Blogging the Fading Lands

Ha! I took the "which Harry Potter Character Are You?" quiz, and it appears that I, like my dear friend Diana Peterfreund, am Hermione Granger!


I love Hermione - she's smart and proud of it, she has saved Harry's bacon more times than I can count, she's the chick hot Russian quidditch stars yearn to date, and she is a true, honest, and loyal friend. She's one rockin' great character!

Characters are what keep me reading. In addition to the unforgettable cast JK Rowling created in her HP series, there are books and characters I absolutely adore - books I will read over and over again because their characters--often even one or two particular scenes with those characters--just fire my thrusters.

A few of my favorites:

• Jack Ryan from Tom Clancy's novels, in particular the scene in Executive Order, when Jack is President of the US (POTUS) and the pencil in his hand snaps as he threatens India with nuclear war. What is it about Jack I love? He's a hero. An idealist, loyal, smart, honest, a true man of integrity. He is GOOD. He's the kind of man I want in my life. He's not brash, bossy, or arrogant. There is a humbleness to him, and a core of pure, unwavering steel. Oh, Jack. Be still my heart.
• Jacques Dubrinsky from Christine Feehan's Dark Desire. He hits all my Beauty and the Beast fairy tale buttons. Tortured to the point of insanity, teetering on the brink of madness, drawn back from utter destruction solely by the power of love. I love how much, how deeply, how eternally Jacques loves his lifemate, Shea. This was the book that made me, for the very first time in my life (can you imagine?) get on the internet and chase down an author. And that's the other reason I'll always love Jacques: he is the reason I met one of my best and dearest friends.
• Zsadist from J.R. Ward's Lover Awakened. Ok, so I have a thing for tortured heroes. I know it. And they get me every time. I adored this book.
  
• Sebastian Ballister, Marquess of Dain, from Loretta Chase's Lord of Scoundrels. This is one of my all time favorite books, and Dain is one of my all time favorite heroes. The heroine, Jessica Trent, is fabulous too. Beautiful, bold, smart, brave, practical, well grounded. She's the perfect foil for Dain. When I read this book, I knew I was reading a masterpiece of romantic fiction.
  
• Legolas, in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Oh. My. Long blond hair, mastery of bow and sword, loyal and true, and immortal...be still my heart. Let's hear it for pointy eared hotties!
• Luke Skywalker. One of my first loves.
• Han Solo. One of my first "bad boy" loves! My favorite movie line: "I love you." "I know." And "Scoundrel! Scoundrel? I like the sound of that."
  

LOL, I am noticing a trend...all my favorite characters are men! And all of them are heroes I'd want to claim as my own! Okay, okay, how about characters I love but wouldn't necessarily want to drag home...

Other memorable characters who really stand out in my mind

• Dobbie, the house elf, in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I mean, c'mon, he ironed his fingers in self-punishment!
• Princess Leia in George Lucas's Star Wars. I love that chick! Bossy, sassy, chief-chick-in-charge. "Will someone get this walking carpet out of my way!"
  
• Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 in George Lucas's Star Wars
  
• Jean Grey, in the Uncanny X-Men. The original Dark Phoenix story remains one of my all time favorite comic book tales.
• Strongbow in Richard and Wendy Pini's fabulous graphic novel series, Elfquest. The strong, silent type.
  
• Jessica in Frank Herbert's Dune. The lady loved her man, loved her children. She was strong, she was smart, she was determined, and she did what had to be done. Of course, her son Paul was no slouch either!
  
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike. Buffy because she's just great - a hip, ass-kicking, funny, young woman who gives far more than she gets, and her hair and lip gloss stays perfect! And Spike because he's just so much freakin' fun!
  
• Axel Foley from the first Beverly Hills Cop movie. And Serge, the scene stealer.
• Gratch, the long-tailed gar, in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. He's just so cute!
  

So, who are some of the fictional characters you just can't seem to forget?

One of my favorite pastimes is collecting names. I've always loved names and the naming of things. The etymology of names (their origins and meanings) is something I find particularly fascinating.

I collect names from all sources: phone books, people I meet, baby name books (great for etymology), and a variety of terrific online resources (www.20000-names.com is one of my favorites). I make up names, too. I'm constantly playing with letters and sounds in my mind, like puzzle pieces, trying to find new arrangements that appeal to me in some way. I have lists and databases of names for all occasions and uses: people names, last names, place names, villain names, names and words that just intrigue me so much I add them to my collection in the hopes of one day finding a use for them.

When using names in books, one writer's technique I love to employ is to give characters names that underscore some aspect of their personality or that have some kind of symbolic meaning. For instance, I have a Navy SEAL manuscript where the heroine is named Grace and the hero is Raphael. In Biblical terms, the archangel Raphael is associated with all manner of healing, and my Rafe is ultimately the healer of Grace's soul.

I also love to use anagrams for names. For instance, I might create a character named Lilivan and make her evil, (lilivan=villain).

When writing Lord of the Fading Lands and Lady of Light and Shadows, I used a mix of names with meanings and names that just "flowed right" for me. (When I read, words have a rhythm, almost like music, and when something breaks that rhythm, I cringe. To me, "off rhythm" writing is like listening to a symphony and having the entire string section suddenly hit a sour note. Ouch!) Neither Ellysetta nor Rain's names have any particular meaning: they just came to me and the characters wouldn't be called anything else. Vadim Maur, however, means "Dark Knowledge" and Kolis (the first name of my Sulimage) also means "dark". (As an aside, I actually had to change my evil High Mage's name at my editor's request, and I have to admit, I like the new "Dark Knowledge" name much better than the mild, etymologically meaningless name I had originally given the character.

My name, Cheryl, is presumably derived from the French cherie, which means "darling." (ahem, I think my mother was being hopeful.) My middle name, Lyn, is a derivative of my mother's name, Lynda. Ah, but here's the rub: Lynda means "serpent" in Old German but "pretty one" in Spanish. So does that make me a pretty darling little serpent? *gg* (and my chinese zodiac sign is a Dragon, as is my mother's...ooooooh...)

What's in your name? And if you've seen any interesting or unique names lately, I'd love to add them to my collection!

I have long believed that romance novels are the fairy tales of the modern world. So many of the popular and longest lasting fairy tales blend romance, magic, evil witches, heroic quests, usually tied into some eternal theme that celebrates love, honor, and the triumph of good over evil.

A few of my favorites (and I challenge you all to see how many of them I've included in the Tairen Soul books ) include:

• Beauty and the Beast
  
• Cinderella
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
  
• Snow White & Rose Red
• Rapunzel
• Sleeping Beauty
• The Frog Prince
• The Princess and the Pea
  
• The Twelve Dancing Princesses
• The Wild Swans (aka, the Swan Princess)
• Hansel and Gretel
• The Snow Queen
• The Little Mermaid
• Rumplestiltskin
  

It is surprising, however, to realize how much darker the original fairy tales are than our current modern versions of them. The versions most of us are familiar with are much sanitized, Disney-esque versions of what used to be fairly grim cautionary tales. (Did you realize, for instance, that the wicked queen from Snow White was forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance in them until she dropped dead? Wow. Those Grimm Brothers didn't fool around when it came to meting out the punishment!)

The Brothers Grimm wrote 209 fairy tales, though of those, I'd say only a dozen or so have weathered the test of time. Hans Christian Anderson penned 168, and of those about likewise about a dozen or so continue to be read as classics to modern children.

What are your favorite fairy tales, and why?