Teresa D'Amario

I was thinking today about the different characters I’ve created, and the things that make them “individual” and not cardboard figures.  In SheWolf, my heroine was a veterinarian.  She thought about animals all the time.  She thought about her job, and how stupid white coats were when you worked with animals.  How the dirt and dog hair were always obvious.  We see her at work, with her employees, and how they bond like their own pack.  Her hero, Kieran, identifies himself entirely by his failures until he meets his mate.  The death of his parents.  The death of his first wife.  They all play on his mind and guide his every action.  But once life begins to change. Kieran identifies himself entirely as a mate.  It’s a touching and unusual role to see an alpha male take.

Then there’s Ryland, with Dark Succession.  A man who has to fight for everything, to prove himself, to be what he wants to be.  To be what his brother thinks he should be.  He can’t even control his life enough to know who his parents truly are.  His past has created a powerful, yet edgy alpha male.  One thrown into a world he’d rather not be in, but must fight to keep it.  His heroine identifies herself as nothing more than an alpha’s daughter.  A woman who isn’t attractive in her own eyes, tired of being courted for her position instead of who and what she is.  A college girl, struggling to avoid what she believes to be her future – a loveless mating. 

In Tigress by the tail, we were more with Lance, who was the youngest brother of a family of 5 kids.  How he looked up to his brothers and identified not so much with himself, but what his brothers made him.  Cassie, however is more than confident if not a little bit innocent.  The ultimate college diva, from money.  She identifies herself more as a shifter than as a woman.

In Lone Wolf, Krystal is a movie buff.  You can tell because she is constantly comparing her brothers, or events to movies.  References to Underworld, Fantastic Four, and Matrix are throughout her thought processes.  Krystal was fun for me.  My favorite line in the movie is “The Matrix, in living color.  Times Four.”  A reference to her four brothers, all wearing black trench coats.  It made me smile every time I saw it.  She considers herself the weakest of the Maxey children.  And damn it, she’s going to prove herself even if it gets her killed.  Damon, however, identifies himself as a man without a past, who fears for his future.  It’s there, in everything he says and does. 

Now I’m working on Cougar’s Fate, and our hero, Jared, has trouble identifying himself as little more than the typical “Middle child syndrome”.  The third child in a group of five, he isn’t the oldest.  He isn’t the youngest.  He isn’t the smartest and he isn’t the most powerful.  Those titles all belong to his siblings.  He isn’t even the most “Sensitive”, as he describes his next oldest brother.  At this point in the story, he has at last met a woman who will draw him to be more than “the middle child”.  More than the less than powerful Maxey brother.  I can’t wait to see what she draws out of him.  What power, or strength he develops because of her love. 

So tell me about your favorite characters.  What makes them special?  How do they identify themselves?  How does it differ from the beginning of the story to the end?  Does your favorite develop into something OTHER than what they were in the beginning? or did they simply develop more of that identification till they truly knew who and what they were?

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