Bad Heroes And Good Villains

I told a buddy I was working on a new story. "Who is the hero this time?" she asked. "An axe-murderer?"

You see… my heroes are not always good. Sometimes the differences between my heroes and my villains are very, very slight. Tavos, in Flawless, is a knife-wielding vigilante. He's a crime boss. He's a killer. But he's not all bad. He protects people who need protecting. He gives lost causes a second chance. He has a soft spot for the wrongly accused.

That's how I see real people. No one is all good and no one is all evil. I know an extremely evil man. He has an over-the-top, gifted, type of intelligence and when he applies that big brain to good (which rarely happens, unfortunately), he makes miracles happen. I know a woman whom everyone thinks is an angel. She's someone moms hold up as an example. 'Kimber, if only you could be like her.' I know her deep dark secret, a secret so bad it gave ME nightmares when she told me it. (And no, I will never tell that deep dark secret to anyone as long as I live – you see, I’m not all good either and I have my own warped sense of what is right.)

I sat in a writing seminar about a year back and the speaker was talking about themes. She says that every author has pet themes. Mine is that no matter what your past has been, you can be a hero today.

What is your theme?




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Kimber Chin is giving away a freebie story on http://businessromance.com/ .