Goldilox and the Three Scares (5) - Stacey Jay

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I love Halloween! So I wrangled in some of my favorite authors and asked them to participate in this event. And they said yes! Plus, each day each author has a wonderful giveaway for you!

Day 5: Stacey Jay

     

      

Author Stacey Jay is here today to talk about monsters and redemption! 
Read on for her post, then enter to win some cool prizes inspired by her new release, Romeo Redeemed!

Redeeming the Monstrous 

   Halloween is a time for monsters. I love monsters. I love dreaming up wicked beings who do very bad things and get their just desserts at the end of the story. Recently, however, I was tasked with redeeming one of those monsters…

   Unlike many of my Romeo and Juliet-loving friends in drama school, I never did care for Romeo Montague. I thought Romeo was a creep—a boy so in love with love that he threatens to kill himself for love of Rosaline at the beginning of Shakespeare’s play only to fall madly in love with Juliet all of two hours later, and then proceed to lure an innocent girl into a dangerous relationship, and later, death—so it wasn’t much of a stretch to turn him into a monster.

   As Shakespeare drew the character, Romeo is an impulsive, charismatic, pretty boy who doesn’t care who he hurts in his pursuit of the next crush-induced-high. I simply took those traits and made them more extreme, then put a supernatural bad guy in Romeo’s path to lure him into true darkness.

   Making Romeo a villain in the first book in my two book series, Juliet Immortal (Aug 2011), was the easy part. The hard part was redeeming the murderous, lying, violent, psychopath I’d created. But thankfully, Romeo isn’t without admirable qualities. He does feel regret for his more evil deeds and care for Juliet in his own twisted way, which he proves at the end of Juliet Immortal. That gave me a place to start, but I knew I couldn’t move too quickly. I had to remain true to the monster I had created.

   And so the Romeo we meet at the beginning of Romeo Redeemed (Oct 12) is the same ruthless, lying, self-serving jerk that we left at the end of book one. His evolution is a slow one, but a sweet one, and was great fun to write. By the end of the book I was pleased with his transformation from monster to lovable bad boy (he was never going to be a nice guy, I gave up on that before I finished my first draft). I hope my readers will be pleased with it, too.

Thank you so much, Stacey, for stopping by the blog today!

Stacey Jay is a recovering workaholic (or at least working hard at recovering) with three pen names, two small children, and a passion for playing pretend for a living. She’s been a full time mom-writer since 2005 and can't think of anything she'd rather be doing. Her former careers include theatre performer, professional dancer, poorly paid C-movie actress, bartender, waiter, math tutor (for real) and yoga instructor.

Enter below to win some Romeo Redeemed inspired prizes:

5 tattoos
4x6 frame worthy art 

There will be TWO winners!

a Rafflecopter giveaway