Bronwyn Jameson is Musing On Heroes

I’m coming down with something. Shivers, despite the unseasonably warm day. Headache. General can’t-get-my-head-straight malaise. And so I apologise in advance for the short post, which in my mind is long and deep and meaningful, but which in reality may be lucky to make any sense.

This is about heroes, who are on my mind this week because my hero-in-progress is not behaving. Strike that. He IS behaving when he should not be. If I could only push him past the boundaries of reasonable behaviour, I know I could up the dramatic intensity of the book.

And there is my problem. While I can read (nay devour) books filled with outrageous alpha dialogue and actions, I cannot write those characters to save myself. My previous two books’ titles included the words vengeful and revenge–not my titles, I might add–which made me smile wryly. I know that in the Alpha Male Vengeance Stakes my men are mere pussycats. They would hate being labelled pussycats, mind, and they hate to lose at anything.

My men are tough, determined, confident, driven even. But they’re also courteous, respectful, gallant. A soft heart beats within that manly chest. Their humour tends toward dry rather than wicked. A friend–a very good friend, after this comment!–described them as true diamonds in the rough. These are men I would love in real life as well as in fiction. I understand their motivation, I understand their behaviour, I can put up with their moments of intransigence because of the payoff.

But I know there are many readers (a majority?) who don’t look for real life in their romantic fiction. They want an edgier alpha, a larger-than-life hero who creates big emotional drama and even bigger chemistry with the heroine. They don’t want him stepping back to allow the heroine a choice; they drive the story, they force the action, they are masters and conquerors. Many might consider them hell to live, but they don’t care because this is fantasy not real life.

Where do you stand on the subject of heroes? Do you like your fictional men larger-than-life, uber-alpha all of the time? Or do you prefer a touch of reality, to know that this a man you (or the heroine) could live with in the real world?

All comments this week go in the draw to win a copy of Sylvia Day’s Ask for It.