What makes a rake a rake? (A hoe?)
Trying to give my rake more of a backstory, even if I won’t be covering his past in detail.
Came across “The Character Therapist” blog that helped give some ideas. Specifically,
With true womanizers (who try to get women in bed), as well as your tamer Christian fiction counterpart, low self-esteem is an important part of why they do what they do. There is a certain amount of attention and power and control that being a womanizer brings a man, and these emotions would come into play regardless of what happens after the dates are over.
To really make your hero believable, my advice is to work in some backstory about him being a late bloomer (not nearly as attractive as he’s portrayed now) and really give him solid motivations for being with these women so it doesn’t read contrived. Just answer the question: What needs of his are being met? And then, by the end of the book (or by the end of my therapy sessions with someone like this), I would hope he’s meeting those needs in a healthier way to give him a nice, round character arc.
Also, this sounds like someone’s personal experience:
Mother’s who are emotionally weak, distant or unavailable raise sons like this. Mothers who destroy and banish the boy’s father from their lives create this dynamic, along with borderline personality disordered women who go through men like underwear, and have no concern for how their men regard or treat their sons. IF the men that come in and out of their lives devalue or abuse these boys at all, and are left to do it with no protection or defense from mom, leave these boys to grow up hating and resenting women, so their nasty. unacceptable behaviors are taken out on the women in their lives, receiving what they feel their mothers deserve.
And then there’s WiseGeek, who says
A habitual womanizer may have serious issues with women in general, which can be the hidden motivation behind the seduction and ultimate rejection process. A womanizer is often a male chauvinist who views women as inferiors or manipulators who somehow deserve to be played by an aggressive male. A womanizer may be so concerned about rejection that he makes sure he remains in complete control of every relationship he enters, no matter how superficial or fleeting. Some relationship experts suggest that a habitual womanizer may be reenacting a painful break-up experience every time he picks up a new “conquest.”
I have no idea what sob back story to attach to my rake, but I do like the idea of giving him a mother who is superficial, gorgeous and manipulative. She could be a real nasty piece of work. Yet another juicy character I can really sink my teeth into. Hmmm….
This idiot’s guide to the Kobo ereader
This is a lesson on how to do better research, because I did brilliant research on the actual reader, but made a bunch of assumptions regarding the library management side of things, and now I’m less enchanted. I also feel a little foolish for jumping in so quick (if >3 months is considered jumping in quick).
If you ever want to do research on a product, remember this: check out the product’s online customer support. If the product comes with any web-based DIY management tool, don’t assume everything’s going to sync like how it does now with Windows and Macs. I made huge assumptions I didn’t realise I was even making, and now I’m poking around trying to find workarounds. I did find some good software out there that will make life better, though. More later.
After tussling with this baby for about 4 hours, I’ve come up with an initial list of likes and dislikes.
Kobo Cabana!
I got me a Kobo! I’ve been reading up about them for a while, ever since Borders announced that they were selling them. Every time I’ve mentioned getting an electronic reader, I’ve just been told to get an iPad, but from what I’ve been reading,
- it’s actually more difficult to read with iBook (although there is Kobo and Kindle for iPad, ironically)
- trawling through your library of books gets hellish after a certain point
- the only ooh-aah factor is the page turning effect (“Just like a real book!”) and the backlight.
Which, for AUD1,200, is a rather extravagant spend for realistic page turns and a backlight.
Yes, yes… I know iPads can do so much more. But between the husband and I, we now have 1 netbook (17 months old), 1 duo-core laptop (3 years old) and 1 very new, very souped-up bespoke quod-core desktop, with a solid state drive that would make any teen gamer writhe in pimply envy. We have an iTouch but we’re still dragging our feet with iPhones. I’m not quite sure why. I suspect part of it stems from a general aversion to bandwagons, and casting our lot so readily with Apple – whom I’m sure harbour evil Microsoft-like plans for world domination underneath all that slick I’m-so-friendly packaging.
But I also like that you’re not just tied to Borders’ books, because it reads ePUB and PDF files. And that I can load electronic books from the library. Kindle doesn’t read PDF. That’s quite the deal breaker for me, frankly. Plus, Australia’s WiFi coverage is laughable, so getting anything WiFi-y at this stage would just be a waste of money better spent on books.
So it’s a Kobo for me. Cheap, does the job, comes with 100 free books. It’s like buying a cheap second car that comes with paid registration and a full tank of petrol. Sweet.
