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| In addition to being a great read with fabulously realistic characters, this book contains my favorite- ever angry sex scene! |
Lately I have been thinking a lot about realistic characters
in fiction, and about how much I enjoy that feeling when a writer’s depiction
of character is so precise that it surprises and delights. And this got me
thinking about a couple of my favorite writers, Jill Sorenson and Megan Hart.
I know they are working in different areas; Jill Sorenson
writes Romantic Suspense and Megan Hart is all across the board, though most
famous for her erotic novels. However, with both, in addition to penning compelling,
thrilling books that I love (and both are excellent at writing sex scenes) I always have the sense that they are writing about genuine
and very regular people as opposed to made up people, or people based on people
in books, which is a trap even the most excellent authors can easily fall into.
With both Sorenson and Hart, you feel like their characters could be out there
living real lives, grumbling about their cable bills. I’ll see a woman or man
on the street now and then and feel like there could be a Hart or Sorenson
novel about this person.
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| The characters in this book felt really unique, yet I could easily imagine them in the real world. Both Hart and Sorenson are masters of this. |
What makes a Hart or Sorenson character so achingly and wonderfully real? I have actually sat around thinking about this.
One
of the things I think is that I can look out at
American society (both of these authors tend to set books in the US, which is,
of course, where I live) and know where they fit in. I know what cultural, educational, socio-economic, family, and class
backgrounds these characters are coming from. I know roughly who they would have
been in high school, and I know if I would have been friends with them or who
they would have hung out with. I know whether they would shop at Target or
Wal-mart or Anthropologie or what. Not that these authors supply every little
bit of this information in a book, which would be a bore, but they supply
enough that I can fill in the rest, the way I might with a real person.
I doubt Sorenson or Hart set out thinking about all this - I think they're both talented and good at observation, but of course I have to analyze it, and it does seem like the familiarity part comes from cultural, educational, socio-economic, family, and class touchstones.
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| Delivers on sultry sexiness, & the most awesome teen characters. |
In addition to being situated in larger society with touchstones, their
characters aren’t types. This may seem like a contradiction, but it’s not.
Scratch the surface of anybody who appears to be “a type” and you always find a
wholly unique individual, and both Hart and Sorenson really seem to get this in
a cool writerly way.
In other words, these writers create characters who are unique, yet familiar. It's really quite a neat feat.
Another thing: both authors, who are white, have written
non-white characters and (to me) seem to have taken the time and care to have thoughtfully integrated what that
means into those characters’ worlds. Megan Hart’s NAKED features Olivia, who
has a white mother and a black father, and Jill Sorenson’s hero of SET THE DARK
ON FIRE is half Native American. I think it can be tempting to put in diversity
for diversity’s sake without taking the time to make those elements echo
through a character’s core. Sorenson and Hart take that time.
One of the characterization tricks I abuse is to have a
trusted secondary character deliver insights into a main character; it’s one of
my favorite ways to guide a reader’s thoughts. However, I’ve seen both Hart and
Sorenson do this great thing that goes a subtle step further where they have
their main character uncomfortably aware of conclusions (true or false) other
characters are drawing about them.
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| Sometimes this is my fave Hart book, but sometimes it's Dirty or Broken. |
I’m thinking of the opening of SET THE DARK ON FIRE by
Sorenson where our heroine, Shay, has this rare partying night out for her birthday, and
is unexpectedly called onto a special work assignment the next day, hung over
and a bit disheveled. She’s painfully aware of the conclusions the new cop
in town is drawing about her—in this case, he’s drawing wrong conclusions, but it
was so great for her characterization.
Luke wasn’t an easy man to read, but the look on his face just now had been clear enough. It was the same expression she wore when she saw leftover chocolate cake in the refrigerator.
Disgusted with herself for wanting it.
Or, there is this great scene in SWITCH by Hart where the
heroine Paige has moved into a fancy apartment complex (the most inexpensive
unit in it, though) and it’s a big step up from where she grew up. There is
this scene where she is highly aware of another woman in the lobby assessing
the cost and brand of her clothes. That keen awareness was so powerful for me
getting something essential about that character.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that both of these authors
give their characters—especially their heroines—really robust and detailed
family lives. Current family, past family. And the important thing is, those
families feel real, and have flaws, quirks, and strengths, and could really exist in the
world. Often, both the brokenness and the gifts of their families of origin contribute mightily to forming these realistic characters...just like real life people!
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| Looking feverishly forward to this one (late March) |
On the subject of family, I don’t know if it’s because I
don’t have kids, or because I haven’t been reading writers who do kids well,
but I rarely find characters' kids and younger siblings fascinating in books,
but wow, Sorenson’s teen secondary characters are so awesome! Not only with
strong, good plotlines on their own, but they add to the world, to the central
drama. She weaves them in so well.
I’m looking at what I’ve written here, and I think part of
the reason I’m focusing on it so much is that, okay, I know that, while my
characters are unique in their way, they tend to dwell inside the vacuum of
the book, and not have the touchstones that make them both unique and familiar. I’m not
being self critical, really, I mean, urban fantasy characters (and to some extent, paranormal romance characters) dwell in the hierarchy of a
supernatural society as well as a human society, so, placing them in a precise
way within a larger human society is not traditionally a priority, though there
are exceptions. Vicki Pettersson’s Joanna Archer and even Sookie Stackhouse
come to mind.
But I love how it feels to read about a real-seeming
character, and so I guess I’m thinking about that this morning, and trying to
learn something from it for future books.
More info: visit Jill Sorenson's site or Megan Hart's site
More info: visit Jill Sorenson's site or Megan Hart's site
Broken by Megan Hart I just finished this last night, further establishing Hart as one of my all-time favorite writers. I kept saying over and over how this book is so compelling. That is the ultimate word for it. I mean, I thought about it all the time when I wasn't reading it. I just wanted to be reading it. It's one of those stories that flips around a bit, and every facet was gripping. I loved reading this book. 
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