My current edit-in-progress is my book Ophelia, book number two in the Sweetwater Saga that began with Anna and Phillip’s love story in Sweetwater. I had to re-write some of the beginning of the novel because there were some plot points that weren’t working. I really hate having to do nearly full re-writes, but it makes the story a lot better than the version on Wattpad.
I love having face claims, pictures that represent the look of my characters I find on the internet, when I’m writing my stories. They give the characters a look and a personality. When I saw this picture of a cute blonde with pink ends to her hair, I KNEW she was Ophelia. The real girl is a Norwegian fashion blogger and cute in her own way, so I hope she doesn’t mind me stealing her look.
Some other inspiration was a character in the movie P.S. I Love You, the sister of the main character. Loyal, loving and a complete free-spirit, she inspired these important attributes that define Ophelia’s character.
Next, I had to flesh out Justin. My biggest question is what kind of guy would appeal to Ophelia? She has an unhealthy penchant for choosing the absolute wrong guy. Who could take her out of the singles pool for good?
Check out those baby blues. I knew immediately this was the kind of guy that would appeal physically to Ophelia. He was adorable, but in a non-muscle-head kind of way. He looked sweet, but not a pushover. He had to be opposite of Mike, the villain in the story, physically and in personality. Justin had to be romantic, thoughtful, know what he wants and confident in himself as a person. Justin needed to be the kind of guy willing to stand up for himself against Mike. He also needed to be the kind who avoided fights because he wanted to look masculine. His masculinity was a given because he didn’t need to prove it.
The relationship between Ophelia and Justin started out pretty straightforward. He adores her spunk, creativity and apparent love for life. She finds him adorkable, sweet and smart. But in real life, we all have hang ups. And in romance, those hang-ups so often trigger the hang ups in the person we’re interested in. In Justin and Ophelia’s case, we’re dealing with some very specific issues. Trust issues stemming from Justin’s childhood and feelings of inadequacies for Ophelia because of an incident that happened before Anna’s first husband, Darren, died.
One of the other themes I deal with in Ophelia is the subject of dating violence in relationships. No worries, it’s not about Justin. I wanted to show what breaking up with a narcissistic person looked like. I based Mike off of an experience a family member of mine dealt with when she broke up with one of her exes. You do not break up with a narcissist. They break up with you. And even when they do break up with you, you still belong to them. They honestly can’t handle you being with anyone besides them, even if they don’t want you anymore. This insecurity can lead them to do harmful things to their partners or former partners. As irrational as it seems, they feel justified in punishing former or current partners for the “sins” committed against them. I tried walking a fine line with this theme because I don’t want to glorify violence. There are too many romance novels out there right now that mesh sex and violence. I didn’t want to concentrate on that. To me, it’s not sexy for one partner to dominate the other even if the partner is willing. It’s just too close to the real thing for my comfort.
With all that said, I can’t wait to finish up Ophelia’s happily ever after. I may come close to her not getting it as I can, because I’m evil. It is, after all, a romance novel.
*~*~*
What’s your favorite part of a romance novel? What part can’t you wait to get to?
Post it on your social media, and tag me to see it!
Happy Reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment