The bad boy hero's we love to hate.... What makes them lovable in the end?

Please welcome writer buddy, Tami Dee, who's here to talk about someone we gals all fall for at least once...the bad boy.

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I have always had a fascination with bad boy hero's and their transformation into the men heroines fall for.

It takes a skilled writer to create a hero who is flawed enough where we the readers start off wanting to shake some sense into him, then, as the pages turn we see our hero grow into a man our heroine can be proud to love.

On the other side of the coin, there are some writers who have not quite mastered that aspect of the bad boy hero turning good. The writer will make a vital mistake by creating a bad boy hero who is frankly unredeemable in the reader's eye. When this happens, and a heroine goes from hating the bad boy to loving him, despite the fact that the bad boy did not grow at all, or was so bad at the start that no matter what he did later, it would not make up for his initial badness, that is disturbing to me as a reader.

What do you think? How important is it to you to 'see' the growth in a bad boy hero? In general, (Please, no specific books or authors, I'm not going there with these questions) what lines do you, the readers; draw in your mind as to what might be unredeemable behavior?

Have you read any GOOD examples of bad boy hero's growing and earning the heroines respect and love by the end of the story? (This you can say author names or book titles--kudos are always nice to hear)

One commenter will be selected to win a free download of my latest release, Chameleons Shadow.

Blurb:
Lady Elisabetta Mitchell, a pampered daughter of a murdered English Marquis, is forced to flee the only home she's ever known. She now lives in poverty on the unfeeling streets of Southwark, London 1623. Caught between two worlds, she will do whatever it takes to survive.

Lord William Hunter, a nobleman with a secret. When an unknown woman rushes into his startled embrace, battered and afraid, he vows to protect this fair-haired beauty. Yet he cannot protect the girl who runs from him and his probing questions. He has to find her again first. And find her he will, no matter how long he must search.

Excerpt:
Prologue
London, England
February 1625

Lord Harrison Mitchell raked the bodies of his sister-in-law and niece with a dispassionate flick of his hard violet eyes.

A thin cackle escaped his lips, bouncing off the tall walls before returning to him with an unmistakable edge of madness. Blood pooled on the pale marble floor beneath his nieces head, mindful of where he stepped, he made his way back into the study.

His heart beat at a steady pace, his hands, elegant and long fingered, fisted and un-fisted at his sides, and his thoughts were already drifting to his mistress, who he would be seeking out as soon as this night's unpleasantness was behind him.

Harrison knelt beside the body of his only brother, Alexander, his younger brother. His lips pulled into a resigned line as he viewed the gaping dagger wound in his chest. The look of stunned disbelief still marred Alexander's face, as incurious in death as it had been the moment Harrison had stepped from behind the thick velvet curtains he had lain in-wait behind, and plunged the blade into him.

The scent of fresh blood jerked an unexpected gag reflex out of Harrison, and his stomach churned. Holding his breath he stared at the smudges of crimson stark against the chalk white pads of his fingertips in mild surprise, then distain, wiping them clean on the rug as he stood.

Satisfied he had left behind no evidence of his presence, barring the three dead bodies, he crossed to the window he had entered from, dropping to the ground with a grunt when his feet hit the hard packed earth.

Let the watch make what they would of the scene when they arrived.

Things had not gone exactly as he had planned, he admitted to himself with an inner shrug. Yet he had accomplished what he had set out to do. All that stood between himself and the Mitchell fortune now was his nephew, Nicolas.

His breath puffed out white in the chilled night air as he scanned the dark line of pines at the back of his brother's property, then he snorted. No terrified five year old boy could survive an English winter night while lost in a forest. The beasties would devour him before dawn, or he would freeze to death.

A light layer of frost crunched under his hurried steps as Harrison made his way back to his waiting carriage. He could not believe the brat had stumbled into Alexander's study, just as Harrison had plunged the dagger into his father's heart.

He rubbed his gloved hand over his ears. They still rang with the lad's horrified screams. A costly state of shock had momentarily paralyzed Harrison before he had lunged for Nicolas, but by then the boy had already ran out of the study, skidded through the entry way and out the tall double doors into the night, his night rail a trail of white as Harrison had panted at the wide open doors and watched as he had disappeared into the forest.

It hadn't surprised Harrison when, moments later, his sister-in-law, Lady Rachele and his niece, Elisabetta, alerted by Nicolas's screams, had ran down the sweeping staircase, stumbling to a stunned halt when they had caught sight of him standing at the foot of the stairs waiting for them, bloody dagger in hand.

He shook his head and pushed the rest of the night's unpleasantness out of his mind. His driver pulled open the carriage door and lowered the step, then backed away so he could climb inside. "That did not take long, My lord."

Harrison smiled at him, a thin twist of lips, "The manor was dark and quiet, I didn't bother knocking."

Harrison settled himself upon his padded seat and pulled the rug over his lap, his lips pulled into a satisfied smile.

Before long he, Lord Harrison Mitchell, would have everything he'd ever wanted.

Everything.

Buy links:
Amazon, Desert Breeze Publishing

Tami's web site: http://www.tamidee.com/

Immortality and the seduction telomere

Hi all, I'm over hanging with PI today to continue my discussion of immortality and building a SF concept around it.

Stop by if you have a chance!

http://pibarrington.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/building-a-science-fiction-concept/

Near Future Inspiration by P. I. Barrington

My writer friend P.I. Barrington is stopping by today to talk about inspiration and....wait for it my geek buddies...near future inspiration!

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Inspiration can create many things from mechanical items of fancy to urgently needed life saving technology and pretty much everything in between. Where to get some of that inspiration? If you're a dedicated science fiction writer, a heck of a lot of it comes from absorbing all that techie stuff in books and movies about the future, near or far.

There are other places and sources of inspiration for your particular however. Two of the technologies I created and am very proud of are the spray on latex gloves and Sedadone my foam crowd control sedative in the Future Imperfect trilogy. Where did those ideas spring from?

From reality and fantasy; I'm sure you've seen the new foam disinfectant dispensers in hospitals and doctors' offices that are attached to the walls. Medical staff presses a puff or two on their hands as they pass keeping themselves and hopefully everyone else as germ free as possible.

I first noticed them when my mother had to be admitted to the emergency room and the staff there used them almost without thinking. I was amazed that no one had ever thought of it before, and wished I'd been that creative in helping people. But it did start me thinking about more wonderful technologies to come. When I started Crucifying Angel, I took it a step further thinking how and what I wanted to see improved especially in medicine.

I'd always disliked those latex gloves that doctors and nurses snapped on their hands. I just always felt they were still too easy to contaminate so I thought about the foam disinfectant and combined the two in a sense. What I came up with was the spray on latex gloves that touched nothing prior to spraying them on hands as foam where they harden to the texture of latex. They could then be peeled off without too much contact with contaminants and were easily portable in spray bottles. Not only that but they played a major part in all three novels of the trilogy!

I'm even more proud of my invention of Sedadone, the crowd controlling foam sedative. If you know anything about Los Angeles, you know we're prone to riots and demonstrations and protest marches. Being an ex-journalist, I watch the news voraciously; something we never overcome, lol! Over the years, watching the many times violent interaction between police and protestors, even when they used non-lethal crowd control methods like rubber bullets and tasers it was still fairly painful and violent.

I used to watch and think "there's gotta be a better way" and not only a better way but a more effective way to control large crowds rather than focus in on a few rowdy people. When I got to Final Deceit (Book Three) an idea popped into my head connected with the foam concept!

What if, instead of using weaponry, the police could just spray a non-lethal, non-harmful foam sedative over the crowd that would be absorbed through the skin and produce a sedative effect on an entire crowd of people at once?

Oh sure, the politics of that would probably never allow it to come to fruition in reality, but in a crumbling 2032 Las Vegas, the police would probably welcome anything that could produce immediate results in riots, especially non-violent, temporary incapacitation type results. It would probably reduce civil suits in courtrooms all over the state of California too!

Well, maybe not reduce…maybe create more class action lawsuits. But for the purposes of science fiction writing, I thought it worked pretty well. Both of those ideas came from reality and fantasy: what we have and what we wish we have.

Look around you there's always something you can improve upon even if might not be an eventuality then again nobody thought we'd really have a space shuttle or space station outside of some sci-fi author's imagination. Yet there they are, functioning on a daily basis getting and giving us improvements and knowledge to deal with our own inspirations and make the fantasies into reality.

A little inspiration can go a long long way.

More about P. I. Barrington:

Website: http://www.thewordmistresses.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/theegypsy

The Writer Limits Crossover Guest: Jennifer Hartz

Hi all! Today I have a guest. One of my contributor buddies from The Writer Limits (TWL), Jennifer Hartz, for a crossover event TWL is putting on. All the TWL contributors will be flipping and swapping guest posts with each other.

Jennifer is a fabulous writer and I'm super excited to have her on today. She's going to talk about her world building technique for The Future Svaior Series. Go for it, Sister!

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Why in the World Do I Put Biblical Mirroring in My Books?

When I set out to write The Future Savior Series I knew I wanted to incorporate a lot of Biblical mirroring… but why? Here's the best answer I can give you. It comes from someone who recently reviewed Future Savior Book 2: Resurrection:

"I absolutely loved all the scenes that had Biblical parallels. Those scenes especially, really made me want to grab my Bible so that I could read about the real events!!!"

I have a hard time talking to people. Especially people I don't know very well, but as a Christian I know I'm called to talk to people about Christ. How can I do this when the talking thing certainly isn't my cup of tea? The answer - writing!

But now the new question is what kind of writing. I'm not a big fan on non-fiction books… Blah, boring! So I knew a straight, informative non-fiction kind of book was never gonna happen. And regular, normal, contemporary fiction bore me. Why would I want to read about something I could do myself? No, I want to go to a galaxy far, far away or visit a land never before seen! So the answer became quite clear - speculative fiction!

Meshing these two things together - Biblical Mirroring and Speculative Fiction - resulted in The Future Savior Series. I've created a speculative world that Non-Christians and Christians will be interested in checking out and along the way I've sprinkled in some Bible stories. The result will have them reaching for a Bible to compare and contrast. I just got them to open up God's Word!

That was my desire when I put Biblical mirroring in The Future Savior Series, so I was thrilled to see it actually happen like in the review snippet above.

In my follow up posts to The Writer Limits Cross-Over Extravaganza, I'll break down each novel in The Future Savior Series and pinpoint the Bible references. Stay tuned because there could very well be a much anticipated excerpt from the upcoming release of Future Savior 4: Desecration!

Here's where you can find me on the web:

Webpage: http://jenniferhartz.com/

Twitter: @JenniferLHartz

Future Savior on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheFutureSaviorSeries

Jenn on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jennifer.hartz.71

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Now, while she's here today, I'll be over there at her blog so make sure you stop by http://jenniferhartz.com/blog/. I'm talking about immortality people. IMMORTALITY! (You know you're interested.)

Friendship Peak

During my daily dose of research, I stumbled across a Yahoo slideshow highlighting NASA Mars pictures and then BHAM! Gusev Crater popped up. As many of you know, Gusev Crater is where Rinny Matterville from Duty and Devotion trained.

If you look into the distant right you'll see the mountain she and her friends drove to, the one they nicknamed "Friendship Peak"

Here's the link to the slideshow in case you're interested http://news.yahoo.com/photos/the-surface-of-mars-slideshow/future-planetary-rovers-may-own-decisions-photo-123208443.html#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Fthe-surface-of-mars-slideshow%252Fmars-photo-1322584905.html

Excerpt "Friendship Peak":
They reached the crater edge in less than two hours and stopped the vehicle. Climbing into the back, they helped each other into surface suits and started exiting procedures. When they stepped out, Rinny gazed up into the atmosphere and then took in the mountain range. The contrast of the tea-stained sky and the burnt orange range, all in a vivid watercolor tone enraptured Rinny's passion. For a fleeting moment, she wished she were a painter and not a musician. No notes could bring out the emotions the scene caused in her soul. Danny stepped up beside her and Journey.


Rinny turned to them. "You ready, explorers?"

Her voice sounded metallic in the voice transmitters. She couldn't see their faces clearly through the reflective face covers. They double-checked the foot weights and oxygen pressure then headed out. The ground was thick with dust. They had to lift their feet clear or start a dust cloud. They chatted as they worked their way up the crater. A thin layer of dust coated their white suits by the time they reached the top. After clearing off each other's helmets, they took in the Gusev Valley floor all the way out to the Columbia Hills colony.

"It's beautiful," Danny whispered.

"Wow, this is an amazing view." Journey did a full turn and then took hold of Rinny's hand through the bulk of the suit's gloves. "It's like we're the first ones to be here."

Using her free hand, Rinny took Danny's. Standing there, all three holding hands, she felt the connection of friendship. "We've conquered this spot. We'll call it Friendship Peak."

Feeling Accomplished

You know those days where everything just seems to click? Well, that's my today.

Finished the final revision round this morning on my latest SF book. The first in a SF case-mystery series. To let that stew a bit before editing rounds kicks off, I decided to tackle the outlining and story bible of the second book in the series.

That led to a wonderful day of brainstorming plots and subplots, technology frameworks, science facts and doing image searches for world and character development.

Writer's heaven folks, writer's heaven...

*sigh*

It's now reaching evening and I have the starting outline of my story, some visuals of my characters, and an awesome start to my world. Not to mention a really, really groovy antagonist. One so evil and sadistic I'm going to enjoy writing him.

*does hammer dance*

Now I just hope I can lay it down on paper as close to the vision in my head as possible.

Where'd all the pets go?

Cosmic Kitties? Astro Dogs? Where are you?

Stop by The Writer Limits, where I talk about pets in space-based SF (or lack thereof).
http://thewriterlimitsauthors.blogspot.com/2012/07/hairy-characters.html