Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Shh, killing going on.

I have to admit to being a bit confused by the term "killing her softly". And I do admit to wanting to wait to read what others thought it meant. But I’m the impatient sort.
Oh, but Killing Her Softly is a good theme for suspense writers for the month of February. I keep thinking of that old song, Killing Me Softly. You know, it goes on to say, ‘with his words’
Well, I have to say that our blog subject makes more sense when I think of those extra words. Thinking of my hero, I can see how some women, especially a few of my heroines are killed by words.
In my upcoming book, Fatal Secrets, book #5 in 2010’s Love Inspired Suspense series, I can honestly say that my hero inadvertently kills the heroine. With his words, of course.
Ahh, but fortunately, we are fiction writers who believe in happily ever after endings.
And my hero saves the day when he realizes the affect his words have had on my poor innocent heroine.
But that’s pretty much the only soft killing done in my books. I have to confess that I’m a bit of an adventurous killer, always looking for a blockbuster movie style attack, rather than that suspenseful Alfred Hitchcock style of murder.
Though old Alfie did have a certain cool flare, didn’t he? I would love to write something so quietly desperate, so dangerously cunning, that all the villain would have to do is appear and my readers would be biting their fingernails.
Hmm, this is getting a few ideas to rattle around this ol’ head. Of course, there’s no guarantee that I won’t throw someone off a cliff, like in Deadly Homecoming, or have the villain appear at the door one day when there’s no one but the heroine around, as in Keeping Her Safe.
But maybe there will be a bit of quiet, soft killing before that big, murderous cliff scene.
I hope you have a nice, quiet Valentine’s Day, with lots of sweet chocolate, and a nice, trusting hero hovering behind you. Tee-hee.

2 comments:

Lenora said...

Barbara, you scared me! Remind me to never stand next to you on a mountain. I think our theme of "killing me softly" can mean many things. But words do hurt and sometimes we have to make our stubborn heroes in our books see that it's not what they say, but how they say it, that conveys the wrong message. Now about killing bad guys--that might not be so soft but sometimes it is necessary. We thread a thin line in our books because our main characters are usually Christians. Sometimes I find myself shying away from anything brutal or graphic but we want the story to be suspenseful so we have the challenge of coming up with something that works but isn't so "iccky". Isn't this fun???

Lenora :) back to work

Debby Giusti said...

Hi Barbara,
No wonder I love hanging around suspense authors . . . we're always thinking up ways to kill people. Softly, of course! :)