NYC 22 and 80s Movies

image courtesy of IMDB.com

It’s the time of year when networks try some new shows out as mid-season replacements. Thanks to Tiffany White, who I often include in my Friday Favorites round-up, I found more new shows to try. Last week, CBS introduced NYC 22. As we all know, I love cop shows, so I had to tune in. After the first 2 episodes, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one. The show follows a group of rookies as they start out. I like the cast and the backstories the creators have given the characters. One rookie comes from a family of criminals, another was a journalist who lost his job and is looking to start over, yet another grew up on the mean streets and played professional basketball before becoming a cop. This should make for some interesting characters.

I didn’t have a problem with the characters. I had a problem with the premise and situations these characters were in. For example, in the premier, the rookies were paired up and then dumped off on the street on their respective foot patrols. As someone who watches a lot of cop shows, I like the idea of having the rookies be foot patrols. The problem I had was that this was their first day and they were left alone. Hello, talk about an excellent set-up for failure. Then to make matters worse, these cops did some stupid stuff. Like not calling for back-up when they obviously needed it. Not of one them called for back-up. Ever.

Their field training officer, who says that his nickname is “Yoda” but he doesn’t like it (then why mention it?), drives around in a van and moves them into different situations, but doesn’t actually train them — unless you count telling them that they screwed up counts.

Because I was drawn to the characters, I did give this show another shot and watched it this week. The implausibility of some of what happened still bugs me, but I really like the characters. Knowing me, I’ll probably stick it out until the end of the season (I did watch all of House of Lies). I hope it will get better and maybe a little more believable.

On a totally different note, this past week, I introduced my kids to some quality retro movies.

image courtesy of IMDB.com

Last weekend I watched The Goonies with my daughters. Shorty had seen it before, since she’s always been the kind of kid to prefer live action to cartoons, but this was Trouble’s first time seeing it. They both loved it. How could they not? Even with the bad acting, there is so much to love about The Goonies. “Goonies never say die.”

Then, I watched Ferries Bueller’s Day Off with my son. I counted it as research since I mention the movie in my book that’s coming out later this year. I wanted to make sure the references I made fit the length of the conversation my characters are having. (I needed to make changes.) After watching it, my son loved it, of course, but then he asked me about other movies like it, and I was stuck. He’s already seen The Breakfast Club, but the other John Hughes movies I thought of seemed more likely to appeal to girls. (16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful)

image courtesy of collider.com

What are your favorite films? Any suggestions for my son?

Anti-Hero in Revenge

image courtesy of abc.com

Last night, Revenge came back with a new episode (finally). It’s taken weeks off so everyone, including me has been anxiously waiting. I talked about my love for this show months ago, when it first aired. Before the break, the show managed to twist what we all thought we saw in the pilot episode. The pilot opened with a scene on the beach making us believe that Daniel, Emily’s fiancé, had been shot. Instead, he’s arrested for shooting the other crazy person on the show.

In that first post, I talked about how Emily appears to be a complete sociopath with no feelings, at least until we see her with her childhood friend Jack. Through all of the twists and turns on her quest for revenge, this has held true for Emily. At the time, I didn’t call her out as an anti-hero, but now I think she’s one of the finest examples on TV.

Emily is on a mission to get revenge against the Grayson family for ruining her father and taking everything from her as a child. In one fell swoop, she lost her only parent, her house, her dog, and her best friend. Then she’s trained to believe the lies about her father.

So while revenge itself is far from a noble concept, as viewers we’re immediately sympathetic toward Emily because of her past. In addition, the Graysons are such a lousy bunch of rich snobs, it’s kind of nice seeing them taken down a notch.

Emily is conniving and deceitful and will do whatever is necessary to achieve her goal. There are times that I cringe watching what she’s willing to do and the lies she’s willing to say to move her plan forward.

image from http://15strawberrylane.com/my-stories

It’s never been clear whether she really has feelings for Daniel. I know she doesn’t view him as part of the problem. After all, it’s not his fault who his parents are. He is a means to an end, but I think some of that gets muddled for Emily.

In last night’s episode, she admits that she lost focus and let emotion get in the way. I’m not sure about the direction of that emotion. She loves Jack. But it wasn’t clear if that’s the emotion she was referring to, or if she’s talking about Daniel.

In all my talk about anti-heroes, I’ve learned a lot. You can read past posts here and here and some links to other people’s posts here.

While looking at the concept of the anti-hero, I’ve come up with some things I think are necessary for it to work.

The anti-hero has to be sympathetic, if not likable. She needs to have some redeeming qualities. She should believe her cause is noble, even if it feeds into something personal for her. And finally, I think that the anti-hero has to make the audience believe she can be redeemed or reformed. Even if it never actually happens, we need to believe in the possibility.

Emily fits all of these. We’re sympathetic because of her childhood, and her love for Jack shows that she’s not heartless. She believes that she’s doing some good by taking down the Graysons. They have a habit of ruining lives, and not just her father’s. They’re bad, bad people. Finally, and this was revealed last night… SPOILER ALERT

image courtesy of http://www.tv.com/shows/revenge-tv/photos/image-26/

Emily admits that she would dump her plan and come clean if she had to in order to save Jack.

Now, Nolan puts the words out there and Emily lets him believe it, but I think deep down it’s true. She doesn’t officially admit it, which is disturbing. Maybe she’s playing the game letting Nolan think that.  Maybe she can’t admit it because emotion has already gotten her into trouble.

Either way, I’m looking forward to the rest of this season.

Do you watch Revenge? Who do you think Emily should end up with Jack or Daniel? Or no one?

RT Convention – Day 2

Okay, it was actually Day 3 of the convention because I didn’t go on Thursday. Looking back, I kind of wish I did because there were a lot of digital publishing things going on, including an e-book author signing. If I had paid closer attention, I would’ve gone, if for no other reason, to get a feel for what digital authors are signing and/or giving away.

image courtesy of zimbio.com

Friday was a full day of workshops. Some great, others were meh. The first one I attended was on writing sex scenes that readers won’t skip. For those of you who don’t read romance, there are a lot of people who tend to skim or skip sex scenes because the scenes are often poorly written. By poorly written, I mean it could read like a manual (insert tab A into slot B) or it could be full of purple prose (to quote Ruthie Knox from her April1 post “She clawed at him like a cat, her velvet glove clutching his manhood with tight fingers). Bottom line, if it doesn’t grab you as a reader, you skip it.

(SIDE NOTE: one panelist talked about how in films, sex is represented by a montage of body parts that allows us to tune out, but then ends in “come hands” so you know they’re done. See photo above for example. Funny stuff, and so true)

The panelists were hilarious. It just so happened that all 4 write M/M romance (male-male), which isn’t my thing and I’ve never read one, but many others do. Each of the speakers explained his/her approach to writing sex scenes and although I can’t say I learned something earth-shatteringly new, it was a good refresher. If the couple has sex it needs to make a difference in the plot, increase the conflict, as well as reveal character. One writer talked about how she pushed the limits of sexual tension so that when her characters finally got to the point of having sex, it was necessary and explosive. Another writer talked about how she puts it all out there in the first sex scene because it forces her to up her game for subsequent scenes.

image taken from Louisa’s web site

My favorite workshop was definitely the panel on contemporary romance. Besides having a stellar lineup — Louisa Edwards, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Jodi Thomas, Christina Skye, and Sarah Wendell, with Beth Ciotta moderating–this workshop reinvigorated my love for the genre not only as a reader, but also as a writer.

For me, the biggest challenge as a contemporary romance writer is developing conflict. I think I’m pretty good with internal conflict between the hero and heroine. The internal stuff is usually the baggage they carry with them (and by baggage I mean psychological and emotional, not luggage). I did a post questioning the necessity of external conflict here. After listening to these authors, who are all very successful, I find that the external conflict really isn’t as important as developing intriguing, complicated characters.

It made me feel better about my writing. In addition, I got to meet Louisa Edwards after the

image taken from SEP’s twitter

presentation and had a bit of a fangirl moment. I learned that Susan Elizabeth Phillips is freaking hilarious. I’m so looking forward to her being one of the headliners for our chapter conference later this month. And we could probably create a drinking game based on how often Sarah (or someone jumping in for Sarah) said man-titty. Overall, I great time was had by all in this workshop.

The other workshops I attended we okay, but not fascinating. I did get the chance to meet some people that I’ve only known on-line, which is always a lot of fun.

From what I could tell, the reader portion of the convention was a little insane. The Q&A with J.R. Ward had a line running down the hall. Some of the parties were wild. Of course that is hearsay since I didn’t actually attend them.

I enjoyed myself enough that I’m seriously considering going next year because by then, I will have a book out to sign and it’s still in the Midwest, which makes travel easier.

Are you looking forward to any conferences or conventions this year? How about book signings?

Revisiting House of Lies & the Anti-Hero

A few months ago, I blogged about a new show, House of Lies. I liked the premise of the show and with it being on Showtime, I knew that there would be a certain shock factor. Of course, the show delivered. If you’ve never seen it, the show follows a business management consultant and his pod (team) as they rip companies off.

It’s an interesting, and I believe pretty true-to-life, representation of some business management consultants. When I wrote about this last time, I wasn’t sure if I would continue to watch the show because after three or four episodes, I found that I really didn’t like the main character, Marty (played by Don Cheadle). People told me to hang on, that we’d probably get to see some more redeeming qualities in Marty.

While I didn’t rush to my TV every week to watch the new episode, I didn’t delete the timer, either. When I had some extra time, I caught up on episodes. In my last post, I questioned whether Marty could be considered an anti-hero because I didn’t see any redeeming qualities in him. After watching the entire season, I can admit that the show did allow peeks into some of Marty’s vulnerabilities and there were some redeeming qualities to Marty.

He truly loves his son Roscoe, who is figuring out his sexual identity. Marty handles this well and I don’t doubt his love for his son.

Marty also appears loyal to his pod, but I do question that loyalty. By the end of the season, although I wanted to believe that Marty would stand by his team, I still felt that everything he did was to manipulate them to achieve the outcome he wanted.

Mid-way through the season, Marty supposedly fell in love. I believe he cared for April, but I’m not sure this man even understands what it means to love someone. Bottom line, he leads with his dick and his ego and does whatever he wants regardless of the consequences.

That is the sticking point for me. While I believed an anti-hero needed some redeeming qualities, Marty has taught me that it’s more than that. Even though I can see that Marty loves his son and he struggles to deal with his mother’s suicide, it’s not enough for me to want to continue to watch him. And this is why:

An anti-hero has to at least appear to be redeemable.

The anti-heroes that I can believe in have more than just redeeming qualities. There’s something about them that makes them more…human. They have some kind of moral compass, even if it’s not one that coincides with mine.

Batman doesn’t let anyone get close to him and I believe that is because he tries to protect others from getting hurt. He won’t let himself have the pleasure of a “normal” life. He’s a man on a mission, and his mission, although it feeds into something on a personal level for him, does good for society.

Dexter is much the same way. He’s a truly screwed up individual, but he lives by a code, an honorable code. He’s a good father who also happens to be a killer. Dexter does everything in his power to protect those he cares about including his son and his sister. He only kills bad guys, ones that fit the code.

For both Batman and Dexter it’s more than just having likable qualities or vulnerabilities that make them anti-heroes. They do things that don’t quite fit into the norm of what is expected for a hero, but I think that if their personal experiences had been different, if their worlds had changed early on, they could be true heroes.

This wouldn’t hold true for Marty. I can’t imagine Marty doing anything heroic because that would require him to put someone else before himself. Marty is too selfish and egotistical for that. He ruins lives around him. He has little or no regard for anyone else. I don’t believe there’s any hope for Marty.

Now that the season is over, I don’t know that I’ll watch next year. The show itself is well-written and enjoyable, but like I’ve said lots of times, for me, it’s all about character.

And I really don’t like this character.

Do you watch House of Lies? Do you enjoy watching anti-heroes?

Guilty Pleasures

I watch a lot of TV and while my husband would argue that the vast majority of what I watch is guilty pleasure, I disagree. For me, guilty pleasure is something that doesn’t have a lot of substance, but is fun anyway. It might be a little cheesy, or over-the-top dramatic, and it’s definitely on the fluffy side. These are shows that while I record them (because I record everything – no commercials) I don’t necessarily rush off to watch them right after they air like I do other shows (Justified).

I new guilty pleasure for me is a brand new show that aired last night. I saw the commercials and thought it might be funny, so I recorded it. I’m so glad I did because I liked everything about Bent.

In case you didn’t watch, the show is about a recently divorced mother who buys a house that needs work. Lawyer Alex (Amanda Peet) lives in the house with her daughter, Charlie (Joey King, who played in Ramona & Beezus). They’re both trying to deal with issues caused by Alex’s ex-husband, who is in prison. The show opens with her getting estimates for the work she needs to get done on the house.

Enter Pete (David Walton), the contractor who is a recovering gambling addict. He’s laid back and charming, but he’s a good guy looking for a second chance. Alex hires him and her uptight Type-A personality immediately clashes with surfer dude Pete’s.

There’s a lot to like about this romantic comedy. Some of the jokes and plot devices are cliché, but I don’t care. For me this show was forty-five minutes of guilty pleasure last night. (They aired 2 episodes.)

Part of it is that I’m a sucker for a man in a toolbelt. I think it kind of falls under the uniform category that I talked about the other day. Toolbelts are sexy. They define a man who can get things done. Of course, it also helps that David Walton is very nice to look at.

The entire cast of characters are fun and pretty well developed. Both Alex and Pete have their own baggage to deal with as they butt heads and grow to like each other. The sparks are there between these two, but I think this is one of those shows that will probably be ruined the minute they get together. The flirting and banter will go by the wayside because although a lot of positives can come from hooking up with your opposite, I can’t imagine these two would make it forever.

Pete is too immature for Alex. He’s a good guy deep down, which is what makes him such a great bad boy character. He’s good with Charlie and connects with her in ways Alex’s boyfriend doesn’t. Personally, I would totally fall for this guy (you know, assuming he was real and I wasn’t married). But objectively, I can admit that it would never work. He’s too laid back and immature. It would drive me crazy and the dimples only take you so far. The same would hold true for Alex.

But I will continue to tune in because watching Alex and Pete interact will make me smile and give me a few minutes of total guilty pleasure each week.

What’s your guilty pleasure? (On TV that is)

Friday Favorites – Playing Catch Up

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I was pretty much out of commission for the end of last week. First I had a migraine from Wednesday until Friday, then I was feeling sickish starting on Saturday. Turned out to be allergies with a sinus headache, but it took me a couple of days to figure that out since I don’t normally suffer from allergies. Anyway, that was 5 days gone from my life. Because of this, I’ve been trying to play catch up all week.

And it’s been a great couple of weeks in the blogosphere. So many blogs, so little time. A fair warning, quite a few of the links this week go to some lengthy posts, but they are well worth the time investment.

First, unless you’ve been living in a bubble, I’m sure you’ve heard about 50 Shades of Grey, a book that started as fan fiction based on Twilight. It is erotic romance and was just picked up in a huge deal.

I have not read any of the books in the trilogy, so I can’t comment on that, but I have links that highlight some of the issues at play:

First up, Jane over at Dear Author did a comparison of the current book with the original. The reason she did this was because the author claimed that although the book started as fan fiction, it is currently an original work. All I’ve got to say on that is if a student turned this in as an original work, he or she would fail.

Next, Jami Gold questions whether quality editing is valued by anyone, and she uses this book as a point of reference.

Carly Phillips discusses the book here. She actually read the entire trilogy and the comments in the post are interesting.

And finally, and I believe most importantly, Smart Bitch Sarah writes about romance, porn, and condescension. No one defends romance quite like Sarah.

TV stuff:

I’ve talked about how much I love Justified, and on his blog Eat, Sleep, Television, Adam Bellotto does a great recap of this week’s episode. As he says, this episode wasn’t so much about moving the plot forward as wrapping up loose ends. Take a peek around his site for recaps of other shows. I don’t watch all of them, but he does a good summary.

Last week Tiffany White asked readers to vote on which shows they would watch if they could only watch one TV show per night (horrible thought). This week, she posts the results.

Emmie Mears has been running a series of cookie dough posts talking about relationships in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I didn’t watch the show when it originally aired, but after hearing so many people praise it, I watched some, but not all the episodes. I definitely see the appeal, but I never really understood the whole Buffy-Spike thing. In her last post, Emmie dissects that relationship and it makes a whole lot more sense now.

Dating and Love:

Even though I’m married and have been out of the dating scene longer than I was ever in it, as a romance writer, I try to read about others’ experiences because that’s what I write. As a woman, I know that if my husband and I ever split, I have no intention of ever looking to get into a new relationship. I don’t have the energy or patience to deal with the junk. But as a writer, I’m fascinated by it.

Merry Farmer has a great post asking where all the good guys have gone. She links to the original article that points to some of the problems and you should really read both. After reading both the article and Merry’s post, I’ve reaffirmed my gratitude that I don’t have to worry about dating. I’ve also realized that I am dead on in how hard I push my kids to be independent. I have 3 kids, none are teenagers yet. They all know they are expected to go to college and earn a degree and they also know that if they want to continue to live in my house they either have a job or they’re in school. When school is done, if they want to live here, they pay rent. It’s not that I need their money. I need them to be independent. To find their own way. I did it as a necessity, but I’m glad I learned independence early. I screwed up a lot, but I learned from it. There was no one to bail me out.

Ingrid Schaffenburg talks about online dating and the search for chemistry.

A new blog that I started following that you should check out is The Romance Man. He’s a man who reads romance (woo-hoo!) but he also blogs about love, being married, and being a father. The stuff he writes is pretty damn funny. Here he looks at advice on how to snuggle. If you’re easily offended, you might want to skip it, but if you read Chuck Wendig or Tawna Fenske, you’ll like this guy.

Writing:

I only have one writing link this week, not because there weren’t more great posts, but because this one has a message for every writer. Tawna Fenske tells us what she learned from an 85-year-old food critic. Good stuff.

I plan to get out an enjoy my weekend. Chicago has been experiencing way warmer than normal weather (80 degrees again today!!) What plans do you have for the weekend?

Pregnancy on TV

It’s Thursday and I’m back to talking TV. I had some things I was going to write about, but then I watched this week’s episode of Southland. I really like this show because it does so many things right.

But this episode really ticked me off.

**WARNING – SPOILERS**

Detective Lydia Adams (played by Regina King) is one of my favorite characters. She’s a homicide detective. This season, she found out she’s pregnant. The father is a married man. That isn’t the part that really bothers me because although I hate the idea of infidelity, shit happens. This is some stupid shit, but everyone screws up.

Lydia struggles with the whole idea of being pregnant. She doesn’t know if she wants to have the baby at first, so she hides the pregnancy from everyone, including her partner. Then, after getting hurt on the job, her doctor advises her to get off the street. I understand her hesitation because she’s worked hard to get where she is, and she doesn’t want to step back. But after getting hurt, it seems like she’s decided to have and keep the baby. This might be her only shot at motherhood — she’s not really young anymore and she’s had few relationships.

Even after making this decision, she continues to hide the pregnancy. She outright lies to her partner about it when he asks.

I find this really bothersome. When you’re pregnant, your first job is to protect the baby. Lydia continues to put herself and her baby in jeopardy.

But this week took the cake. She’s going after a murderer in a cramped abandoned building. Does she let her partner push the door open and go first? No. Of course not. She’s the senior officer after all.

To make matters worse, a guy runs out the front door and her partner yells, “We have a runner!” and then takes off with the two uniforms after the runner. What the hell kind of partner is he that he leaves Lydia alone? And he knows she’s pregnant. Even if she doesn’t admit it, he knows.

Does his absence make Lydia stop? Hell, no. She pushes through the door and gets attacked yet again. The gang banger is on top of her and trying to stab her through her bullet-proof vest. Fortunately, her partner does come back in time to save her, but all I’m thinking is WTF?

Lydia finally tells her partner to go on without her and admits she’s pregnant. At the end of the episode, Lydia’s at the doctor and her belly’s been punctured, but we don’t know the extent of the damage.

I think this portrayal is kind of like the discussion earlier in the week about annoying character traits in heroines. The kickass heroine was mentioned by a couple of people and I think Lydia falls into this category. I have nothing against a woman choosing to be a cop or anything else, but that being said, things do and should change if you’re pregnant. It no longer makes sense to try to do it all.

Lydia is not the only character that acts this way, although I think she pushed it way too far. Mary Shannon on In Plain Sight fought constantly about being put on desk duty. She’s a U.S. Marshall working in the Witness Protection Program. Temperance Brennan from Bones is working through her pregnancy, but she has two things going for her: 1. She doesn’t overdo it and 2. Booth is always there. 🙂

Who is your favorite pregnant character? Or who do you dislike the most?

Irritating Character Traits

Man, I have been out of the loop for days. After my migraine late last week, some mystery illness hit my family. I don’t know what it was. It might be allergies since I’m still feeling the effects of sinus pressure. I haven’t been online for my blog or Twitter or anything for days. I felt quite disconnected. Weird how that happens, huh?

Anyway, as I was trying to ease back into a routine, a post on a forum caught my eye. A writer asked what character traits drive you crazy and it got me to thinking. I read a lot and it’s very rare for me to put a book down. I’ve said before that in general, I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to reading. I can forgive a lot of things (like lack of exterior conflict) if I’m engaged with characters.

I have to admit that I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t come across too many characters that I’ve had real issues with. I’ve been trying to come up with an example, but I can’t. Maybe I’m good at picking out books that I know I’ll like. I’m not sure.

Just because I can’t remember a specific example of a character I despised doesn’t mean that there aren’t instances where I think, “Oh, come on!” Most people have a big problem with TSTL (too stupid to live) heroines. I agree, but I haven’t come across many.

A big pet peeve of mine is heroines who heal too quickly in order to get to the lovin’.

This happens a lot in paranormal romances and romantic suspense (which is probably why I’ve reduced the number of books I read in those categories). If the heroine just got into a huge physically demanding fight, it bugs me that she’s never sore or incapacitated for more than a page or two. I know the author can’t keep the heroine in bed because then the story doesn’t move forward, but it seems like the purpose of having her heal quickly is so she can either get into another fight or get into bed with the hero.

What irritates me even more than the rushed physical healing is the overnight emotional healing of some heroines. When a woman is raped or abused (physically, sexually, emotionally), I have a hard time swallowing the fact that after knowing a guy for a week or so, she’s ready to jump into bed for some fantastic sex. It’s like she instantaneously goes from zero trust to take what you want. If there has been some time between the abuse and the new relationship, I’m okay with that, but it seems like in a lot of books, it’s been a few months, tops.

Maybe the heroes all have magic healing penis power. Again, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a magic penis. (I’m probably going to get hit with mega-spam now that I typed that word into my post twice.)

image taken from http://www.fredbecker.com/store.htm

For me, stories tend to be more about the characters than anything else and if abuse is part of a heroine’s backstory, it should be treated realistically.

Just put it further in her past so that I can recognize that she has distance from it and has had time to deal with it. I don’t need to see her in therapy. I don’t need to know the steps she took to be able to move on. I’ll trust that she’s done whatever she needed. That baggage is still there and the hero will have to come to terms with it. You don’t lose that piece of her; you just make it more believable.

What traits in a heroine make you batty?

Emotion and Conflict – What’s Enough?

taken from Bob Mayer http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/

The idea for this post has been percolating in my brain for a while and I recently read a blog post by author Janice Hardy which sparked me to want to write it now. Her post is about stakes for the characters in a novel. I’m a little torn about what she says. I agree that you have to make readers care about your characters. You have to have something at stake. The hero and heroine have to have something personal at risk.

For me, this is where it gets sticky. I agree that characters have to have something personal at stake. In many books I’ve read lately, that personal stake is letting go of the past and the personal baggage that is mucking up life. Ms. Hardy says, “Stakes make the reader care, and stakes are about personal loss…If you feel it, then the characters will feel it. If the characters feel it, the reader will feel it.”

I agree with all of this and I’ve read a ton of books that drew me in emotionally as a reader because this is done well. My question then goes to conflict. Many writers will argue that you can’t have good conflict without an antagonist, a bad guy. The antagonist doesn’t have to be a serial killer or terrorist; it just needs to be someone that stops the protagonist (hero) from getting what he wants.

Kristen Lamb wrote about it here. I agree with what she says, especially when she says that the antagonist is the hardest concept to understand. Bob Mayer writes about it here. I’m sure if I spent some more time searching, I’d have a million more examples.

While I agree with the concept, I’ve begun to wonder if it matters to readers, specifically readers of contemporary romance. Of course, this interests me because this is the genre I write, but it’s also the genre I read. I’ve read quite a few books over the last year that have been light on the antagonist.

And I didn’t care.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed me talking about Ruthie Knox’s book, Ride With Me. This is a great read. It’s about two people riding their bikes across America and they fall in love. I suppose at a stretch, you could call the hero’s sister an antagonist because she pushes him from his comfort zone and makes him interact with people. She’s the one who tricks him into having a riding partner. Ruthie does such a good job of making me care about the characters, that it didn’t matter to me that there was no antagonist. The conflict revolved around each if them getting over their own issues.

A few months ago, I wrote about one of my favorite books from last year, Inez Kelley’s Sweet as Sin. I adore this book. It’s dark and emotional and totally sucked me in. Now, it’s been a long time since I read it, but I can’t remember any antagonist. If there was one, it was unimportant to me.

Shannon Stacey has a trilogy that I read last year about the Kowalski family. The first and last book of the trilogy do have antagonists, but they read like antagonist-lite. In the first book, the antagonist would be the heroine’s boss, who is forcing her to get an interview with a famous writer, the heroine’s ex-boyfriend. In the last book, the heroine’s grandmother would be the antagonist because she wants her granddaughter to be married so she’s not alone. In the second book, there was no external antagonist that I can recall.

All of these books were published by the digital division of big publishers. Ride With Me is a Loveswept book (Random House), Sweet as Sin and the Yours trilogy are both from Carina Press (Harlequin). These books have found an audience.

It bears repeating. These books found an audience even without strong antagonists. Shannon Stacey hit best seller lists with her books and Harlequin decided to publish print editions.

In addition to these authors, many self-published authors are also finding success. Both Marie Force and Bella Andre have published with New York houses and are currently self-publishing their books. While I haven’t read everything they’ve put out, I have read at least a couple of books from each their contemporary romance series. The stories have been enjoyable, but from a craft standpoint, light on the conflict because of a lack of antagonist. I say this not as a criticism, but as an observation.

These authors are enjoying great success. Readers are gobbling up their books. If they don’t have strong external conflict and no antagonist, shouldn’t their stories be lacking? Experts might say yes, but I don’t think the readers agree. The emotional pull of the characters keeps us glued to the page.

As a reader, do you notice if the book has an antagonist? Is the emotional journey of the characters enough to sustain the novel for you?

I Wish I’d Known

On Thursdays, I usually talk about TV and sometimes relate it to writing because, really, you can learn so much about writing from TV, both the good and the bad. I watch a lot of TV and the invention of the DVR has only aided this addiction. Shows that I wouldn’t have given a shot because of time slot now get my attention as possibilities. I still come across shows that aren’t quite my taste (House of Lies), but I’m glad I’m giving more shows a chance because you never know if you’ll miss out on something great (like Lost Girl).

There are quite a few shows that I didn’t watch from the beginning that I now wish I had. While it’s true that I still might not continue to tune in, it would’ve been nice to know for sure.

image from tvequals.com

One show that I tried this season in Being Human. A werewolf, a vampire, and a ghost live together in a house, trying to feel human. It sounds great. This show is in its second season and I hadn’t heard about it before. (Thank you Tiffany White for pointing out too many things for me to watch.) I watched the first couple of episodes of this season, and while I had no problems following along with the storylines, I didn’t fall in love with it. I think part of that failure isn’t the show itself, but because I hadn’t watched season 1. I think for most shows, that first season is critical for falling in love with the characters.

One show that I’ve heard nothing but great things about that I haven’t watched is Downton Abbey. The second season just aired and I know I can watch season 1 on Netflix, but because I didn’t do that before season 2 started, I feel like I’ll always be playing catch up. I’m not sure if I want to start it and continuously be behind everyone else.

It’s the time of year where networks start up some new shows as mid-season replacements. All of our favorites take breaks and new shows fill in. It’s a nice test market. Some of the new ones I’m going to try are Awake, Missing, and GCB.

Awake is about a man who is in a car accident. His mind creates two realities. In one, his wife survives, in the other, his son survives. He doesn’t know which one is real and he doesn’t care. He goes to bed with his wife alive and wakes up with his son alive. He doesn’t want to lose either, so it should be interesting to watch it unravel.

Missing stars Ashley Judd, who although she’s getting old, still looks great and takes on some awesome roles. In the show, she is a retired CIA agent who travels to Europe to track down her missing son. I love a kickass heroine and the fact that she’s a mom is even better.

GCB looks like brain candy. Nothing serious, fun fluff for relaxation. It’s about a former “Queen Bee” who returns to her hometown of Dallas after her divorce. She moves her two kids in with her mom and has to face everyone she tormented in high school.

Which shows are planning on tuning in for? Are there any you wished you’d watched and feel like you missed out on?

PS – If you want more information on any of these shows, I’m pretty sure Tiffany White has covered them in much greater depth. Check out her blog.