How Do You Define a Hero?

So who doesn't love a hunky, take charge guy in a romance novel? Well, it turns out ... I don't. Well, I mean I thought I did, but then writers and readers started talking about the alpha heroes they love and it occurred to me, that's not really who I write.

I thought all my guys were alpha heroes. Not that they steamroll over the heroine or completely wall off their emotions, but they do step up to the plate when the time comes. The problem was they didn't seem to have that pushy, never-give-an-inch attitude many people associate with alphas. But they definitely didn't fit into the wimpy sidekick beta hero either.

Okay, I know technically (especially in stories with shifters) there is only one alpha leader. Therefore if you write a story about the other guys, like I do, they would be considered beta. But I just can't go there. In my opinion, the beta hero is a pushover. He wouldn't come to the heroine's rescue. He'd send in his best friend, the alpha, who would save her. He'd be the one to comfort her when the hero's been a jerk, but then turn her over to him when the guy showed up at the front door. But no one writes characters like that. I'm always looking to write the next story so even my "best friend" characters offer more than a supporting role.

So maybe I have the definition all wrong.

In my confusion I checked out THIS POST by Suzanne Brockman who writes all things alpha. But I still didn't get a good feel for this alpha hero. But I found this OTHER POST at The Road to Romance. But this post describes not alpha, not beta, but a gamma hero? Wai...whaaaat?

Yeah, the GAMMA hero pulls the best from both the alpha and the beta heroes. He's a man with all the chutzpah of an alpha but the emotions of a beta. In other words ... the strong male who doesn't run roughshod over the heroine in his quest to bring down the bad guy, but works with her to find the key and discover the lost treasure or slay the dragon or free her world or ... well, you get my drift. This is the guy of romance stories in my opinion. The hero who could don the pages of any GQ magazine, but knows how to BBQ a mean steak for his lady and draw her a bubble bath. *sigh* Yeah, that's the ticket.

So I guess I'm aiming to write gamma heroes. Who knew?

The reality is. It doesn't matter what we call them. It's their heart and soul that draws us into the story over and over again. We need to connect to the hero. Believe he's real. Believe he's the only one for the heroine. Believe in their love story.

What about you? Do you like your guys all alpha in stories and keep your betas for real life or are you a combo kind of gal like me ... enjoying a gamma between the pages?

My recent romantic suspense series, “Tilling Passions” has three very handsome gamma heroes who know how to take care of their women! BLIND HER WITH BLISS, DECEIVE HER WITH DESIRE and CHEAT HER WITH CHARM are all available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The Middle-Aged Virgin...Hero?

No, you aren’t having a flashback nor did I mistakenly re-post my January blog.

Last month while examining reader expectations for the shorter stories I used the movie, “The Naked Jungle” as an example and as so often happens was sorely tempted to veer off onto a completely different subject and explore the movie’s very interesting alpha hero.

At nineteen, Christopher Leiningen traveled to South America and spent the next twenty or so years hacking a cocoa plantation out of the jungle. And that’s all he did, day in, day out. He did not go into the jungle in the dark of night and take advantage of the local indigenous females as was the custom of some of his neighbors.

When the movie opens, he’s built an empire and now he wants someone to share his life but he doesn’t want anyone to realize that he’s…a virgin. He has his brother, who knows his predicament, arrange a marriage for him but when his proxy bride arrives she isn’t the biddable female he’s expecting. And she’s a widow.

Leiningen is brash, he’s arrogant and for the first time in a long while he is afraid. He is the Beast who longs to be good enough for Beauty but his fear keeps him trapped within the confines of his own brutish behavior.

There’s a lot of simmering, civilized conflict that’s absolutely delicious because you want this self-made man to realize that this experienced woman is just what he needs. And that’s before the horde of ants (Marabunta!) arrive and cause all kinds of mayhem, including stopping his wife from reluctantly going back to her very civilized life.

The motivation for his being a virgin is very believable because of the time period involved and the ridged code of ethics that Leiningen follows. Yet there is a vulnerability displayed by him that resonates, in my opinion, even better than the virginal heroines of early romance novels.

In this day and age of alpha heroes that can practically make a woman orgasm with a smoldering glance, what believable situation/motivation would make a middle-aged alpha hero sexually inexperienced?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Paris Brandon

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