Sharon Maria Bidwell

Thinking of Sharrow’s lovely review for “Snow Angel” and “Angel Heart” (see last post) I couldn’t help considering the subject of ‘how’ I write. This is either going to make perfect sense or sound ridiculous but something in the review caught my eye. Well, several “somethings.” I couldn’t help especially loving the way Sharrow called Dean a prick…but that she adored him. LOL. Dean is a guy you love to loathe, yet at heart, he’s more than he seems. I think that applies to many people we meet in life.

However, the comment that made me blink was “I don’t usually have a yen for D/s” — this made me stop and think.

I have a confession to make: I didn’t consciously know what I was doing when I wrote Snow Angel. I didn’t ‘think’ about it…at all. I even made my editor roll around laughing when during edits I dropped her a line to say “This is quite good, isn’t it?” It struck me that suddenly and stunned me.

I’m not one for writing much contemporary work. That is, my favourite reading material has always been the weird and the strange. I adore fantasy and even books that you may loosely term as books for women or romance tend to come in the paranormal category. I didn’t think I was capable of writing a good contemporary. However, Dean was a character I had kicking around in my head from an old idea that I never finished. That old work was banal. Dean was the best thing in it and I wanted to rescue him. I was reading a m/m contemporary at the time and I suddenly thought, what if I put him in this situation? I was still too nervous to try. Then I decided that I could just write it for me. If I didn’t like what I came up with, no one need ever see it.

The idea for the actual story was the whole prologue and you can read it as the excerpt posted under my book details by Loose-Id on their website. I bashed away at the keyboard over one winter and when I had finished I thought I had come up with a sweet enough love story that people might like. Loose-Id accepted it and they queued it for edits. By the time edits arrived my attention was so taken up with other things that returning to work on Snow Angel was truly like seeing it with a fresh eye. It suddenly struck me just what I’d written.

Of course there were elements of D/s in this, but I’d never written it with any specific intent. Yet, don’t many relationships have some form of D/s in them, even if the roles sometimes flip? If you think not, then consider how often one partner may have more say over something in the relationship than the other. For instance, who chooses what colour to paint the walls? In my relationship I try to remember that I’m not the only person in the house, but we’re going to be decorating in the coming weeks and while we’ve discussed specific colours and wallpapers, I was the one that chose the overall colour scheme we’re going to have. You may well find that women often do. Of course, one doesn’t usually expect guys to care what colour goes on the wall *g* and I’m using decoration as a mild reference point, but the fact is the one in charge in a relationship can vary and fluctuate, or remain constant.

I just ‘knew’ who Dean was from the tip of his toes to the hair on his head. I understood what made him tick. I also came to know and understand Jay. People were initially wary of Jay’s vulnerability. I know even a few who love the books never quite understood that Jay isn’t as vulnerable as he appears. Even I didn’t realise it until suddenly the switch flipped in my head and there were the layers that make up a whole person. Nothing was simple. Nothing was necessarily as it first appeared. It’s partly why I wrote the sequel. It’s partly why I left Dean with so many questions over his sexuality, because life isn’t black and white.

I believe I’ve become a very instinctual writer. I sit in front of the keyboard and think “Okay, I’m this person, in this situation. What am I feeling? What will I do?” Sometimes I even close my eyes and it doesn’t matter what genre or length of work I’m writing. I try to feel what this character might feel. I can say that it doesn’t make for an easy way to write. It would be easier in many ways to write purely action driven plots. Writing this way can be intense and exhausting. It takes longer. Still, it’s worth it. It’s the only way I know that allows me to bring characters like Dean and Jay alive.

Thanks for reading!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 8:30 am and is filed under Life in General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.