Announcing - All About Alphas

I've had a lot of messages recently about writing. When I ran the Writing Q&A I got a lot of responses telling me how much you enjoyed it and how useful people found it. So now I'm trying something a little different.

A Writing Q&A - but in more detail and on one topic.

And as I've been getting a lot of questions about this topic, plus the fact that I've seen it mentioned on several not yet published authors' blogs, I thought we'd start with a particular subject that always seems to get people involved - and where people who want to write romance often have a lot of questions.

So the topic for this first extended writing Q&A is All About Alphas.

A few days ago I mentioned that the Mills & Boon web site has set up a brand new community with discussion groups and forums etc. Over there, on the topic of How to Write For Modern Romance, editors have been talking about the Alpha Male. So obviously I'm on a wavelength with editorial as well as writers. There are some great points being made over there and a lot of useful advice. So I suggest that you go along and see what's on offer there as well.

One of the things you'll spot is something that I happen to think is very important - and that is that there is a list of how the Alpha Male appears in ALL the romance lines - Modern/Modern Heat/Romance/Historical/Medical - he is not just the sole and unique preserve of the Modern/Presents line. That's the mistake number one that a lot of people seem to make. The editors have details notes there on their descriptions of the Alpha in each of the lines. (I'll ask them if I can reproduce them here as well so we can discuss them if we need to)

But I'm also going to go to the horses' mouths so to speak - though I hate to think that I'm describing my fellow authors as horses! I'm so lucky in my writing friends that all I had to do was to say to several of them that I was planning this Q&A and would they consider giving me a quote for the blog and they all responded, all said yes - and within 24 hours most of them!

So as well as discussing, answering questions, I'm going to be able to give you help and advice and pointers as to what goes into writing a great alpha hero from many of the fabulous writers all across the lines.

Can I just pause here and say - a great big thank you to everyone who has agreed to join in and has sent their quote for me to use. You're all brilliant - thank you so much. And I know that everyone is going to love reading what they all have to say.

So that's the start - I'll post some topics, I'll also post the quotes and hopefully we'll have a great workshop on Writing the Alpha hero - but I'll also need your help and your contributions. It's a Q&A - so to make this really work, I'll need questions to answer

And that's where you all come in. If you have questions can you please post them now in the comments section so I have plenty to work from? I will hope to answer them as we go through the posts so that by the end you'll have the answers you need.

This is particularly important as things have changed slightly since I first planned this. Then I was not on a dreadline, with the book submitted, and I didn't have any immediate plans, other than - oh, cleaning my office, doing my accounts, catching up on emails . . . . But unexpectedly things changed today - blame Abby Green who has tempted me away to Ireland to spend a week with her. I hope that I'll be able to get some internet access and that I'll be able to come and reply to queries on the blog, but I can't guarantee exactly when. So I'll just say I'll do my best.

But even if I have to get round to answering things when I get back home then I will.

OK - over to you - what do you want to ask about the alpha hero?