (yeah I know, times are changing) to have only One True Love. Maybe she's been married before, is a widow, had an adolescent fantasy. But we all know it wasn't her One True Love because finding the OTL is the reason for this very book we're reading. There can be only One True Love, right?

But wait a minute. When we finish that book, with our heroine having successfully achieved her goal (whether she understood it was her goal or not), what do we do? We go hunting for another book and repeat our experience of being the heroine, sharing in her quest. Maybe she only gets one OTL, but not us, the readers. Too bad for her. More for us.

Even more so, the romance author indulges in this search for the Perfect Hero, over and over, as she generates new stories. So many heroes, so little time. Yet we treat each one as if he is the One and Only. Serial hero worship? And as much as I, the reader or writer, fall in love with the hero, the moment I reach "The End" he becomes a memory, and I'm off looking for the next One True Love (a.k.a. One True Hero, One and Only).

What does that make me? Dear Mama in Heaven, cover your ears. I'm about to use one of those words again. Never mind, bowing to the certain knowledge that Mama-Up-There hears every word I utter, let's just say I'm profligate. According to dictionary.com:
profligate adj. utterly and shamelessly immoral or dissipated.

Or maybe wanton is a better term:
adj. sexually lawless or unrestrained; loose; lascivious; lewd: wanton behavior.

Yep. Seems to fit, at least as far as Hero Searching is concerned.

I don't care what we call it, I love it. The search for the hero is as important as his story, perhaps even more so. There are thousands of factors in finding the perfect hero for any given story, and as often as not, once the hero is found, he re-writes what I thought the story would be. It is, after all, his story, not mine.

So there are thousands of topics to explore In Search of Heroes. Everything from who he is, who is his heroine, what makes him heroic, to what is his story and how is it written. There are the actual Searches, which could mean travel, to wonderful places like Bath and Haddon Hall, Italy's Pompeii and Rome, Hawaii's Kaua'i, the Mayan ruins of the Yucatan. It could mean deep research in books, where we could extract little known facts on which to build stories. Maybe specific heroes who deserve noting. And since I also love to paint my hero's picture on book covers and elsewhere, I'll show you lots of my artwork and provide you lots of links to favorite heroes and their lives.

This blog is for fun. Because we love heroes. And, being women of the 21st Century, we love them with brazen openness. Here's where we can celebrate our quest for the One True Hero.

Holiday Greetings!

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