Author Avirl Ashton is here to share her love of bad boys… and who doesn’t have a soft spot for them? Take it away, Avirl!
The bad boy. The criminal. The unsavory character. I admit to having a not quite hidden fascination with them. I also knew once I started writing seriously that getting me to make a doctor or lawyer one of my heroes would be a hardship.
All right, so not a hardship. More like…not as fun.
Sure we like the good guys, every woman claims to want one of them to settle down with.
Me, not so much.
I’m steady trying to understand what and who makes the bad guy tick.
Nothing against the upstanding, dependable men out there. We love them.
Rah. Rah. Rah.
As an author writing for an audience should my first thought be to the reader when thinking of casting a hero? I know what I like, what I love to read, but readers have their own preferences and sure if I want them to buy my books I need to give them what they want.
But see, I think the reader would know if I wasn’t in love with my hero, if I was phoning it in for their benefit.
We write for our readers, but we do if for ourselves first. If I don’t like my hero, if I’m not a fan, how do I expect to make my reader feel for him? How can I expect them to root for him and hurt for him and got to bat for him?
I like tackling the unredeemable. Like turning your opinions inside out when you think one thing then realize it’s something totally different. I’m not really a fan of the easy. Or the pretty.
Boring stuff right there.
Gritty. I like that word.
Rough too.
So yes, you can describe my men in those terms. The bad guy, the criminal. They’re rather honest in their dishonesty. Complex right? That’s where the challenge lies, for me. To make it so the readers know how much they shouldn’t care, but do anyway.
The straight-laced have their uses. And they have their place.
Maybe one day that place might be in one of my books, but right now I’m thinking where exactly would the fun be in that? Bring on the bad boys. They sure know how to liven things up and keep us on our toes.
Author Bio
l always wanted to have a sexy bio, one to reflect who I am, but after drawing a blank, l could only come up with: I eat cake and I read books…ooh, and I write ‘em too. No one liked it and after massive peer-pressure and pouting, I managed something more…suitable?
A Caribbean transplant, Avril now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y with a tolerant Spousal Equivalent. Together they raise an eccentric daughter who loves reading and school (not so much school anymore). Avril’s earliest memories of reading revolve around discussing plot points of The Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys with an equally book-minded mother
Always in love with the written word, Avril finally decided to do the writing in August of ’09 and never looked back. Spicy love scenes, delicious heroes, and wicked women burn up the pages of Avril’s stories, but there’ll always be a happy ending; Av remains a believer of love in all its forms.
Visit: http://www.avrilashton.webs.com
http://www.avril-ashton.blogspot.com
Friend Avril on: http://www.facebook.com/writeravrilashton
Thanks so much for having me over
I totally agree