RomanceEverAfter

Romance Authors Corner

Selena Robins
www.selenarobins.com

SABRINA'S DESTINY
Winner - Treble Heart Best Book Contest
Winner - Reviewers Choice Award - Road to Romance

I'm a prolific reader; however, romance has always been my favorite for a temporary escape from the challenges of real life. It's pure entertainment, fantasy, and fairy tale adventures similar to what we enjoyed as children, but with a saucy grown up twist. 

Reading and writing romance offers that escape to a world filled with intriguing people, sparkling dialogue, fantasy musings, and a world most of us have never lived in. For the hours I'm reading and writing about these people and their lives, I not only become a part of it, but I enjoy the ride as either their creator or the reader.

What 3 things does the romance genre offer that no other category of fiction does?

The opportunity to showcase my work to a large audience -- approximately 50 plus million readers in North America alone read romance.

The genre has opened up to so many sub-genres which allows me to spin plots and characters that live in my head with romantic; suspense, time travel, paranormal, comedy, the list is endless, the happy ever after endings eternal. The genre has also found a strong niche in the single title market and is gaining momentum with male readers.

The romance genre has been a sensual liberation for people, especially women. As a romance writer the challenge which I welcome is to validate my characters' relationship and sensuality, in a way that a reader can identify with and at the same time keep the fantasy strong and interesting.

This could turn into a very long winded answer, because there are so many layers to the way I develop my characters.

I create characters that I myself really care about, that I would embrace in my family. People who intrigue me and arouse my curiosity. People who make me laugh; at times they may even cause me worry, just like the people in my real life.

Not all my characters are people that I would want to come face to face with in real life, because villains are necessary in some of my work. The villainous characters scare me and can bring me to tears with their behavior. However, even the bad guys have a positive side to them, which they don't show the world, and that is where I have to really pull out all my empathy to understand what makes them tick inside, what motivates them.

For all my characters, the good and the villains, I venture into their past, and empathize with the tragedies they've endured, and also celebrate their joys, and I don't condone the choices some of them have made, but, I do observe, research and understand why certain characters do good to overcome their past and why some are just plain nasty to overcome their past. When my characters elicit emotion from me, whether it's joy or fear, then I know I have nailed a fully dimensional character in the book.

Whether a character is loveable or one the reader wants to punish, I work at getting to know each one from the inside, and dig deep into their private world, their secret fantasies, their dark side, and get know how they view the world.

I work with my characters to discover how they'd react when life throws them a curve ball. For example: What would they do in a situation, if they knew for certain they would never get caught if they dipped their hand in the company till? I throw conflicts on top of conflicts in their path, to see how they handle the situation.

As a writer, when bringing the characters to life, I have to travel with them on their soul searching journey, which entails a journey of my own. I pull out the events in my own life that have helped shaped and influenced who I am, and then I do the same for my characters.

I write the heart wrenching scenes first, so I can get a feel for the character, understand how he feels when he's in deep agony or delirious with happiness. I put myself in the place where that character is at the moment, even if the character is in a lot of pain, I need to feel that pain, and if tears come to my eyes, then I know I've captured the character. 

There is a scene in Sabrina's Destiny, where she lashes out at Jason and hits his most vulnerable spot and hurts him deeply. That scene brought tears to my eyes. I knew her enough to know that when things get really tough for her, and she is hurting badly, that is exactly how she would handle the situation. Even though it's hard to write when in empathy mode, it's necessary, and that's when I know my character has really come to life.

I also let the characters come into their own as the story progresses. They are the story and the plot fits into their world, instead of trying to fit the characters into a plot.

Selena Robins -2 (Continue)