VILLAINOUS REWARDS

Hello, Ladies ~

Have any of you cried when you had to kill your villain? I’m not sure why, but it upset me greatly when my villain in “Chaos in Cabo” sailed off a cliff in a hail of bullets. I sobbed as I finished Alida’s story, trying to find comfort in the fact that she sacrifices herself to save Antonio, the man she loves.

Or maybe I listened to a recent reader who said, “I love that your villains find redemption, but don’t you think they should also pay for their crimes?”

Years ago, when I submitted my very first manuscript, “Murder in Margaritaville,” to agents and editors, I received the standard “No Thank You” form letter. But each letter had an interesting addition: You do write a very good villain.

Encouraged by the repeated comment, I studied how I had written my villain. Of course, as with all my characters, my villains are created with traits from people I’ve met throughout my life. From men who treated me badly to women who betrayed our friendship, I have a plethora of evil qualities to attribute to my villains.

I also learned from studying how I wrote my very first villain, Damian Garza, that his character had more depth than my heroine, Clara. Another tidbit was that I wrote Damian in third person instead of Clara’s narrative in first person. However, the biggest revelation was discovering that writing in the voices of my three main characters — the heroine, the hero, and the villain — allowed me to create more three-dimensional characters.

“Murder in Margaritaville” would never obtain an agent or publishing deal. Luckily for me, though, my fabulous friend, Paty Jager, helped me begin my self-publishing journey, and this novel became “Malice in Mazatlán.”

The words, “You do write a very good villain,” have stuck with me throughout my writing career and helped to hone my process. I always start with a title because, for me, the title guides the story. The next book in my Mexico Mayhem Series is “Lost in Loreto.” It took me a few months to decide who was lost and what had caused them to be missing. The cause, of course, originates from my villain’s actions. When the opening line appears in my writer’s brain, I get giddy with excitement to know how the story begins.

Now that I know my villain’s crime, I spend time with him or her asking those pertinent questions: Why? How? When? What? Where? At the beginning of my villain, Arlo’s story, he has no redeeming qualities at this point. But I know from experience that it can change as the other characters begin their search for the missing Gabriella.

In this series, my hero, Javier, is a character who has moved forward from “Chaos in Cabo,” but I needed to introduce a new heroine. In “Lost in Loreto,” this character was a bit of a challenge. When Scarlett Quinn finally materialized, I was thrilled with the direction the story would now take. Oh, what “fun” she’s going to cause.

I usually know the general storyline of the novel I’m writing, although I’ve had characters change the trajectory of their story, which changes everything. In “Lost in Loreto,” I knew as soon as I researched the location of the crime, fleshed out my victim, and wrote the first chapter … what awaits my villain, Arlo. And if my characters stick to their roles, I doubt any tears will be shed when Arlo receives his “punishment.”

Even though I’m back to working on my next WIP, tears still fill my eyes when I think about Alida. I know she needed to pay for her crimes in some fashion, but until I wrote her last two chapters, I didn’t know she would be the one to end her story.

I’ve written six novels and three novellas now, and I’m so thankful for the creative license that self-publishing allows me. Without anyone demanding a finished product by a certain date (except me, of course), I can work on three different books at the same time if I want to.

But I’m also thankful for the time those agents and editors took to tell me: You do write a very good villain.

Happy writing, Ladies, and may all your villains be deliciously villainous!