Sonja Foust, Romance Author

It’s the thing that holds a book together or causes it to fall apart. It’s the thing that writers will tell you is the essential piece to making your characters realistic. In my opinion, it’s one of the hardest things in the world to get right.

It’s motivation.

“Excuse me, excuse me. What’s MY motivation?” The characters in your books (not unlike those high-maintenance diva-like actors) need motivation in order to be true and convincing. We need to know what’s causing them to be happy, or seek revenge, or act petty, or have sex.

Some motivations are simple: I am hungry, therefore, I will eat my supper.

Some motivations are not simple, and those are the ones with which I am most concerned. Let me give you an example from real life. (more…)

Alright, I admit it: I love alpha heroes. I write alpha heroes, so how could I not love them? Yes, they can be overbearing, yes they can be harsh, but they have so many good qualities that I just can’t help wanting to read about them.

In order to defend alpha heroes, though, I’m going to have to define them. When you think of alpha heroes, think of the most powerful member (pun intended, hurhur) in a pack: fiercely protective, seemingly aloof, and unquestionably in charge. Take any of those qualities and apply them to a hero and you’ve got one I’ll probably want to read. (more…)

I have big news! I’ve sold Shooting Stars to Whiskey Creek Press! Just signed the contract today, so I don’t have any details other than that, but you can be sure I’ll be keeping you in the know about my release date and official information.

Shooting Stars is definitely a book of my heart, and I’m so glad to have placed it. It’s about a former Hollywood A-lister who’s now living a reclusive life in Wyoming and the ambitious lady paparazzo who ends up in his helicopter on an ill-fated vacation. He’s rich and powerful and she’s smart and spunky, and it was just such great fun to write. This will be my first published full-length novel, so that’s another exciting aspect of this whole deal!

Did I mention I’m excited?

Here’s the banner I did for it when I was writing the draft for NaNoWriMo 2007:

In the fiction writing world, we tend to divide ourselves up into two distinct groups: the plotters and the pantsers. The plotters, well, plot. They outline, they plan, they do all the anal-retentive things you might expect. The pantsers write by the seat of their pants, hence the term. They often say, “If I know how the book ends, I’m not interested in writing it anymore.”

Nanowrimo cometh. Inherently, Nanowrimo tends to foster the pantsing school of thought. Chris Baty’s guide to all things Nanowrimo is even called No Plot? No Problem! It’s a great book, and pantsing really does work for some people… but not all of us.

I am, by nature, a plotter. I plan pretty much every aspect of my life, including what I write. That’s not to say that everything always goes according to plan, but I’m paralyzed without some idea of where to go and what to do. So how do I swing Nanowrimo?

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Part of the magic of writing is that every writer’s process is different. I love hearing about how other writers write, and in that spirit, I’m going to share one of my tools for writing: book sheets.

Lately, I’ve been building these in Scrivener, but a Word document would work well, too. Here’s the general information I always include:

For the hero and heroine, each:

• Picture- I like using iStockphoto if I don’t have a public figure already in mind. I create a lightbox for each book where I collect images of the characters, especially the heroine and hero.
• Name- I used to stress a whole lot about the name. Now if a name doesn’t present itself immediately, I wait until I’ve figured out the families, then just name them what their parents would have named them. Much easier than looking up name meanings and etymologies (although sometimes not as fun).
• Short tags- A tiny description of the character, usually only one or two phrases long.

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