Update – Just thought I’d drop in and let everyone know I’ve recovered from my latest fall off the gaming wagon and am back on the productive track. I’m wrapping up a bit of paid work and have returned to work on the romance. I do that one in the mornings, longhand. Without the internet’s distractions I’ve been making some serious progress, with ideas for characters and plot twists hitting me so fast I can barely keep up. No urge to play games whatsoever. Looks like I made it through to the other side and should be okay. Until the next time. Here’s hoping the next time is many months from now. Or even never.
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While I’m here, allow me to impart a discovery I made about my writing habits. My current project is a shapeshifter romance, a resurrection of a story I started and abandoned several years ago. For reasons I’ll discuss next week, I need to change some settings and character names, as well as some characterization. In the course of reviving this ancient corpse, it suddenly struck me that some of my shifters, the coyotes in particular, all seem to talk and act alike. I’ve got one in the series that’s currently blocked, but I wrote enough to that story to realize he and the one I’m writing right now are basically interchangeable, even though they’re in two different stories with two vastly different settings and plots. Like the Klingons in the original Star Trek and the Ferengi in ST: The Next Generation, the coyote shifters have become my go-to stereotype.
Treating any homogenous group of beings in such fashion, like an overall set of quirks instead of as individuals, is not only lazy writing, it’s an insult to the readers and especially to the characters. Luckily I’m early enough in my current story that there’s still time to change course. The fragment I’m reworking was originally intended to be a simple M/F romance between a wolf shifter and a human woman, with the wolf’s coyote buddy as comedy relief. I’ve already decided to make the new version a threesome, so he’ll not only need to be a fully-rounded character, but one worthy of winning the woman’s affections. So what makes him stand out? What makes him different from any other coyote character I’ve written over the years?
Better characterization. And hidden layers. The coyote is a relative from an eastern pack; he’s been called to Wyoming to help the western branch of the fam in their turf war with another shifter species. (Fun fact: the subspecies known as the Eastern Coyote has been found to have wolf in its DNA, probably from interbreeding before farmers with guns wiped out the eastern wolf packs.) The coyote craziness my wolf-shifter hero can’t stand only shows on the surface. Underneath lurks a serious predator controlled by a trickster’s mind. There’s a good reason the western Alpha called him in to help and paired him up with the humorless, straight-arrow hero. Over the years the others characters have all bought in to my patented coyote stereotype. While everybody’s watching the wolf, the coyote will slip in under the radar and get the job done.
One trait I did retain from the stereotype was a coyote’s reputation as a horndog. Fortunately for my wolf hero, they’re not as sexually uptight as wolves and don’t mind sharing. Once my characters form their threesome, the wolf in this one will keep him faithful. My woman character’s dad was a Marine drill sergeant, so she’ll keep ’em both in line.
See? A little thought and a lot of effort will lead to a much better book. This is also why you should let a draft sit for a while before attempting revisions. Time makes the jarring notes jump out at you, as well as the overused tropes. You can teach an old dog, or coyote, or writer, new tricks. See you all next week.
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