The A word . . . a personal rant

What is it about a word that gets everyone’s knickers in a twist? Why can a single set of five letters put together in a particular combination get so many people fizzing and muttering and in some cases actually bursting out into a tirade – a torrent of displeasure that quite frankly makes me wonder about the thought processes of the person writing it more than the way it applies to my books or to those of any of my fellow authors.

What word am I talking about?

Not a swear word, no Fs or Cs or blasphemy. No taking of any name in vain, no cursing or obscenity – though by the reaction this word gets, you’d think it was as obscene as can be.
No, I’m talking about the A word – the one that everyone uses about the Presents hero.

A as in ALPHA

That’s what I’m talking about. The word Alpha – when it’s put in front of the other word male – or hero – seems to send some people’s pulse rate and their blood pressure sky rocketing, the see a red mist before their eyes, and -and here’s the bit I don’t understand – they begin to think in terms of all sorts of other words – words like abusive and brute and thug and monster and even rapist – and because the Presents hero is also generally known as the archetypal Alpha hero, then these characteristics are becoming widely - and in my opinion wrongly – attached to the guy I’m writing about.

Or, rather – no – not to the guy I’m writing about. Because as many people know who’ve read my comments on these things and the articles, Q&As I’ve written, I have very strong opinions on what constitutes an Alpha hero and words like abuse, thug and brute, just don’t have a place in there.

Alpha – as in Alpha Wolf etc means simply a powerful successful and – here’s the important part – protective member of a pack/a community/a family/a society.

The term Alpha comes from the animal kingdom – the Alpha wolf is the leader of the pack. The Boss. He has won his place by intelligence, strength, courage, fortitude and sheer power. He rules the rest of the pack with the same qualities. He has to, or the pack will not survive – certainly, if the Alpha loses his grip on the rest, someone will rise up against him, defeat him and rule in his place. The other reward of being the Alpha wolf is that he gets the best females – mates with the very best – breeds wonderful cubs. But along with his success and his rewards as Alpha Wolf – he has a lot of responsibilities – he has to protect his own – defend the females and the cubs from invading marauders, make sure he takes them where the hunting is good.

That’s an ALPHA. And the Alpha hero has to have those qualities.

He has to be successful- a man of achievement. Independent. A ruler – a man of power. Strong, handsome, vigorous. A leader. In human societies, the signs of success are wealth and power – and so the Alpha hero has to have the outward trappings – those visible signs of success that the world values – money, houses, cars, businesses . . .

BUT – and it’s a big but - if an ALPHA is to be not just an ALPHA MALE but an ALPHA HERO then he also has – in my mind at least – to have HEROIC qualities. He has to have morality, an innate sense of honour, an immense integrity. For me, the point about an Alpha male is that he is rich powerful etc etc because he got there as a result of his intelligence, his integrity, his ability to manage people, his innate sense of morality and his sense of caring about the important things that matter. When that sense of honour comes up against some things he truly believes to be wrong then the strength that made him what he is can also make him a hard and implacable enemy. But the true Alpha is the ultimate nurturer – a man of honour. A man with no honour, no integrity and no intelligence could never be a hero to me.

Whey am I talking about this? Well, over on the new I(heart)Presents blog there has been a debate on what makes an Alpha hero – what’s good about him and what do readers dislike.

One commentator there came up with this list:

This is my list of the type of alpha heroes that aspiring writers should
avoid:
A hero who still insists on thinking that the heroine is a slut, even
though it’s pretty obvious to anybody with half a brain, that she doesn’t know
what her vagina is for.
A hero who insists on calling the heroine a slut every third page. This gets very old, very quickly.
A hero who ‘coldly glances’ or ‘laughs scornfully’ at the heroine every time she so much as breathes the wrong way.
A hero who flaunts his slutty ex in front of the heroine, just to make her jealous.
A hero who takes the word of a scheming ex-mistress, even though he knows full well, she’ll do anything to get him and his impressive love-lance.
A hero who insists on believing that the heroine is a scheming witch bent on destroying him, even though she’s kind to children and animals, and works in the local Save The Dolphin sanctuary

Well , as I said in the comments on that blog – I have to agree with her - totally. Simply because a man who behaves in the way she’s describing is not in my book any sort of a hero.

But I do wonder where her ‘facts’ are coming from.

I’ve written over 50 books and I’m proud to declare that my hero has never called any of my heroines a slut. He’s never thought of her as a slut. He’s never listened to a scheming mistress, or flaunted one in front of the heroine. (Just to digress for a minute – is it only me, but is there a double standard here between the fact that it’s wrong for a man to consider a woman a slut but the author of these points can call the ‘other woman’ his slutty mistress’ with impunity?). My heroes would have too much self-respect to have a ‘slutty’ mistress anyway.

I’ll also be honest here and say that I can’t actually recall any book in which the hero does call the heroine a slut – once, or every third page. I’ll admit that I haven’t read every single book that Presents puts out – and my memory might be faulty on this – but then I’m not making sweeping claims, just trying to stick to the facts. Those sorts of heroes might have been around in, say the 1970s, but the books were very different then, the world was very different too, and I’m not going to take the blame for something that was written and published nearly 20 years before I ever put pen to paper – and was written by some other author, bought and published by editors who are not around now.

I could go on – I’d like to take more time to discuss this and I’ll probably come back to it, but right now I have a hero ( alpha in so far as he’s successful, powerful etc) and heroine (who’s not doing too badly herself actually) and their emotional conflicts to sort out. But a couple of things that did occur to me as I was reading the debate on I(Heart) Presents are these:

1. If a man behaves in the ways described above then he’s no hero of mine

2. If a man behaves as an asshole, then he’s an asshole, no matter whether he’s Alpha, Beta, Gamma or anything in between.

3. I do think that many people have a problem separating the conflict of the book from the identity and character of the hero. Presents books deal in deep, intense, emotional and often difficult conflicts – conflicts that are sometimes very difficult for some readers to deal with. They might consider them over the top. They might consider them strong meat – meat that’s way too strong for them. Some people don’t like strong emotions, arguments that rip strips of each other (that’s each other – in my books the heroine can tear pieces off the hero just as much as him off her) Some readers are only comfortable with quieter, steadier, less explosive relationships. – Perhaps we should create the term Alpha Conflict for what happens in a Presents book.

4. In that Alpha Conflict it should always be acknowledged that the heroine has a part to play. She can mislead the hero, hold back information, deliberately pitch things in a certain way so as just to rile him. She can also misinterpret his behaviour, over-react to it because of the emotional state she’s in, her beliefs (mistaken beliefs) about the situation he’s in.

5. If in a particular book, you find that a particular conflict, a particular hero behaves badly/cruelly/appallingly to his heroine and by the end of the story the author has not – to your satisfaction – justified his reasons for doing so, his response when he finds out the truth and the emotional reparation he makes to heal the hurts he’s caused – then that book doesn’t work for you and you have every right to say so. But don’t tar every single author and every single book with the same dissatisfaction. Over on the I(Heart)Presents blog there are 21 authors listed – there are perhaps another 5 or 6 who have been bought since that list was compiled. Before that there were hundreds of other authors over the time period from 1908 when the Mills& Boon Company was originally formed.

There are plenty of authors out there who have written books I do not enjoy, with heroes I could not relate to – heroines I disliked intensely too. I have not put up a blanket condemnation of Blaze/Black Lace/Romance/Intrigue – whatever. I just don’t read books by those authors any more.

Okay, I’ve gone on for long enough, and I really should be writing. But I have no doubt that the ‘Alpha hero’ and the true definition of what he is, compared to the knee jerk reaction of some people who consider that Alpha = Thug will come back again and again. When I have more time I might discuss it more too – but first I have a book to write before I have an Alpha Editor cracking her whip over me!