Head on over to Facebook 4-7 June as we celebrate Erica Taylor's release of A SUITABLE AFFAIR. It's going to be a HUGE party, with thirteen fabulous writers chatting online, giving away fabulous stuff, and generally shooting the breeze about our favourite topic - romance writing!
Want to stand a chance to win a copy of 'THE HUNT', or an Amazon gift voucher? I'm up on Monday 5 June, 13:00-14:15 CST/20:00-21:15 CAT. I'll also be talking about vampires and werewolves on the screen and in the pages, sharing with you some of the songs that played a big inspiration, and other random romance writing bits and pieces, including some exciting news. Would love to see you there! Here's the link to join: Learn more about A SUITABLE AFFAIR at Erica's website: http://www.ericataylorauthor.com/
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There are certain things we can agree on when it comes to leading men - hot, strong, and a take-charge attitude. Or maybe that's just my requirements.
In most romances, we want billionaires, sports heroes, CEOs. Alpha males doing their alpha male thang. But what wouldn't you want your romantic hero to be spending his work hours doing? The following ten occupations might cause you to pause and consider, then again, maybe one of these leading men will be the next-best-thing in romantic fiction? 1) Elephant dung inspector at the local zoo 2) The guy in middle management with action figurines on his desk, who specialises in office drinks’ walrus impersonations 3) Jock strap launderer for the local football club 4) Crime scene clean-up man who keeps his blood solvent in a plastic bucket on his back seat 5) Dr Evil’s henchman. High chance of death on the job, limited benefits, irregular hours, obscure requests for sharks in the middle of the night and a predilection for all black attire. 6) Denture glue tester. Snap, crackle and pop. 7) The male beautician who specialises in back, sack and crack. 8) The guy who cleans the bell in the church tower. Sorry, what? 9) Kim Kardashian’s purse holder, umbrella holder, little tiny dog holder, and lift opener. 10) Dandruff product expert who spends his days inspecting flake thickness, severity and shoulder scurf patterns oh, and I have to add one more Pretty sure there's worse out there. What’s your stripper name? Smudge Chappell? Rocky Smythe? Not bad as a pseudonym, a nom-de-plume, an assumed alias, but do authors still even need them? More to the point, do women authors still need them?
Emily Bronte wrote under the name Ellis Bell. Women didn’t write novels. Men did. And if a woman did write novels she was assumed to be looked on with ‘prejudice’. Sadly, Emily you’d find the twenty-first century remarkably similar. J.K. Rowling is not Joanne Rowling as the publishers thought that her fantasy novels would be better received by a male or ‘ambiguous’ author. So J.K. Rowling it is. Nora Roberts writes under the name J.D. Robb for her fantasy novels (noticing a pattern here). Alice Bradley Sheldon is James Tiptree Jr, Mary Ann Evans is George Eliot, and Louisa May Alcott is A.M. Barnard. What about the converse? Stephen King wrote as Richard Bachmann when his writer crises of confidence had him considering his publishing success a ‘fluke’. But he remains a ‘male voice’ with both names. Some male authors choose gender neutral initials, such as Steve Watson who is S.J. Watson, particularly if their readership is predominantly women. Women tend to read women writers. But all in all, it’s women writers who choose male pseudonyms to actively engage male readership. So, yes, it would seem it’s still necessary to have pseudonyms of some kind to mask gender prejudices, particularly, it would seem, in the science fiction/fantasy genres. But what about for subjects like erotica? These tend to be for women by women, although the male/male market is currently booming (I’m curious to see who the readership is). I’ve been debating with my latest book whether or not to use those ambiguous initials, a pseudonym, or my author name. I know a lot of erotica writers, but the norm is to hide behind an assumed name, no doubt to protect the writer from sideways glances, raised eyebrows, and indeed ‘prejudice’. As one writer noted, no-one assumes that the aforementioned Stephen King is killing kids disguised as a clown, or setting out rabid dogs on a mother and her child locked into a car. But write a sex scene that involves a little kink, and the assumption is that the author spends most of his/her time hanging out at sex clubs. I’d like to point out that if this were true, precious little writing would be done. Sad that scenes of extreme violence, blood, gore and the like are far more acceptable than scenes of unbridled female sexuality. A woman in charge of her sexuality is so threatening, so terrifying, so powerful that the writer thereof has to hide behind an assumed name. Unless she’s French, like Anais Nin. Side note - notice how the media is banging on and on and on and on about Emmanuel Macron’s much older wife. FFS. But I digress. Pseudonyms, although still about gender prejudice, are also about writers expanding their writerly skills across genres. Famous literary authors writing pulp fiction under assumed aliases (that ‘prejudice’ might also include that which is perceived as ‘real’ writing versus commercial writing etc). So now a writer can write YA under one name, romance under another, medical detective series under another, and still let each audience know that it is the original author’s pseudonym… so Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb. Alright. Whatever. One publisher suggested I have a pseudonym for each different genre, together with different websites, different FB pages, different Twitter feeds to manage each different ‘voice’. Clearly she also has Hermione’s nifty time-travelling device (and if so, I can think of other better uses, ditto Hermione and those additional classes). Three or four additional author pages to manage? I so think not. For other authors, changing their author name to a pseudonym is an imperative. Poor sales, tons of bad reviews, or reputational issues might require an author to consider a nom-de-plume to reboot their career in another direction. Or they need protection from whichever group they’ve revealed in their tell-all expose, and need to remain in cognito, baby. I have no idea what’s the answer to this. But I do tinker about with the stripper, porn star, Christmas elf name generators to consider various aliases. Just in case. ‘His Forbidden Pleasures’ by Twinkle-toes Jenkins, has a certain ring, don’t you think? *With thanks to Tom Robbins I rather love Xanadu, that cheesy roller-skating turkey starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. Olivia’s character is a muse who’s beamed down from Mount Olympus or somewhere (to ELO’s I’m Alive), to provide artistic inspiration for her future love interest, some random arb in tight pants who clutches a paintbrush…a lot. (But then opens a nightclub, baffling). It’s a neat thought, isn’t it? That a muse might pop down to shower inspiration and high kicks and singing. But I’ve yet to have a visit. Or an email. Or even a whispered hint. Where do you get your inspiration, is a question I hear often. Answer: Not Olivia Newton-John. Or any of her muse sisters (maybe their adventures would have been Xanadu 2, Xanadu 3-D, etc). If she were to knock on my door, I’d spend far more time asking whyohywhy she felt the need to do Two of a Kind, was it perhaps the money, dear, hmmm? But oddly enough, I do think it might have something to do with visitors from Mount Olympus or the ether or those subconscious recesses that thriller writers plumb so regularly. I think writers or artists or any kind of creative (this includes accountants, physicists, researchers, bus drivers and anyone on the planet, for that matter), they have to find their own magic. And by magic, I don’t mean day trips to Hogwarts. Three steps to finding your inspiration mojo magic: 1) Get out there. Have an adventure. Go somewhere different - start small, a coffee shop, a different route to work, find out where the hell Alberton actually is. Let your instincts take over. Learn to listen to your self. Be open, be marvelled, be the five-year old you who still exists. Do this regularly. Let it become habit. Start listening to you. 2) Still consuming everyone else’s magic day in and day out? Turn off the TV, switch off the mobile, turn down the radio. If you’re quiet, you’ll be able to hear your magic calling to you. And even then, it might take time. But it’s calling. Snippets of dialogue, a character, a setting, a what if. Believe me when I say, and other writers know what I’m talking about, stories will find you. But they can only find you, if you’re listening for them. 3) Allow the writing to work its way through you. Anytime I’ve tried to write, or have had a deadline or needed the money, anything that involved my thinking, actively thinking, a mess occurred on the page. The result? Stilted, stuck, and turgid. But, if I get quiet, and let whatever wants to happen, happen, and get my head out of the way, stranger things turn my world upside-down. Characters start to do things I least expect, things happen that I didn’t plan in my fourteen-points-to-plotting-success, and the words feel like I’m downloading them…catching them, and then dutifully transcribing them. If I start questioning, the words trickle, if I let it be, they flow forth. Have to believe we are magic, Olivia sings. Notice it said ‘we’. We are magic. That’s where inspiration starts. * I wrote this almost eight years ago. I’ve read all of the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse novels, and loved them up to about book eight. As for the TV series, Joe Magna-man-ello kept my interest to season five, and then I gave up. As for Twilight, I don’t get it. Just don’t get it. My sister vowed that it would change my life. Not regular gym outings or learning how to program the VCR, but reading the Twilight series of novels. She handed me her copies with the prophecy, “You are going to just love these. The longing, the yearning, the passion... the best romantic novels ever.” I’m always wary when someone feels the need to reassure me that I am just going to love something. That’s the reason most of my blind dates have failed. Nevertheless, I allocated some spare time, curled up on my duvet and was prepared to be blown away by the passionate love of Bella and Edward. Or not. Is it really necessary for the author to continually point out how incredibly hot Edward is? Pages and pages of Bella’s gawping at this demi-God. We get it. Now move on please. And what is so great about having a boyfriend who’s dead? Cold dead? Descriptions about her brushing her cheek against his cold one? Brrr. To imagine any further kind of bodily contact, oh hell no. Bad enough if someone puts his cold toes anywhere near mine, let alone cold anything else. The love affair seems pointless, creepy even – she’ll age, he’ll remain hot, she’ll have to go to college, he’ll remain stuck at school over and over again, she’s deadly dull, he’s marginally less so, and so on and so forth. Then there’s the whole thing about how he really wants to suck her blood. Hmm. Euphemism anyone? The key angst in the books revolves around Edward’s supernatural strength in holding back from devouring Bella. As he struggles to control his physical urges (apparently Bella’s blood is particularly alluring to our young sucker), so the angst levels increase, and with that the teenage kitchen sink dramas play out. Just bite her goddamn it, I feel like screaming, Get it over with! Now I’ve nothing against vampire stories. As a young teen I was fascinated by Gary Oldman’s splitting open his chest to allow the pre-shoplifting days Winona Ryder a hefty swig in Coppola’s take on the Dracula story. Interview with a Vampire was even better - Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas. Vampires were scary, but sexy as hell. But for all of its allusions to sex, Twilight is more sex-lite. More teen dream than teen scream. Where had the sleazy vampires gone to? Slogging through the third in the Twilight saga, I was alerted to the twangs of Jace Everett that heralded the beginning of True Blood. Now this is more my kind of vampire story. Set in the deep South, Sookie, the telepathic waitress has fallen in love with Bill, the mainstreaming vampire. Vampires have come out into the open since the introduction of synthetic blood, but this is the South, and prejudice and bigotry lie alongside the uneasy truce between vampires and humans. Yet, unlike Bella and Edward, Bill’s not about to model for Italian Vogue anytime soon. He hangs with other vampires who frequent dodgy vampire bars with names like Fangtasia, and is always on hand to protect his Sookie who is always dressed in virginal white. Corny? Oh yes, but it gets better. Whereas the pull with Twilight is the lack of sex, in True Blood the sleaze-o-meter runs high. Fang bangers cruise around picking up vampires to have sex with, or to donate blood or both. And someone’s picking them off one by one, deepening the divide of mistrust. Where Twilight dodges the issue of feeding, True Blood bares its teeth so to speak. Even the supporting cast have more bite. There’s Sookie’s manwhore older brother Jason whose becoming addicted to ‘V’ – vampire blood that gives mortals the high of their lives. The best friend Tara, a foul mouthed, straight-talking, adult child of an alcoholic whose supposed lack of social skills keep her from further emotional pain. And then there’s Sam, in love with Sookie, shagging Tara, and want to transform into a dog to protect his beloved from her vampire boyfriend. I don’t think we’ll see Jacob the werewolf shacking up with any of Bella’s good mates anytime soon. Oh wait, hang on, that’s right, Bella doesn’t really have any human friends, only vampire ones. No, I don’t think the Twilight series will change my life, except perhaps to think twice about following abnormally beautiful women tour guides around Italy. I will be watching the next movie in the series though. As the author keeps pointing out, the guy who plays Edward is like, really hot, and that might just sustain my attention long enough to find out what happens next. For a brief period in 1989, English class was my favourite favourite. Why? Because we were doing Jane Eyre, a novel that hadn’t quite captured my attention, probably because I hadn’t much bothered to read it. Every week, during one of the lessons, we’d head off to the AV room, a dank, dingy wannabee-amphitheatre that stank of damp and mouldy furnishings. Mrs. Douglas had unearthed the 1983 BBC version for our viewing pleasure. So far, so dull. And then, he roared onto the screen, knocking over the erstwhile Jane with his blazing horsemanship. Mr. Rochester. Or, more to the point, Timothy Dalton. And my little schoolgirl heart flutter-fluttered. I dashed home, and finished Jane Eyre. The whole thing in one go. Twas not the first time I’d encountered that Welsh lilt, those narrowed green eyes, that dark, sleek hair. Ohno. A Flash Gordon fan of note, I remembered him in his green spandex suit as he faced off against blondie on a revolving, spiky turntable suspended over thin air, got jerked about by that bitch-emperor’s daughter (I would have been so much nicer), and challenged Ming the Merciless for his throne. My Prince Barin had shown up in English class. The gods were clearly smiling. Every Tuesday, I think it was a Tuesday, I got to watch my crush up on that plastered screen, as the romance played out. (Tip: maybe if Mrs. D had mentioned it was a romance, I would have actually read it first). I imagined I was Jane. Heck, I wished I was Jane. Me, in my billowing skirt, having my palm read by TIMOTHY DALTON, being wooed in Thornfield Hall’s grounds by TIMOTHY DALTON, me getting married to TIMOTHY DALTON. I do acknowledge that the whole bit about the wife-in-the-attic got me a little upset. When Jane vanishes off into the night, leaving him, leaving TIMOTHY DALTON, I was yelling inwardly, turn back, turn back. (With the hindsight of experience, blah, blah, blah, I would never suggest such a thing now. I’d help her pack, and hand her the name of an excellent therapist.) And then of course, he was Bond too. Swoon. You’d think that the years would cool this ardour. You would, wouldn’t you? I had other crushes. Crushes that will remain nameless. Crushes of the what-the-hell-were-you-thinking kind. But not our Timothy. Ohno. “Have you watched Penny Dreadful?”, was the question. “No/I’ll get round to it/Just now”, was my response. But, had someone asked this, “Have you watched Penny Dreadful? It’s got Timothy Dalton in it”, I would have bargained away my soul to get my hands on a copy. And he’s seventy-ish. Seventy-ish. I love that series. It’s got TIMOTHY DALTON in it. And witches, and werewolves and Frankenstein and his monster - really, go watch that series. Why do I mention this schoolgirl crush that seems to have persisted? Well, turns out it’s his birthday today. Happy birthday Timothy (I wonder if he’s a Tim or a Timmy? Happy birthday our Timmy? Nah.) If it wasn’t for you I doubt I’d have read Jane Eyre more than once over the years. During that time, the words, that relationship has shaped my idea of romance. See teachers, dragging us off to watch the movie can sometimes be a good thing. I don’t set goals anymore. Haven’t for years. Instead, I tend to work towards what feels right, find the flow, and go from there. So far it seems to be working. This year, I had a couple of projects I wanted to finish, the first of them was an erotic short. For something that was supposed to be a ‘quickie’, it’s morphed and moulded into something longer, more complex, and, what-do-you-know, my ‘disposable’ character has decided to have her own voice, own story and own character arc. I’m not so much writing this novel, as ambling about with words and structure, and seeing what happens. It’s taking way much longer than I thought. That’s okay, because… … there’s this little ‘project’ which appeared from nowhere. Well, not nowhere. It appeared from a deeply excavated pain-logged crag. The girl in the red raincoat. It’s not erotic. It’s not romance. It’s not a novel. I’m not sure what it is. The girl in the red raincoat. This title certainly has to be changed, because it makes me think of Daphne Du Maurier’s most excellent, spine-chilling short story, ‘Don’t Look Now’, and it’s equally compellingly brilliant screen adaption. That the ‘girl in the red raincoat’ should never, ever have been followed in that particular story does occasionally occur to me, but this one’s different. For one thing, she’s been speaking to me in pictures.
There’s a narrative, yes, but I have no idea how it resolves, or how it ends. But I do know that the more I sit down and draw, the more the story starts to reveal itself, one picture at a time. It’s not a pretty story. But it’s mine. If I’d stuck to my goals, and mapped my timelines, I’m not sure she would have come to find me. I’m not sure that my erotica character would have started speaking to me either. I’d have been too focused on my goals, my goals, my goals, first-quarter-nearly-done, what-have-I-to-show-for-it in completed work, word count, pages scrawled, outlines completed. No space for creativity to get in the cracks. Ah, but look what’s happening when I let the whole thing go. Okay, so this is a rant. Warning or whatever.
I keep reading manuscripts with sentences that read as follows: “His answers were not as acceptable as what his are.” This passed muster. Really, why? Should it not read, “his answers were not as acceptable as his”? End of story, or to use the vernacular ‘finish en klaar’. And then I see an advert pasted bold as Donald Trump’s exhorts to reach out for feline euphemisms - “I am a English editor”. I stared at that line, and stared. The next paragraph explained that said editor was also an Afrikaans editor. Never would have guessed. Would I trust an ‘editor’ who fails to use ‘an’ rather than ‘a’ in front of a vowel sound? No, decidedly not. But, it’s becoming common practice to just sommer write English, warts and all, then hand it to someone equally unversed to ‘clean it up’. I’ve had my corrections incorrectly corrected - “three rooms were on on offer”, to now read “three room’s was on offer”. I’m sorry, but, WTF? Yes, we all know that social media is rife with no punctuation, limited grammar, and incorrectly chosen homophones. Don't know about you, but there are an awful lot of people who are ‘exited’ out there. Probably after there/they’re amazing ‘desert’. But I’m talking about people who claim themselves to be ‘writers’, ‘authors’, ‘wordsmiths’, even ‘editors’ and ‘publishers’. In English. Does standard English matter? There are any number of erudite English second or third language speakers who put native warblers to shame. What about everybody else? If you’re going to publish in English, particularly to an international audience, and let’s face it, that’s where you’re going to want to be marketing your books, then your English best be ‘standardised’. That means, in lay terms, that an English speaker in Sydney, Cornwall, Paris and Tokyo can understand, thanks to the rules of grammar and syntax, what it is you’re trying to say. As simply as possible. Yes, but we speak Seffrican English Ja, we do. When it comes to dialogue, well, there’s an opportunity to go wild with your South African dialect. Gooi in as many jas and ag nee mans as you like. We go kueir in our bakkies, stopping at robots on the way to have a quick dop or two. Is it? S’truth. We’re gonna be there just now, just now, hey?. It’s English, ja, but like the way Souff Efffrikens speak it. Flet eksent and all. But, shit me, can the rest of the sentence be grammatically sound? Go read some Lauren Beukes Zoo City…did you spot the grammatical eff-ups in the prose? Me neither. That’s what editors are for… Sure, you’re a writer not an editor. But as a writer, don't you want to get the most out of your basic building blocks? Words, sentences, paragraphs? How they use rhythm and rhyme to create pace? And yet, I’ve read author bios, blurbs, web copy, and extracts from self-published works that are riddled in errors. Riddled. “She rattled off two bullets in quick concession.” FML. A chronic case of grammaritis. And I’m not talking innocent typos here. Heck, those happen to all of us. Yes, I know some people don't mind, they’re more interested in the ‘story’. But I think it smacks of a certain arrogance to not bother. To consider yourself above the rules of the language. Particularly when the carelessness displayed is not confused with a clever adaption of the language. It’s just sheer shoddiness. Sure, lots of your readers won’t care, lots will though… But English keeps changing… So the question I posed my BEd students was: which is more important - conforming to a set of rules about the English language or accommodating pupils who come from a varied language background that doesn't include English as a first language. Both. Hence the reason that particular course was compulsory. The sad reality is that English is widely-spoken, seen as the language of commerce and science, and so long as that American juggernaut Hollywood exists (amongst other economic and social drivers), English will continue to be a language that is thought to promise access to upward mobility. That thinking in English is not the same as thinking in French or German or Swahili is more of an education debate/concern and is not going to be discussed here. Being able to write and speak English, good English, is important at this moment of writing. Yes, dialects absorb regional influences on the language, and in spoken English, these changes are noticeable. But written? Some of those rules haven't changed in a long while. If you're a writer, best you’re slightly familiar. What’s wrong with writing in your first language anyway? I speak three languages. I write in one of them. I could start a romance novel in French…but why the hell would I? If I wanted a novel in French, I’d take one of my English novels, save up a small fortune, and have the thing translated. Eh, voila! Pas d’embarassement (pretty sure I got the grammar wrong there). Truth of the matter is, you think in, and are most expressive in, your first language. That mother tongue. So why the hell would you write, and charge money for, something not written in the language you’re most fluent? Rant over. My brother once said, “I can’t wait to make it to the top - it’s crowded down here at the bottom.” How true is that, particularly with the number of writers around. You can’t squeeze into a lift, stand in a bathroom queue or go to a coffee shop, without a ‘writer’ being in your midst. Think I’m being facetious? Okay, go look up how many motivational writing blogs there are. Bloody thousands, mate. Thousands. How to write, what to write, when to write, writing prompts, etc and so forth.
It’s all about how to go from being someone who wants to write, to a writer (again, what defines a ‘writer’ depends on the post, sometimes it’s publication, sometimes it’s being able to hold a pen against a Moleskine journal). One thing’s for sure - there are a helluva lot of aspiring writers out there. Why? I have no idea. Maybe because there are less motivational posts about how to be a shit-hot investment banker. However, what these blogs seem to say precious little about, is being a published author. I think I know why. Getting out of that crowd and onto that first publishing ladder rung takes as long as it would to read all of those blog posts - forever. Once you’re on that ladder, you realise that you have in fact taken the first step. The first ruddy step. Now all the motivational posts have upped and vanished like farts in the wind, only to be replaced by the need for caffeine-based stimulants. Shit has now got real. That means still writing and pitching, but also marketing and sales, and guest posting, and standing in front of crowds of people practising your microphone skills. It also means publishers who fold, who have no idea what they’re doing, and who don't pay out royalties. Hey, Britney warned us, you want a Bugatti, you better work. Unless your name is Nora Roberts or Gena Showalter or The Ward (and a couple others), you’re still at the bottom. Sure, you’re slightly further ahead than the bottom bottom. But make no mistake, you’re still out there hustling. And you’ve got to keep your product moving, so you best be writing too. So where are the motivational posts? The cute memes about how ‘you got this’? The inspirational quotes for when you get a whole bunch of notes back from an editor and a deadline that obliterates any chance of work/life balance? I can scroll up and down on my Facebook feed, and find sweet bugger all. Are such motivations thin on the ground as any sane person would say ‘Eff this’ and start their own online trading system? No, what’s happened is that the motivation has slipped away and in its place are now forums that discuss the benefits of Bookbub versus The Fussy Librarian, traditional PR versus blog tours, or the value of Google versus Facebook ads. Sexy it is not. Memeworthy, even less so. Bait and switch at its very best. It’s the fantasy of writing that’s so alluring. That it somehow transports the writer to some mythical, island paradise of fortune, fame, and never-ending features in women’s magazines. Yes, maybe, for some. But hey, remember, it’s crowded at the bottom. There’s very little not to love about Buffy the Vampire Slayer - arse-kicking female protagonist, the Scooby Gang, Angel, Spike, Anya’s morbid dread of fluffy, fuzzy bunnies. It’s an iconic show, that give or take a few episodes (Season 1 & 7, I’m looking at you), holds its own on the second, third, and twelfth viewing. And that’s because of the genius of Joss Whedon. What’s not to like? I love Firefly (whyohywhy with that cancellation?), enjoyed Dollhouse, marvelled at the Avengers (first one, second one - eish), so on and so forth. I love the way he writes; the characters, the plots, the storylines, the development, the dialogue, hell that dialogue. Spike’s speech.Oh. My. Word. Truth right there. But for this post, I am looking at one feature: the love story. ***Warning: There are spoilers coming up!*** Big Bad When it comes to a great antagonist - the Big Bad - Whedon’s got the lot: power hungry gods, a mayor who sells his soul, a vampire who’d prefer to watch Man Utd than take over the world, and a trio of nerds who plot domination from the (Star Wars memorabilia-filled) basement. But what I like the most, what captured my romance-hungry spirit was the redemptive character arc of William the Bloody, aka Spike, aka the Season 2 Big Bad. Spike roars into Sunnydale, his psychotic psychic girl in tow, hellbent on a little of the old ultraviolent. He’s already snuffed two slayers, and he’s game to add another notch to his belt. Deeply romantic, a failed poet, a deadly killer. But Joss, ah, he had some plans for this particular vamp. The unlikely plotting of redemptive hero love story Lust at first sight Spike first sees Buffy dancing with her friends at the Bronze. Something about the way he looks at her, suggests that’s it’s not all about the staking, er conquest, er…you get the picture. The interior/exterior conflict is established - slayer meet vampire. Impossible odds. The stakes are high (groan). It’s only near the end of Season 2 that we see a slightly different side to Spike. Spike asks Buffy for help to defeat the turned Angel - seems Angel’s plans for world destruction don't really align with Spike’s. Buffy agrees. Our first turning point in their story. But how do you keep a deadly vampire in the story as a potential love interest/hero/member of the Scoobys (as if)? Have him implanted with a chip by the…damn, I can never remember their name, was it the society, the organisation, what? Riley’s government friends. As Spike points out, he’s been ‘neutered’. Now he can join the action. Sort of. Things swing along merrily until mid-way (and mid-way in this particular love story) Season 5ish, Spike realises he’s in love with the slayer he’s continually threatening to kill. Disaster. Calamity. The midpoint. Im-possible. He does what any self-respecting vampire with a crush would do. Has Warren make up the Buffy bot. (Okay, so this is a rather creepy solution to his problem, but I love the way Whedon really rams home the ludicrousness of a Buffy/Spike pairing, at least in their minds). While he’s busy testing out the robots, um, capabilities, Buffy chooses Spike to confide in with her mother’s declining illness and subsequent death, slowly bringing an emotional closeness to the two. And wouldn't you know it, he seems to have forged a protective relationship over Buffy’s younger sister Dawn, little bit. Love this next clip - sums up why he never quite seems to kill her. All good right? Looks set for go. No. Joss kills Buffy. Kills her. Again. To cut a long story short (you have to watch it, really you do). The Scooby’s bring Buffy back from the dead. Only she’s not as delighted as you’d imagine, having being yanked out of heaven and all, to once more get her nose kicked in fighting the undead. Again, she confides in Spike. Things escalate. They kiss. Then they near fight to the death when Spike realises that he can attack the no-longer-completely-human Buffy. Only the fight turns into one of TV’s most epic sex scenes. It brings the house down. So they’re together, right? Wrong. He’s still a soulless vampire, she’s still a slayer. She’s ashamed. He’s frustrated - he’ll never be good enough for her. Shit goes pear-shaped. The point of no-return: Spike attacks Buffy. He leaves Sunnydale. The point of no return. All is lost. Buffy has no love - Angel and Spike are both blood-hungry, violent bastards who believe in kill, fight, kill. And then there’s that little problem of sun allergy. But, Spike fought for his soul. And he won. It’s returned. And left him a broken man. He’s repentant, desperate for atonement, absolution. And still, totally in love with Buffy. How awesome is this clip? Great foreshadowing, great dialogue, the use of the cross. Beautiful. Slowly, very slowly, they forge some sort of relationship again. He’s her go to. She’s his everything. But now there’s a big bad to defeat. Spike’s turn to complete his arc from villain to anti-hero to hero. As he’s about to be turned to ashes, saving the world from destruction, Buffy finally tells him how she feels. All of the feels, peeps. Resolution? Read the graphic novels! * First presented at #ROSACon2016 in a talk by the same name |