Showing posts with label secondary characters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label secondary characters. Show all posts

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Saturday Snippets - Secondary Characters

TGIS! Thank God it's Saturday and Saturday Snippet time.

Today's theme is "Secondary Characters". I love my secondary characters and Vance in "So You Want To Marry Our Mom" is one of my favorites. He's so irreverant, so fun, and he's a big part of the story.

I could tell you about Vance, but I think you'll enjoy meeting him much more. Enjoy!

Available at: http://www.amberquillpress.com/SoYouWantToMarry.html


Blurb:

Jackie Duarte's deceased husband, Vance, talks to her more now that he's dead than when he was alive. When their daughter signs her up to be the bachelorette on a show where her kids get to help pick their new dad, Jackie doesn't know who drives her nuttier. The kids who act out on national TV, the ghost who won't shut up, or Doug, her best friend who's been ignoring her but declares his love after it may be too late. She doesn't need a second marriage where she's ignored. If Doug really loves her he's going to have to prove himself over the other hot bachelors ready to drown Jackie in affection and attention.



Excerpt:

“Olivia did what?”

Vance, the ghost of her deceased husband who refused to shut up and leave her alone, piped up to her chagrin, ::Simmer down, dear. I’m sure Liv meant well…::

Annoyed that Vance butted in again, she snapped aloud, “Not now. Go away.”

“Ms. Duarte? Is everything okay?” Joey asked.

Mortified, she bit her lip. People would think her crazy if they knew she talked to her ex’s ghost. She wondered, too. She was the only person she knew who talked to ghosts.

“We’d like to meet you. Your application’s extraordinary,” Joey gushed.

::Say yes,:: Vance nagged. ::I won’t be angry if you remarry. I know how lonely you’ve been.::

She covered her phone with her hand, squinted into the vicinity of the disembodied voice’s origin, and aimed her thoughts at Vance, ::That’s so very kind of you. Now please leave me alone!::

“When can we set up an interview?” Joey vied for the top of her list of men who most irked her.

She snorted. A writer, not an actress, she’d rather battle the edits from hell than step foot in front of a camera. “I’m really not that interesting. I’m a widowed mother of four who’s struggling to make ends meet in a really tough economy. I just pushed a cart full of exotic bread, peanut butter, and jelly out of the supermarket, if that tells you anything. End of story.” If Olivia told them she was an astronaut, prime minister, or something else equally outlandish she wouldn’t be shocked. Oh, her little darling could spin a yarn. Her child had inherited her penchant for weaving a story. Usually she was proud of her daughter’s talent, but today she wasn’t so sure.

“Uh, no.” Joey sounded as if he was scratching his head in confusion. “Here it says you’re a published romance writer.”

::And does he know exactly what you write?:: Vance asked with a big smirk in his voice. ::You should have been so lusty in our bed.::

::Enough!:: Her ex had hardly talked to her when he was alive and now he wouldn’t shut up. She massaged the bridge of her nose. Why me? Wasn’t it bad enough to be a widowed, single mom? To have a kid described by a host of psychological letters?

To Joey, she said, “I use a pseudonym because my naughty stories are supposed to be secret.” Looking over her shoulder to make sure no one she knew, like her pastor, one of her kids’ teachers, or the nosy old woman next door overheard, she scrunched her nose.

Whew! Not a familiar face was in sight. Squaring her shoulders, she added, “Did Missy also inform you I have four very misbehaved, loud, and obnoxious kids? That I’m fifty?”

Vance added after a tsk tsk, ::You’re only forty-seven, babe. Don’t rush it. You’ll be here soon enough.::

Available at: http://www.amberquillpress.com/SoYouWantToMarry.html


 
For more excerpts with fab and exciting secondary characters please also visit my fellow authors.

Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Taige Crenshaw
Vivian Arend
HelenKay Dimon
Lauren Dane
Lissa Matthews
Shelley Munro
Shelli Stevens
Jody Wallace
TJ Michaels
Ashley Ladd

Friday, June 18, 2010

Saturday Snippet: Secondary Characters

Today's Saturday Snippet theme is secondary characters. Boy do I have a great secondary character: Gizmo the talking cat.

After meeting Gizmo, I'm not so sure I want my cats to talk. I imagine they'd be just as sassy and back-talking as him.



An Excerpt From: MAKE-BELIEVE LOVER


© Copyright ASHLEY LADD, 2006.

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave, Inc.

They must have trudged five miles over the arduous hills when a thunderous sound startled her. A moment later, wide-winged dragons straddled by primitive warriors roared from behind a mountain.

Her hand trembling, she pointed at the sky even as she squatted down in self-defense. “Oh my God, Giz. Do you see what I see?”

The cat gulped and he covered his eyes with his paws. “If you see big flying dinosaurs, uh huh.”

When one of the gigantic winged creatures nose-dived not far distant, Gizmo threw himself to the ground, covered his head, and hissed, “Hit the deck and don’t make a sound.”

Way ahead of him, she flung herself to the rocky terrain.

A lyrical voice announced out of nowhere, “You have walked six point two miles, seven-thousand three-hundred, twenty-one steps.”

Cripes! Her bigmouth pedometer chose this moment to go off?

Yanking the lousy thing off her elastic waistband, she dashed it to the ground. “Thanks for nothing.” The least it could do was tell her how many calories she’d burned or sing a decent song, instead of that funky aerobic workout music.

One of the flying lizards picked that instant to spin and make eye contact. Baring its filthy, razor-sharp teeth, the beast swooped down from the air, swallowed her pedometer, and then plucked her from the ground.

The no-good gadget kept chirping from inside the monster’s belly, mocking her. At least, it had gotten its just rewards, having given away her location to the fiend.

Kicking and struggling with all her might, she screamed, “Gizmo!”

She clawed at her barbaric captor’s eyes. “Put me down!”

The armor-clad creep astride the dragon guffawed and clamped meaty vice-like hands around her wrists pinning them to her side. His malevolent beady-eyed gaze bore into her. “Keep this up, wench, and I’ll drop you here—from a thousand meters. Your pretty face will get all mangled.”

The dragon turned its reptilian face to leer and dipped its right wing so that she would have tumbled off if not for the brute’s slimy hold. Then it snorted a fireball in her direction that fried the bush a mere foot to her right.

She got the message that she was their guest—or their Bar-B-Q. “What do you want with me? I have no money. This is dollar-store jewelry, but it’s all yours.”

“You will inform the King whose army you are spying for.” He fingered her tousled hair and grunted. “What kingdom has blue-haired nymphs?”

Then he tugged at her psychedelic nurse’s tunic. “And what matter of outlandish garb is this? What form of material?”

Army? Kingdom? Nymph?

She glanced down at her hot pink, cotton-blend tunic that rained cats and dogs. Should she give him her employer’s name? In the war movies the prisoners offered their name, rank, and serial number. “I’m Rebecca Weiss, I’m an office manager for a pediatric clinic, and I’m not giving you my social security number and having you steal my identity.”

“Stay cool, Becca! We’ll get out of this.” Gizmo yelled from the back of another dragon as it pulled around them.

The man’s bushy uni-brow puckered. “You speak in strange riddles. You will be truthful with King Heinrich or you will be locked in the dungeon.”

Dungeons? Dragons? King Heinrich?

Make-Believe Lover is available at Ellora's Cave.


Jody Wallace
Eliza Gayle
Mari Carr
Vivian Arend
HelenKay Dimon
Lauren Dane
Shelley Munro
Shelli Stevens
TJ Michaels
Taige Crenshaw
McKenna Jeffries
Ashley Ladd

Saturday, December 05, 2009

Saturday Snippet: Secondary Characters




The theme for this week is secondary characters.

Secondary characters add another dimension to a story: comic relief, danger and sometimes the plot hinges on a secondary character.

That's the case with "Sorry Charlie" an M/M story in the "Friction" anthology coming out in print by Total-E-Bound Monday December 7, 2009.



In "Sorry Charlie" Charlie's dad wants to make up after a 17-year family feud.

He's overjoyed, excited, and nervous as hell that his father is finally accepting his sexual orientation and speaking to him after a 17-year family feud but Charlie can't understand why his long-term partner Jonathan is acting jealous and clingy, when he should be happy for him or at least supportive.

Jon's afraid Charlie's family will hurt him again and he doesn't know if he can mend Charlie's heart if it shatters a second time or stand by and watch while Charlie sets himself up for more heartbreak.

Charlie's father is the catalyst for the story. Before Charlie's father came back into the picture, there was no conflict, thus no story.

Another secondary character in this story is Adam. Adam's a fun character. He's Charlie's and Jon's friend and provides the comic relief. In the act of trying to make Jon feel better, he causes more complications in an already complicated, emotional situation. The story wouldn't be the same without Charlie's father or Adam.




Excerpt From: Sorry Charlie

Search your feelings. You know I’m your father. The words rang in Charlie Lang’s head. For the past seventeen years, he’d wished anyone but Asa Charles Lang was his dad, even Darth Vader. His father made Vader look like a pussycat. At least, he’d wanted Luke once he’d found out about him.

Asa had been there at the moment of Charlie’s birth. He’d raised him ‘til he was seven when Charlie’s parents split. That’s when Asa had stolen off in the night to escape his debts, and according to Charlie’s mother, Gail, all his responsibilities to them. He’d found a new wife, made new kids, and only saw Charlie every few years for a measly day or two at a time.

Still, it hadn’t been too bad ‘til Charlie had come out of the closet at age twenty-two and announced he was gay. Then Asa, his stepmom, Sharon, and his half-siblings had disowned him. They’d declared him dead to them.

The thought of running into them on the street had his partner, Jonathan, freaking out.

Now Sharon and a half-brother were dead and buried, and his other sibs had moved away, leaving Asa alone. Now, he was ready to forgive Charlie and rebuild their relationship.

Charlie rubbed the half-day’s growth of beard on his chin and shook his head. This was a good thing. Right?

“I can’t do this with you right now,” he told Jonathan. “I have to meet my dad.” Charlie stood tall and didn’t allow himself to flinch—not outwardly anyway. He also didn’t let Jonathan’s pretty-boy looks or his pout sway him from today’s outing.

Jonathan glared and scrunched his nose. He threw down his towel like a gauntlet, leaving him naked. “When will you have time for me? This man abandoned you for seventeen years, trashed you to everyone you knew and made our lives hell. And now, you run every time he calls. I don’t get it. Explain it to me.”

"Sorry Charlie" in the "Friction" anthology is available in e-book now and print Monday Dec. 7, 2009 at Total-E-Bound.

To read more Snippet Saturday excerpts about secondary characters follow the links below:


Shelli Stevens
Leah Braemel
Anya Bast
Mandy Roth
Victoria Janssen
Sasha White
Vivian Arend
Ashley Ladd
Jaci Burton
Taige Crenshaw
Shelley Munro
TJ Michaels
Juliana Stone
Eliza Gayle
McKenna Jeffries
Moira Rogers 
Jody Wallace
Kelly Maher
Lauren Dane
Ashley Ladd


Recent posts you might like to read:

When Do You Write?

Nanowrimo Thoughts 

To Nano Or Not To Nano - That Is The Question

Why You Should Consider Library Booksignings

Make Sure Pretentious Words Don't Turn Off Your Readers

Are You Writing Me Into Your Book?

Dont Give Up Too Early

Must Write Must Write Must Write!!!

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