Okay, okay I’ll confess—I have a thing for guys with a naughty sense of humor. The raunchier the better in some cases. I like a man who can be a bit of a tease and I think most romance readers are in the same boat as I am. We want a man whose jokes are a little bit risqué and can be taken a couple ways (and one of those ways always involves getting naked).
There’s only one problem with this for me. In my current Speak of the Devil Series (Book 1: Luck of the Devil was released in August of 2011) my hero is a straight laced angel. He’s not uptight. He’s not stuffy. And for the record he’s sexy as hell in my opinion. All messy dark hair and big white wings wrapped in a studly lawyer body. But now, writing the third book I’ve noticed something that come to think of it I’ve faced in all three books. He keeps getting upstaged by my heroine’s cheeky bodyguard.
Now to be fair, it’s not Malachi’s fault. The guy is damn funny in my opinion and he’s sort of an all purpose sidekick. He can tease the neighbors dog, divert the Devil’s attention while Lucifer’s youngest daughter sneaks a guy out of her apartment, and help hide the body of the man her best friend and newly minted succubus accidentally killed. He’s like the Clorox bleach of sidekicks—he can and will clean up any mess. Even the bloody ones.
But this particular demon keeps stealing scenes. So every book I let him run rough shod in the first draft. I let all his snarky glory come out and I see what happens. Then after a short vacation from each other we go back and start negotiating. Usually he insists on prime real estate and story lines in future books and he always gets what he wants. And well I’d complain more but what’s the point? He’s a demon he’s always going to win and add to that he’s a cheeky bugger and writing him always makes me smile. The only problem? Now that I’m in the process of winding down the writing of the series he’s starting to suggest that you know—maybe we’d have a good time together. Alone. Just the two of us. Without the kids. Maybe a whole series of his antics and right now? I just don’t know if I have the strength of will to negotiate successfully against him.
About Patricia Eimer
I know exactly what you mean about those naughty characters. They’re too damn irresistible! Sounds like you’ve got a tough job ahead of you.
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I know exactly what you mean. I wrote a book that finaled in several contests, where all the comments went to my evil Vampire lady. She got got center stage over my hero, with requests for a book of her own! I tried to tone her down, but she came up with the snarky remarks, the no emotion, attitude and just jumped off the page. Eventually, she will have her own book, I hope. I love the sidekick who is less serious and more fun.
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*sigh* Demons… can’t live with ‘em, can’t turn your back on ‘em for one single second or they’ll eat all your food, trash your house, and do unspeakable things to you when you bend over to pick up the mess . . .
Umm… if you’re busy.. well darn it I guess I can step up and do my part, take him for the weekend. I mean, you know sisters under the skin and all that, and cuz I know you want to spend time with the kids…
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Instead of using your strength of will to negotiate, how ’bout trying a riding crop and a can of whipped cream instead? And then let us read exactly how it all turns out.
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