Romance novels are frankly boring and predictable. At least this series that I'm going through is. I'm tempted to skip to the last book to see if her writing style gets any better. Some authors get better with experience. I'm hoping I'll be one of those. A good example is Karen Marie Moning. I started with her Fever series since that's the one that caught my interest and then took a look at her romance books which had been written first. Alright, so the men and women fit the stereotypes. I had been extremely critical when I read Beyond the Highland Mist. I had gotten used to a single perspective way of writing and suddenly this book has the point of view jumping from one character to another. It gets darn right confusing at times. Ah, but I continued, sucked into the need to finish what I started, including series that can be predictable. By the MacKelter books, I was hooked and I noticed the clear improvement in writing style, in my opinion. Now I eagerly await her fifth and final book of the Fever series which gets released in stores January 18th. (She even has a count down on her website and some pretty "interesting" music)
Given that I know it's possible that people get better with practice, I'm thinking that jumping ahead will give me a glimpse of whether or not the Christine Feehan series gets better. I've never been a vampire fan to begin with and as most romance novels go, each book is stand alone in plot. Skipping ahead will likely only make me miss tidbits of background on characters. I skipped ahead to book 4 since I found Gregori interesting in the first book, but alas, it was the almost the exact same. Same game, different players. Maybe book 19 will be different.
Don't worry, my books aren't going to be like that. I have a clear progressive plot in my head. It spans 4 books, but I have other stories in my head, enough to write 4 additional books with my main hero still taking lead before he reaches his final resting place and his children take up the legacy. Actually, it'd really only be his youngest son. And then I was thinking about doing a spin off series with that son's sons. But that is far, far in the future.
The progressive plot:
Book 1 - My hero deals with his situation and learns who he really is, only to act out blindly in vengeance and endangering everyone around him
Book 2 - My hero has to deal with the consequences of the first book while his beloved struggles to unite the people under her rule
Book 3 - Just as things were settling down, the instigator to the problem that set the precedence for my books arrives with a foe from the first book and imprisons my hero. With the help of his daughter, he manages to set things right, the way they had been intended from the start, but not without paying a price
Book 4 - My hero is recovering and struggling with the trauma from the third book. His son is taken and his daughters fight to get him back, making life even more difficult for my hero since he is very protective of his family and yet he's helpless to do anything while he recovers
That's the arc. The arc ends happily. I could end the series right there. After that, I don't have any other arcs, just stories that are more fun. My thought is that book 5 will pertain to my hero's granddaughter causing problems due to his doting on her every whim. In book 6, it's my world meets traditional fantasy. Yes, Michelle, in this book, there will actually be fairies! And goblins. And gnomes. And dragons. And wizards. And you get the point. This book is a fun book in my mind. And it heals my hero completely as it's in this book that his fourth and final child is conceived, a formidable power that exceeds his own. There's a thought of a book 7 where the boy has to defeat some sort of evil to save his parents. And then in book 8, my hero makes the choice to allow his body to be destroyed rather than live in what he views as imprisonment. With his overwhelming power, he creates a world of second chances, giving those that died unfairly in the series a chance to find happiness in a safe environment. My hero lures his grieving widow to this world and helps her to learn how to love and live again with human part of him that died. The boy is full grown by this book and feels obligated to care for his mother as that was his father's parting request. Per his mother's request, he helps her rid herself of her immortal nature and allows her to grow old and die a natural death along with her new family. Though part of my hero still exists as pure, raw power and energy, his story is over with.
I haven't really thought much on the son's story except that in that eighth book, he had been with the Queen of the Fairies when his father died so he feels guilty for that, and the Queen surprises him with triplets. She keeps the girl and raises her among the fairies but drops off the boys to be raised by their father who had just barely come of age himself and is unprepared for the responsibility. Due to their fairy heritage, the boys are shape shifters and a rather wild pair, rivals in all things and constantly at each others' throats. It is my thought that at the end of the eighth book, after his mother has passed on, the son goes to return to his siblings, only to disappear. That's the spin-off series I was thinking about. Blake and Brandon, the boys, are battling an evil force on our world, gets an unsuspecting woman mixed up in all of it, and she has to deal with the reality of magic users existing in a very destructive way. I figure I can come up with a few books and near the end, their father can make a come back.
Of course, the story will eventually end up back on my created world.
I was also thinking about writing a collection of short stories called the Cera Chronicles. Cera is my hero's oldest daughter and she spends a number of years searching other worlds for a way to help her father. I thought it'd be interesting to see what weird and exotic lands she visits. And there's one where the world parallels her own, except for one decision that completely changed how events play out.
Wow, how did I get veered off? I guess listening to romance novels really gets my book thinking in gear.
No comments:
Post a Comment