Of course, I am not in a position to offer you the Hugh Jackman mutant character, but he's a better example of a man with an abnormal hand than the prosthetic or bionic hands of Darth Vader and cool hand Luke Skywalker.
If you look carefully, you'll find characters with warhands in all my books going back to my 1995 copyright of Forced Mate, and to Mating Net in 2004, but they are not heroes, and no heroine is asked to go to bed with them.
Are romance readers ready for a hero equipped like some species of male crab, (where the claw used to beckon and threaten is larger and more brightly colored and more sharply serrated than the other claw)?
Well, are you?
Male readers, this question isn't really aimed at you! But I'd be happy to know if you could identify, and whether you think having one big hand with spikes sticking out, and a erectile leathery cuff-frill (imagine having a umbrella on one wrist) would interfere with your prowess in the sack.
I need to know right now because in the book due to my editor tomorrow (I have revision time) I have to either give the hero of the next book a warhand, or else explain why he does not have one.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
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It's a good concept and will sell -- BUT it can't be decoration. It has to be central to the plot and to the story at the same time.
ReplyDeleteYou have to CONVINCE your reader that this is a seamless extension of what it means to be human -- that it has emotional implications and content beyond what anyone today can imagine.
What you're talking about doing is exactly what I did with Sime~Gen.
First tentacles are introduced as killing organs - dangerous and disgusting and revolting and HORRIFYING.
By the end of the book you can't wait to be caressed by a loving tentacle tip. And the female lead gets that pleasure.
You need to develop the psychology of the war-handed person from the cradle up. What caresses you in the cradle is what you seek as an adult.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Yes, I think he should have a warhand. The implications mentioned by Jacqueline will add intriguing layers to your story. Anyway, as I see it, what's the point of creating "alien" characters unless they have traits alien enough to challenge the reader's expectations? In a paranormal romance newsletter I subscribed to some years ago (before e-mail newsletters got going), one essay suggested that there are limits to how inhuman a romantic hero can be; for example, nobody could make scales or tentacles sexy. I wrote back, in effect, "What about mermaids? What about the Sime-Gen universe?" Treated properly, almost any trait can become attractive (although the slime that was discussed on this blog a while back does challenge that premise quite seriously).
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous two posters - its a great concept and if properly written will make for an exciting story.
ReplyDeleteJust consider that even today women will and do love men with prothetic limbs or even no limbs at all. A warhand sounds to be just one step up from that, after a it's the man not his apprearance we fall in love with :D