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| Here they are again! |
I posted last Wednesday
about characteristics of bad boys in books and how to write
believable ones. In doing research for that post, I gathered so much
information, that I thought I’d share the leftovers here.
Well, not really leftovers,
actually, since this is new content, but the content is complementary to what I
posted last week.
My erotic romance, Streetwalker, features hero Harlan, a
bad boy for heroine Carrie. I LOVE Harlan. He is brilliant, powerful,
confident, rich, gorgeous, great in bed, and more than a little bit flawed.
Harlan’s rebellion against
society’s rules led to losing his medical license. So of course, he started a
high end bordello on New York’s Upper East Side, enrolling as clients the rich
and powerful of the city as insurance against prosecution. A bad boy.
Not all bad boys wear
leather jackets, sport multiple tattoos and piercings, or have a scruffy look
about them. Harlan is a great example of an elegant, successful, and
living-life-on-his-own-terms, bad boy. And did I mention his sexual prowess?
In a nutshell (for the
whole enchilada, to mix a metaphor, read the post at Write on Sisters), a bad
boy exhibits certain qualities. I identified these as: exuding confidence,
allowing his own interests to take precedence over others’ interests, moody,
paradoxical, edgy, displaying an attitude, rebelling with or without a cause,
engaging in dangerous hobbies, and being mysterious, complex, and complicated.
Women respond to their perception that his strength will bring them protection,
a universal need.
In writing your bad boy, be
sure to avoid the stereotypes as the only traits. Make him more complex and he’ll
interest your readers more. To clarify, we aren’t talking villains here.
Villains in our books primarily exist to foil the protagonist, not to act as a
potential love interest. Though it does happen.
We’re talking bad boys as
guys who appeal to women in books (and real life?), guys you see around every
day.
Think about "The Good Wife" Diane
Lockhart’s fascination with Kurt McVeigh, a man different from her in nearly
every aspect. Can you see the appeal for her, a buttoned-up corporate type?
He’s so wrong for her from her friends’ perspective, and when she meets his
friends, she finds nothing in common with them. Women who fall for bad boys
risk being isolated from other friendships. Kurt is on the softer side of the
bad boy continuum.
Another classic bad boy is
Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.
He flaunted convention and contrasted well with the ultimate nice guy, Ashley
Wilkes. Scarlett, who schemed shamelessly to entrap Ashley, never could shake
her attraction for the dangerous and rule-breaking Rhett.
On the harder side of the
bad boy continuum, think to Morelli, Stephanie Plum’s nemesis, virginity-taker,
and man she simply cannot get out of her life. Adding in another bad boy, but a
more complex and softer bad boy, Ranger, just adds to her man dilemma. There is
no way Stephanie Plum is going for the nice guy. No way.
An interesting piece I came
across, and then lost the link to when I had a computer glitch causing me to
lose all my research, was on women and how birth control had changed to put
them more in charge of their relationships. The gist of one section was that
ovulating women are attracted to bad boys, and women who are on birth control
seek men who are perceived more as nice guys. I interpreted this to mean, women
want strong, healthy babies (from the rugged men), but they want a nurturing
male who will be faithful to them to raise the babe. An interesting notion.
Research into what
constitutes a bad boy always leads one to a book by Carole Lieberman and Lisa
Collier Cool, Bad Boys: How We Love Them,
How to Live with Them, When to Leave Them.
Dr. Leiberman’s research
led her to identify 12 archetypes for bad boys. She used movies and folk and
fairytales to name them. These destructive men to avoid are: Fixer-Upper Lover,
Wanton Wolf, Commitment Phobe, Self-Absorbed Seducer, Wounded Poet, Prince of
Darkness, Lethal Lover, Power-Mad Prince, Misunderstood & Married,
Grandiose Dreamer, Man of Mystery, and Dramatic Daredevil. A more recent book
by Dr. Lieberman is Bad Girls: Why Men
Love Them and How Good Girls Can Learn Their Secrets. Analagous to the bad
boys book, there are 12 bad girl archetypes. Maybe that will be a later post.
Involved with a bad boy or
want to be? Know this. The chances of changing him are slim. And why would you
want to? The parts of him that attracted you would disappear, and then what?
You leave him because he is no longer edgy, dangerous, challenging? Who wins in
that?
If you want more, here are
some links so you can do reading on your own.
Interesting? Worth sharing?
Here are some copy/paste posts for you. You’re welcome!
Facebook:
Angelica French continues her exploration of what “bad boys” are and how to
write them convincingly. http://bit.ly/2DHzZ25
Twitter:
@RomanceRighter shares what she learned about how to write “bad boys” in
romances. http://bit.ly/2DHzZ25
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