STELLA ASKS: WHAT DO WE REALLY WANT?

When it comes to men in our books, what do we really want?

Illusion? Reality? All illusion? All Reality? A mixture? I thought I had this down cold until I listened to some writers discussing how we write about men. They were deeply interested in how men actually think and how we change them in stories. Their contention in the end was that men don't think like women (big surprise)and that no men like conversation. Men are always puzzled by a woman's desire to discuss feelings--they don't "do" feelings. They talk to get what they want. They say charming things to get what they want--and for absolutely no other reason. Men never want any conversation during sex. I assume that includes, "Honey, you've got your fingernails in my eyes."

"We want strong men. We want gentle men. We want men who are sympathetic, malleable, intelligent, tender, sexy, take charge, take over, take care of us, stay out of our faces, do what we want you to do all the time, make us feel protected, be good providers, don't think we need you to support us, don't open the door for us, open the door for us, be great fathers, don't interfere with the way we bring up the children . . ." I'm exhausted:)

Winding this up with a smart one or two liner would be easy, but it would be a copout.

Do we want different traits in our book men than we find acceptable in our life partners? Or do we want to read scripts for some of the home movies we could take--the good, the bad and the ugly?

I'll take the plunge and admit what I think. Then it will be your turn.

We probably want bits and pieces of all the possibilities I've mentioned and a bunch more I left out. We don't want our beloved stories to make fools of us by trying to sell us men who are too inconsistent to live, or too anything to live.

But (and now I'll switch to "I") I want to read about strong, honorable men who leave a presence behind when they walk from a room. I like an interesting, often somewhat unpredictable male who keeps me guessing, but who tries to do the right thing. Mavericks may apply in my books, mavericks with laughing eyes that can turn to ice when evil wiggles its fingers. Give me the man who stops conversation when he comes on scene. Oh, and he can be making a humorous idiot of himself because he feels so strongly about something. He just can't make a blithering idiot of himself. And when the chips are finally, irrevocably down--lives are on the line, and the future of an important relationship--he can become part Superman if that's what it takes.

whoa, all this at 3:30a.m. with only a quarter of a cup of coffee circulating my veins. The rest of the cup is cold--blech!

I will always write strong men, tough but capable of sensitivity men. Particularly in any form of Suspense/thriller, romantic or otherwise, jelly-kneed protagonists of either sex don't cut it. These people have to be larger than life types I'd love to spend a weekend with in a remote lodge . . . perhaps lots of weekends. I would never be bored. I want a man to admire, but I want to feel I could be his equal, or almost:)

My husband is my realtime hero, but I wouldn't want him anywhere near the hairy monsters my book men encounter.

In BODY OF EVIDENCE, heroine Emma LaChance is determined to be self-sufficient and fearless. In the following, one of my favorite little sections, there is an exchange between Emma, and Finn Duhon, our hero, as Finn sets out to make sure no villain is hiding in her house:

The way Finn pushed doors open before entering each room gave Emma the feeling she was in an urban battle zone. She kept close behind him on the first floor, then followed him upstairs.

He stopped suddenly, holding up a hand, and she bumped into him.

Finn turned around to whisper in her ear, "You don't have to back me up. I can manage."

Her teeth chattered but she whispered back, "I'm a coward. I don't want to stay downstairs by myself."

"And you were coming to this house on your own?" Finn said. "In the middle of the night?"

"Yes. This is my home. I'd have been all right, but you've made me jumpy."

Finn said, "That makes perfect perfect sense. Why didn't I figure that out right off? I'm going to take out my gun just in case we did hear something."

Emma grabbed the back of his belt. "What? What did we hear?"

Your turn at last. Do you, like me, look for the slightly larger-than-life, completely spellbinding hero who breaks the ordinary mould. Or do you spend time questioning a male character if he isn't a potentially true representation of the good--or occasionally not-so-good--masculine examples from real life?

Take off the gloves and give it to us straight! We can take it.

And soon I intend to take a look at the women in our stories.

Back to my new hero, I go. Have a great day.

Stella