I'm a blog virgin. I have not a clue what I'm doing. Actually, I'm just trying to find my blog. Here blog blog! Here blog blog!
PC
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
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About Me
- PC Cast
- Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
- I'm a New York Times best selling and award winning young adult, paranormal romance, and fantasy author. For press inquiries, please email contact@pccastauthor.com
21 comments:
Welcome to the world of blogging, me lovely! Some of us like to call it the dark side...
Deflower yourself again and post, woman!!
Hehehehehehehe...welcome to the world of blogging PC.
Here I am! So nice to find my own blog. Now I'll just have to figure out how to crawl out of the realm of my newest Goddess Summoning Book, which is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, long enough to add my picture, etc., etc., and then say something profound. Profound? Uh, no. I'll shoot for amusing.
PC
PC, I didn't realize you'd started your blog already?! I'll be sure to send you a ring invitation next. Deidre
Fantastic Deidre! (And from what I hear from Gena you are fantastic.) I'm excited about the paranormal group, what a group of amazingly talented women. I'm proud to be listed as one of them. For those of you just checking this blog for the first time, you can see what I'm talking about at http://www.outoftheblogosphere.blogspot.com.
PC
PC,
I just got Goddess of Light yesterday and I'm loving it so far :)
Yea Bonnie! Please let me know what you think of the ending. I've been getting a lot of mail about it...
PC
I'll be sure to post as soon as I'm done PC :) Goddess of the Rose looks amazing! That excerpt was intriguing }:)
Thanks Bonnie - I'm working on GotR right now (or I should be...). It's already changed from the little excerpt in GoL - my Beast has horns and less fur - and it seems to be getting darker and darker. I'm loving it! Naturally, it's my plan that my Beast doesn't change into a foppish prince at the end (I always hate that part of Beauty and the Beast). Now that I'm in charge I get to end it MY way! Ha!
PC
Yay for PC! Dragged kicking and screaming into the blog age!
Congrats!
We don't want no stinkin' foppish beastie here!
Go Horns! Go beast!
Bring on Hellboy!!!
LOL!
Moon - you're so funny! But great minds do think alike! My fans loved dark, brooding Hades - just wait till you meet my Beast! Let's just say they don't call me an inter-species sex specialist for nothing!
And a big welcome to any outoftheblogosphere.blogspot.com visitors! Those of you who haven't checked out the new blog, please do. It's a group of some of the freshest voices in paranormal romance (me included, of course!). See you there!
PC
Hi PC! I've been checking out the OOTB just this week. I'm a reader, not an author, so getting insight into the ladies with the genius to write the incredible stories that I read is great fun! I started my own blog last week just so I could comment on blogs. Gena actually wrote in mine and I was floored! She is really nice! Speaking of nice, I just read Goddess of Spring. I have the next one, but I like to read them in order so I held off until I got through GoS. *sigh* What a nice romantic story!Loved the character of Hades -Alpha with a Shy Heart.
I thought it a fun part of the story that Lina could make Cerebus and the Dread Steeds act like such cuties. It was just so warm and fuzzy! Are we going to be hearing about Apollo? I mean, it seemed as though he kind of "liked" it when he thought she was playing "hard to get", or maybe he was confused? If so, that could be fun to play with ..what do you do with a confused god? *grin* Anyway, looking forward to your new book!!!
All the Best!
Hi Michelle,
Ah, you found my favorite...Hades and Goddess of Spring! Writing that book was like taking a lovely, sexy vacation. Hades seemed to write himself - if only it was that easy all the time! I had a great time playing with the myths, i.e., making Orpheus a control freak and the Dread Steeds and Cerebus puppy-like around my heroine. Actually, the Underworld was a joy to discover. Adding my personal viewpoint on classic details was just plain fun. And, yes, you will see a lot more of Apollo. He's the hero of Goddess of Light! Just imagine stranding the Sun God in Vegas WITHOUT his powers...humm...
PC
Oooh, nice thought. Viva Las Vegas!! *grin*
Oh PC I cannot wait for Beastie! Especially since some of us fans gave you feedback on him.
Min-o-TAUR! Min-o-TAUR!
Okay, so here is my confession. I am 7 scenes away from finishing my WIP which is why I am doing a BIAM for June. Then, I pedal it. Yup. MY name is gonna be joining this Blog. Hopefully sooner than later.
Yup. Juuuust warning ya.
;)
Big news!! This afternoon I got a call saying that Elphame's Choice is a finalist in the paranormal/futuristic/fantasy category of the Daphne du Maurier Award! Well done me!
PC
Congratulations PC!!!! I loved Elphame's Choice :)
Thought you might be interested in an article I wrote on inter-species sex, and how to make it work with your fantasy/paranormal characters. Let me know what you think!
On fantasy and sex…
So you’re writing a fantasy with a dragon -- a vampire -- a merman -- a werewolf -- a beast. The list goes on. And you want to spice it up with romantic tension, or even (gasp!) sex. It can be done. After all, fantasy is no long just for 13-year-old boys. There are some basic rules to follow so that your scene will not fall flat and cause laughter and eye-rolling. Here’s where you start – whatever species your character is, remember that the number one rule in writing fantasy is that you must suspend your reader’s disbelief in order to write successfully. This is particularly important when you consider adding sex to an already fantasy-filled plot. How do you do that? Basically, the same way you do it in any fiction writing – you make your character live and breathe. You make him or her so real to your readers that it doesn’t matter if he/she has wings, fins, fur or fangs – he/she is still real and is therefore able to evoke empathy in your audience.
To begin, you must know your character intimately. Where was he/she born? Or how was he/she created? What motivates your character? Construct a detailed past for him/her. Whether you actually end up using such a detailed past in the actual plot of your novel matters little. You must understand the creature’s history to build a believable present and future with him/her for your readers.
Then construct a sexual past for him/her, just as you would any human character. Does he/she prefer to be the aggressor in a sexual relationship? Or is he/she more passive? Why? Is he/she afraid of expressing his/her needs fully? Why? What is his/her secret fantasy? How many partners has he/she had? How was his/her last partner? Has he/she ever had an orgasm? Overall, what type of experience has he/she had in bed? You need to know the answers to these questions because your character’s sexual past (or lack thereof) influences how they will react in the present. By knowing your characters, you help the reader know them. You know the emotional risks your hero and heroine are taking by being together, and that, in turn, enhances sensuality, building tension and adding emotional risk, as well as believability. What is emotional risk? To answer that question you must first decide what your characters have to lose and/or gain. By creating a complex history for your alien/fantasy character, and the world in which he or she lives, you will be able to discover his/her conflicts and needs, and ultimately understand what’s at stake for him/her emotionally.
These questions keep the reader turning the pages, not the sex act itself. Like a well-written horror novel wherein it’s not the violence itself that is so intriguing, but the building of tension that leads to the eventual explosion. It is the same with a well-written fantasy sex scene. You build sexual tension and intimacy well before the act itself, and then because you have created characters with whom the readers identify, they naturally want to know what happens to them next. Remember that a love scene is not the story in itself. It is not used to pad plot holes or bolster weak stories. Sex has to be used naturally, as an authentic next step in the relationship development between your hero and heroine.
It is important in any love scene, but especially an interspecies or fantasy love scene, to utilize the five senses. Your alien character needs to have a reaction to the differences between himself and his lover. The same holds true for the human character. She must have a reaction to the differences between herself and the alien. What are their different smells? Their different skin textures? How would they taste? Speak? Do the intimate parts of their bodies look different? Let the characters notice these differences and respond. This helps the reader picture the scene and creates a web of believability.
Once that is done, you must consider the problems their differences create. In my novel, GODDESS OF THE SEA (Berkley, Oct 03), the hero is a merman and the heroine is a human. The first problem is that the heroine can’t stay underwater or she’ll drown. How, then, can she make love to the merman? The hero needs access to her body outside of the water. My solution was to create a magnificent underwater grotto that allows the hero to stay partially in the water, yet have full access to the heroine who is no longer in the water.
One of the wonderful things about writing inter-species sex is that you have an endless range of possibilities for the way you bring about the physical act of love between your characters. Use your imagination! In my fantasy novels set in the world of Partholon, I have centaurs and humans who sometimes become romantically involved. In the prequel to ELPHAME’S CHOICE (Luna, Dec 04), my hero is a centaur and the heroine is a human woman. My centaur is a High Shaman, and thus he can shapeshift so that the two can make love, but the act of changing forms leaves him physically drained, which limits their opportunities to make love. I solve this problem by having my centaur hero bring my human heroine to climax through discovering what pleases her human body without actually engaging in intercourse; thereby satisfying his lover, bringing the characters emotionally closer together, as well as enticing readers with the intimacy and sexual tension that has been built within the hero, but not yet released.
In ELPHAME’S CHOICE, my hero is a demon/human hybrid, and throughout the novel he struggles against his darker, more violent side – especially because it is awakened by the act of lovemaking. Instead of driving my hero and heroine apart, this problem draws them closer together, and when they finally join it is an ultimately intimate act that goes well beyond the physical. In the sequel to Elphame, BRIGHID’S QUEST (Luna, Dec 05), my hero is a human man who cannot shapeshift. My heroine is a centaur Huntress who also cannot shapeshift. But they fall in love and are put in a position where they must handfast (or marry) because it’s best for their two races. Naturally, part of Brighid’s actual quest is her journey to become a High Shaman so that she can shapeshift and physically mate with our hero, but that doesn’t happen until after they’ve already fallen in love and been pledged to one another…and after I’ve written in quite a bit of intimacy and sexual tension between the two of them. It works – but it works because of the details of the relationship, not because of the sex itself.
So remember – when writing inter-species sex the differences between your characters are of the utmost importance because they help ground the reader in reality. Ask yourself a barrage of physically based questions. Are the creature’s eyes sensitive to light? Does he prefer sweet or sour tastes? Does his hair curl at the end? Does he have hair on his body at all? If so, what does it feel like? Are his hands rough? Is his skin texture different than a human? Mix sensory details with an intimate knowledge of his past, and you will have a recipe that will create a being who will live and breathe, love and laugh, and, ultimately, entrance your readers.
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