I wrote the nastiest bad guy character of my career for the prequel to my Beguiling Bachelor series, Bewildered. Or in this case, bad girl.
Creating Sloane led me to engage in several discussions during the last week or two about character development, bad guys and how authors get their inspiration for characters. Fellow authors and I have debated how good a hero has to be, and how evil the bad guy can be. What is acceptable, and what happens if we want to stray outside the norms?
Romance readers are very particular. They have a huge volume of books and authors to choose from, everything from historical regency romances to paranormal and sci-fi romances. Plus, they are voracious readers. Sometimes I think my readers know my novels better than I do.
But most of all they are opinionated. If they hate my heroine, they say so. Loud and clear, often with bad reviews that stay will me forever.
Meet Sloane Huyler – The Beguiling Bachelor Bitch
If Bedazzled can be correctly labeled a Cinderella story, then Sloane Huyler is my wicked witch. All she’s missing is the broom. A spoiled child grown into a manipulative beauty, Sloane knows her own power, knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to step on people to get it.
I liked her so much that I wrote about her, in detail, in three books. My readers were less tolerant, wanting a good heroine who deserved to find love and win the hero. They didn’t want this bitch. Happy when she got her comeuppance, they couldn’t understand how I could turn around and give her a happy ending in the next book.
But don’t we all deserve second chances? And really, can Sloane be fully to blame?
Enter the Editor Feedback
After six years, I have completely revisited the Beguiling Bachelor Series including Sloane. But this time I did it with the help of Nicole McCurdy, of Emerald Edits. When an author hires an editor, and agrees to pay her, we generally agree to don our tough outer shell and take the hits when they tell us what is wrong with our novels.
I wanted the edits from Nicole. I was excited to finally have a professional read my novels and provide me with the feedback I needed to improve them. And believe me, Nicole never held back! Right from the get go, she had a problem with Sloane. I guess those reviewers knew what they were talking about (I always knew they did. My readers are smart!)
Here’s what Nicole had to say when she met Sloane in the Beguiling Bachelor prequel, Bewildered: “…this is a tough one. Sloane’s personality is not exactly endearing to readers. Her inner monologue and thoughts are a little insensitive and calculating. I’ve never read about her before now, or met her, my feelings towards her in this opening chapter are less than favourable. I love that she’s ambitious, that she has goals and confidence aplenty to achieve them but how she schemes and thinks isn’t like a stereotypical heroine. And that’s okay too but you also need to make sure that she has some redeemable qualities. That she isn’t always cold and calculating in her ways.”
And when she got to Beholden, the third book in the series, Nicole wrote this: “It’s okay to have a heroine who is confident and feisty, who knows her own worth. It’s even okay to have one that is a little vapid and snobbish, as long as she shows personal growth throughout. She learns and overcomes to be a better person. Sloane, here in the beginning, is borderline narcissistic and incredibly selfish, in deed and in thought and that’s going to be difficult for readers to connect with her, to become invested in what happens to her as a lead protagonist.”
Now What?
Wiser people than me have advised writers to give their readers what they want. My problem was how to give me what I wanted, too. I wanted to write this character, a woman at the top of her game who steps on everyone below her, so that I could write about the same character when she hit rock bottom. The contrast was so appealing to me.
Initially, as I have said before, I wrote Bedazzled with no intention of creating a series. I gave Wyatt three friends so that we would have someone for him to talk to, to share, so that we as readers could learn what he was thinking and feeling. But those friends couldn’t—wouldn’t—be ignored and the Beguiling Bachelor Series was born.
The prequel was actually the third book I wrote. I wanted to add some backstory to the trio, since their interplay was so important in the first two novels. Bewildered was born. And Nicole wisely told me to use this prequel to make Sloane more palatable to readers.
To paraphrase a famous quote: Readers will accept your characters doing absolutely anything as long as you’ve written adequate motivation for their behavior. So that’s what I did. I rewrote the entire series, and my first big change was softening Sloane’s behavior a tiny bit, and increasing the story of why she is so bitchy. Poor little rich girl was never enough.
As I said in today’s newsletter (want to subscribe, join my Insiders here) making her sympathetic was a challenge, but between her back story in Bewildered and her misery and redemption in Beholden, I think I’ve done it. If you’re a Disney fan picture Malificent—someone you love to hate or the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, and the redemption she got in Wicked. That’s my Sloane.
It doesn’t hurt that I gave her two handsome heroes as dramatic foils. Poor conflicted Wyatt, the boy who has everything but his freedom, cannot stand up to Sloane, or his family, and Randall has demons of his own that must be vanquished to make Sloane his own. In Sloane I found a character to bring out both the worst and the best of my Beguiling Bachelor heroes. If you haven’t met her already, start here.
Here’s a short excerpt from the newly relaunched 
Bewildered
“Amidst the chaos of gathering laptops and books, Sloane ambled to where Wyatt and Randall stood. She waited while a few stray students asked questions. determined to be alone with the two men in order to decide which to choose as a mentor. The stakes for Sloane were high. She was planning on using this mentoring relationship to open doors both personal and professional and she was aiming high.
When only the three of them remained, she offered a business-like handshake before smoothing the front of her short skirt to draw their attention to her long legs and great figure. It worked.
“I think I read somewhere that you two went to grammar school together,” Sloane began. “Do you do everything together? Even mentoring?” When Wyatt grinned and Randall laughed, Sloane realized that her emphasis on the word ‘everything’ had sexual connotations. She blushed beet red, the heat so strong in her face she wanted to rest her cool palms against it.
The men looked at each other, sending signals only they could read and giving Sloane a chance to recover. “She’s right,” Wyatt said. “We do everything together. How do I get rid of you, man?”
And if you know the source of the famous quote I paraphrased, I hope you’ll share it in the comments below.