Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,97

I make them really suffer?” Because really, the best stories deal with characters who must face their personal vulnerabilities.

Here’s an example of what I mean. Say you had a hero who was a mountain climber. You could create a plot that involved him scaling a cliff to save a stranded child. You could throw in an impending thunderstorm—no, make it a hailstorm with high winds. He’s got to get up there and rescue that child—no, make her a toddler, trapped with her father who had a heart attack right there on the trail. That could be sort of exciting, right?

Well, no. Because the hero’s a mountain climber. It’s no big deal for him to scale that cliff. He’ll probably yawn while he’s doing it.

And the reader will yawn, too.

But what if the hero isn’t a mountain climber? What if he’s the opposite of a mountain climber—what if he’s terrified of heights? I’m talking Jimmy Stewart–level vertigo à la the Hitchcock movie of that very name.

Toss this hero into that scenario I sketched out above, and no one’s yawning now! When this hero rescues that child, he’s not just climbing a cliff, he’s facing his demons.

So what I do when I plot my books is figure out who my hero is going to be, what his vulnerabilities are, and what type of situation I can throw him into, to make him really suffer! The same rule applies, of course, to my heroines.

Q: Sam and Alyssa are probably your most popular couple. Where did the idea come from, to stretch their story out over five books?

SUZ: When I outlined Sam and Alyssa’s story arc, my intention was to present a traditional romance backstory in “real time.”

It’s fairly typical to find a book in which the hero and heroine have had a romantic and/or sexual encounter in the past, and have, after that encounter, gone in two different directions. But in the actual book, these two characters come face-to-face again, and are forced to work together and deal with their history, as well as any feelings that are still in play.

With Sam and Alyssa, I wanted to bring my readers along for a ride, having what would typically be that backstory play out over the course of six or seven books, as subplots.

For example, in The Unsung Hero, I introduced the two and even though they are minor secondary characters, it’s clear that they are throwing sparks and clashing.

In the next book, The Defiant Hero, there is a major romantic subplot in which these two characters again clash in a hate/love relationship that explodes, with the help of overindulgence in alcohol, in a one-night stand. Neither character is mature enough to deal with a real relationship, and the morning after is filled with regrets and additional mistakes. At the end of the book, they decide to pretend that night never happened, and go about their separate lives.

The third book, Over the Edge, takes place six months later, and the two characters again meet and are forced to work together. Again they clash and spark, and there’s another one-night stand. But this time, both are a little bit older and wiser, and they realize there could be something more between them. But the book ends with an external conflict—a girlfriend Sam dated during those six months he and Alyssa spent apart is pregnant and he feels he must “do the right thing” and marry her—that sends the pair in separate directions.

The fourth book, Out of Control, has more of a minor subplot from Alyssa’s point of view, in which she is attempting to get on with her life. Sam, meanwhile, is trying to make his loveless marriage work for the sake of his new baby.

The fifth book, Into the Night, shows Sam trying to make the best of his marriage to a woman he doesn’t love, and who truly doesn’t love him. In this book, Sam comes to the realization that marriage without love is not “the right thing.”

And the sixth book, Gone Too Far, is Sam and Alyssa’s story. Again, they’re thrown together. Sam is single again. Both are even older and wiser, and prove through their journey in the book that they have earned the right to a happy ending—which they achieve at the end of the story.

I outlined Sam and Alyssa’s story arc way back after I wrote The Unsung Hero. I suspected that telling Sam and Alyssa’s story in this manner, in an arc that spread across so many books,