Writing arrogant dickhead heroes

Picture this. I’ve just come away from commenting on a post about how Doms in BDSM stories are often portrayed as bullies. I’ve said what I truly believe -- poured my emotions about these stories into the comment. I’ve said how I strive to make the Doms in my stories real men who are willing to admit their mistakes, men who care for their partners, men who can love.

So an hour or two later I’ve penned a couple of thousand more words of Steel Dominance and I get up to stretch, feeling quite pleased. But my conscious subconscious won’t leave me alone. Not the true deep down, I ain’t saying anything intelligible subconscious but the part of me that pokes me endlessly when something in a story is wrong. Then when I ignore it, next morning it drags out a baseball bat to add to the torture and emphasize its point.

Finally, head in hands (maybe because of that baseball bat), I admit to myself that I’ve done it again -- written an arrogant prick into the story.

Aarghhhh!

Why does this happen? I try so hard to make them somebody I’d love to wake up next to, or even better, be woken up by, then licked by, kissed by…you get the picture. But, instead of a man momma would be proud of, I get a man who’s likely to sexually molest momma if she happens to be good-looking and spritely enough.

I hate arrogant pricks, don’t I?

But then again 40 percent of women have rape fantasies and when you consider that, who but an arrogant prick is going to fulfill that fantasy? I don’t write rape of course, or I don’t aim to. Yet when these guys arrive, that is what the scene often reminds me of -- sexual assault. A reader I’ve emailed back and forth with, who also writes, told me one of the flaws in her writing is that she’s always wanting the big climactic events to happen SOON. Well that’s how I am with the sex scenes sometimes. So I end up with men who’d be at home on the hit parade down at the police station.

My naughty side tends to sneak these guys past me by making sure the women don’t protest about the arrogant pricks’ sexual advances. So now, not only do I have a man who makes Jack the Ripper look gorgeous, I have a female doormat.

What do I do with these imposters who creep into my stories? I delete them. I do the metaphorical equivalent of whacking them over the head with a shovel (my baseball bat is taken), toppling them into a crate, and nailing the lid shut. Then I bury them somewhere out back inside my mind.

Other authors have plot bunnies hopping about nibbling pseudo grass and bobbing their tails. I have a graveyard of arrogant pricks. I’m not sure if they make good fertilizer or not, but I’m trying. And if you, like me, just had a terribly rude image pop into your head, you have a dirty mind. Welcome to the club. Pull up a seat, and grab a shovel -- the merlot and chardonnay and beer are in the fridge. So throw a plot bunny on the BBQ and get comfy. Another one of those dickheads will wander by soon and we can get busy serial shoveling.