Difficult characters

The most frequent comment I see about myself is that I write geeky heroes. True, up to a point. A lot of my more recent heroes have been of the nerdy beta variety. But my first hero, Edward Greyson (Grey) of The Light in the Darkness, was quite different. One reviewer called him "the most alpha hero I've ever come across" (and she didn't mean it as a compliment!), but really, he wasn't so much alpha as he was a tortured hero. His pain made him a selfish bastard who could be outright cruel to the people around him.

Aside from writing beta heroes, my other oddity is that I enjoy writing bitchy or bastardy (is that a word? and if not, why not?) characters. Drew from All I Ever Wanted is frequently criticized for being too big a snob, and kind of bitchy to boot. Cordelia Ashton of Love Remembered is also snobbish (to be fair, she lived in a time when people were much more conscious of class distinctions), and deliberately bitchy-- that one was my "taming of the shrew" story, and she is indeed pretty shrewish. And Grey still stands as my all-time most obnoxious character. I wrote him as he came into my head, but I didn't particularly like him, and I think every geeky male character that came after is a subconscious response to him.

Still, I do like writing difficult characters, and I may try another hardcore alpha, tortured male at some point.