I needed a break from the revisions on this book I am trying to finish, so I left my computer in another room and watched While You Were Sleeping with my family.  I first saw this wonderful movie on an airplane and embarrassed myself by crying all the way through it.  I’ve seen it maybe ten or more times, and I cry every single time.  (So does Mr. R, by the way.) Lucy is such a fantastic character and she’s so good with Peter’s family.  She’s lonely and needs them – and they need her.  Jack is perfect as a hero – funny, vulnerable, honorable.  Their HEA is just perfect.

But while Lucy and Jack are fantastic, what really makes this movie great is the secondary characters – the Callahans and Saul, Lucy’s boss, and the irrepressible Joe, Jr.  They bring humor and heart.   They balance this movie.

Secondary characters are an important part of my enjoyment of a book or movie.  When I’m planning my own books, I spend a lot of time thinking about the people that balance the hero and heroine.  Who are they?  Are they good, bad, funny, serious?

Here are some of my favorite secondary characters:
- JD Robb’s IN DEATH series – Mavis Freestone and Peabody
- Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation – the whole town, but especially Dillie (the hero’s daughter)
- Judith McNaught’s Almost Heaven – Bentner, the butler who’s read too many crime novels and keeps trying to poison Ian (the hero)
- Tolkien’s LOTR – Sam Gamgee
- Return to Me (movie) – Megan and Joe (Bonnie Hunt and Jim Belushi), plus all the old men who play cards
- The Closer (TV) – Lt. Provenza (the older guy)
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV) – Angel (duh), but Willow and Giles are faves, too

Who are your favorite secondary characters?  Tell me who and why!  Pick from books, movies, TV.  I’ll pick one poster at random to win a copy of my newest hardcover I CAN SEE YOU!

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I don’t know who this dude is. I don’t even know if he’s a real boxer or an actor. But I have to admit he LOOKS like a boxer.

And I like that. I like that a lot.

What do you guys think? Does our FROS look like a boxer? Or do you think he’s an actor? And do we even care?

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Okay, so I guess you’ve figured out in this two-parter post that I like music a bit. I own over 400 CDs, not counting stuff on Itunes. But I’ve discovered that not everyone has a stereo in every room, or plays music while doing just about anything.

I’m so music-focused that lately I’ve been putting together soundtracks for writing. They’re mostly taken from soundtrack and instrumental Celtic music (entitled “Happy,” “Dramatic,” “Pensive,” “Dance,” and “Love Scene”). Then there are groups of book-specific songs, which I listen to while “warming up” to write (i.e., playing a few games of freecell). For Wed Him Before You Bed Him, it was Fiona Apple’s “Criminal,” Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” Sugababes’ “Too Lost in You,” and other assorted songs. For Stoneville’s book, it was Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life,” Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing,” The Pointer Sisters’ “Fire,” among others.

So here’s a short quiz to find out how music-obsessed you are.

A) Which of the following would you do while listening to music?

1. Surfing the net
2. Bathing
3. Making love (if that’s too personal a question, skip it–I’m just nosy)
4. Writing (if you’re a writer)
5. Relaxing
6. Cooking

B) How many albums/CDs do you own?

C) Do you use Itunes or something like it?

D) Do you and your hubby/family/best friend have a “song” that’s just yours?

E) How many music players (Ipod, stereo, CD player, etc.) do you own, not counting the one in your car?

F) How many live concerts have you been to in your life?

G) If you had to pick a soundtrack for your life, what five songs would it include?

Everyone who answers will be entered in a drawing to win an autographed copy of the recent reissue of my book, The Forbidden Lord!

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I like ballads, the kind that go back a century or two (or three). The kind that tell stories. To be honest, our historical romance plots owe a LOT to traditional ballads. Check out “Willie of Winsbury,” where the king comes home to find his daughter pregnant by his serving man, but the serving man turns out to be a rich man himself, who only pretended to be a serving man because he fell in love with the king’s daughter.

And those cross-dressing heroines? There’s “Sovay,” who dresses as a highwayman and robs her true love to see if he would hand over the ring she’d given him. When he refuses, she knows he’s faithful. Or the many versions of “William Taylor,” where Willie is impressed and taken to sea. His true love dresses as a sailor and goes to sea looking for him, but her disguise is uncovered by her captain, who tells her that Willie has married another while away. So she finds Willie and shoots him dead. In some versions, the captain marries her. In others, he makes her “the chief commander of a ship and a hundred men” as a reward for her shooting Willie. I like both versions, myself!

There’s a couple of truly macabre ones, too, for you suspense writers. Like the many versions of “The Cruel Sister,” where one sister drowns the other, either to gain a man’s love or to gain their mother’s love. Some men who find the body make a harp out of it (the ballad goes into great detail about how that’s done).  In some versions, the crime is discovered when the harp plays a song about how she was drowned. Then there’s “The Cruel Mother” (lots of cruelty going around in ballads) who kills her babies to hide her illegitimate pregnancy so she can marry, but the children appear at her wedding to haunt her.

As you can see, some of these end happily … some of them, not so much. I eat them up. I don’t know why. Probably because I grew up listening to folk music, which taps a lot of old ballads. I think they’re a lot like the really old fairy tales, which aren’t nearly as “nice” as Disney makes them out to be. Look at “Bluebeard”–they won’t be making a Disney movie out of THAT anytime soon.

So do you like ballads? Or any song that tells a story, recent or old? Do you have any favorites to share? What about old fairy tales? Tell me some of your favorites that are off the beaten path. I’m in the mood for drama and neat twists of fate!

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New York Times Bestselling Author Brenda Novak has three novels coming out this summer—The Perfect Couple, The Perfect Liar and The Perfect Murder, all part of her popular Last Stand Series. She also runs an annual on-line auction for diabetes research every May at www.brendanovak.com. To date, she’s raised over $770,000. Brenda considers herself lucky to be a mother of five and married to the love of her life.

When I attended the RWA National conference in Washington DC last month, I heard New York Times Bestselling Author Susan Elizabeth Phillips say a writer needs to find her “core story.” From the context of her talk, I took this to mean that each writer needs to find the theme that really resonates with her, that by doing this her story will become deeper and more meaningful.

That got me thinking. I write suspense. What is my core story? Is it about the murder and mayhem in my books? No. Not any more than romance is all about the sex.

To be honest, I hadn’t quite decided how to define my core story until I received a nasty e-mail from someone who was quite put off by the actions of the villain in The Perfect Couple (I have to admit, Colin Bell is probably one of the most frightening villains I’ve ever written or read about—although Kalyna Harter in The Perfect Liar runs a close second). This disgruntled “reader” went on to say that suspense authors are basically sell-outs and blamed my publisher for corrupting me, since I used to write stories that were much more to her liking (translated: sweet with no diabolical villain). It was tempting to educate her on the differences between the genres and how covers signal that difference, but I digress. Her harsh criticism really made me stop and evaluate—why do I write suspense? What is my message?

And then it hit me. My core story is about survival and endurance and championing over all odds (no matter how daunting or terrifying). Bad people do bad things and good people have to figure out how to survive and overcome them. I believe it’s possible. I like the determination I feel when good and evil go to battle. I believe good will eventually conquer and love to see it played out on the page. I also love redemption themes.

What about you? What themes are you most attracted to? And which books best exemplify those themes? One lucky visitor will receive an autographed copy of The Perfect Couple and another will receive an autographed copy of The Perfect Liar, which is just out this week!

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Well, it’s nearly September, so I suppose we can call this the end of summer. Which means I can do my end-of-summer movie wrap-up.

What I Didn’t See
Unfortunately, with deadlines and what sometimes seemed like three days during which some movies came and went, I missed some of them. The one I really wanted to see that I didn’t was Up. And Monsters vs. Aliens. And after reading the awful reviews, I missed Land of the Lost as well. I didn’t even make it to Public Enemies, because if I had, my October 27th book wouldn’t be out until sometime next year.

What I Did See
Here I’ll stick with naming what I think were the best movies this summer (excluding the ones I didn’t see and therefore can’t judge). First of all, the new Star Trek. I was ready to hate it, because I’m a Trekkie from way back. But what a brilliant way to re-energize a franchise without stepping on all the stories that’ve already happened.

District 9 – I didn’t even know this was coming out. And generally I stay away from movies in the summertime that might make me think too hard. But even though it was very bloody and started out with an unlikeable hero, I have to give District 9 a big thumbs up.

G.I. Joe – Okay, I confess I went because there’s a cameo from a certain Mummy fighter, and because of Dennis Quaid. But it was fun. And I didn’t have to think at all, which is a bonus.

Inglourious Basterds – I am NOT a Quentin Tarantino fan. Not, not, not. But I have to confess, I really liked this movie. I went because I do like WWII movies, and because the reviews have been good. Again, very bloody, but I actually laughed out loud a couple of times, and cringed a couple of times both at the violence and the tension. Oh, and Michael Fassbender’s in it. He was Stelios (“then we shall fight in the shade”) in 300.

What did you see? What did you miss that you wanted to see? And what did you see that you wish you hadn’t?

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Author’s note: Before I begin today’s blog, I’d like to announce that THE LAIRD WHO LOVED ME, the final MacLean Curse book, will be released today. I now return you to your previously scheduled blog.

I have the best brother in the world. For one thing, he’s a sweetie — kind, generous, and darn funny. For another thing, he’s a total computer guy and yet he reads tgb and has been sending me some very interesting ideas for my blogs. In fact, here’s one he sent me the other day.

***************
Karen,

For your blog — I saw this in Scientific American, thought it was both hilarious and scary… (I’m paraphrasing…)

In November, 2008, a woman filed papers for divorce on the grounds that she “caught” her husband’s “Second Life” avatar being “overly affectionate” with someone else’s avatar. The Husband countered that his wife drove him to virtual infidelity because of her addition to World of Warcraft.

If you didn’t know, an Avatar is a “virtual digital character” that people use in on-line “environments” like Second Life. In these environments, they direct their character, interact with others, and apparently, even have simulated sex with other avatars.

Lots of threads …

Roy
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Out of curiosity, I googled Second Life avatars and oh-my-gosh, are those things SEXY. It’s apparently a world of scantily clad, busty and gorgeous avatar women mingling with some very-Gaston-looking men. And all these pretend people do is leer sexily at one another while attending pretend ‘real life’ events in their Second Life lives — they go to movies, listen to bands, shop at the mall, go to dinner, and even raise money for charity.

To me, the noob (that’s ‘newbie’ to you non-techs out there in the audience), the whole thing just boggles the mind.

And THEN, I found this:

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This week Kristina Dell published an article in Time Magazine (How Second Life Affects Real Life) that explores how the attractiveness of her avatar influences how she behaves when not immersed in the Second Life virtual world. She references Jeremy Bailenson, head of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University where he is an assistant professor of communication studying the way self perception within virtual realms affects behavior.
**********

Did you get that? There’s a frickin’ Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Standford U, peeps. A LAB. And there are full time professors studying things like oh, how your WOW wizard’s complex spell levels helps you become the super accountant at Fred Murray’s Accounting and Dance Emporium.

I’m dazzled. Intrigued. And afraid. I’m afraid I could really get into this and I’d never write another word again. It could happen. I almost fell off that cliff when I subscribed to netflix.

Tell me, you hip people of the real world, do you play World of Warcraft or Second Life? Do you know someone who does? Do you think it would be cheating if your husband’s or boyfriend’s avatar had an online relationship with the sexy avatar I’ve used as an example here? Would that be grounds for divorce? What do you think about this ‘immerse yourself in a second skin’ sort of game playing? Do you think it’s good for our egos? Or is it a modern-day Pandora’s Box?

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