Deidra Alexander's Blog

If you know me, you know I want to be an author. If you don’t know me, the secrets out. So in my effort to become the top writer of insanity, I’m trying to learn as much as I can from other authors who are already super top writers.

So whenever I can corner an author, I beg, wheedle and plead for them to answer a few questions. It’s relatively painless, at least for me. On Saturday I hit the mother lode. Tracy Wolff writing as Tessa Adams.

I got to talk to her about how she opens her books. I couldn’t quit put my fingers on it, but when you read the opening of one of her books, you’re hooked right away. What follows is a summary of the article I wrote that will hopefully appear somewhere, someday. You know my motto – I’m on the train to the New York Times List. It’s just a long, long ride.

Tracy’s characters can be really dark, sometime cruel and always larger than life. What’s her secret for making readers love them?

Look for the emotional opening by finding the character’s

• Wounds
• Pain
• Weakness
• Regret
• Dig at the characters past and thoughts until you know the very heart of their pain
• Find a way to center your opening around this wound

Tracy explained it to me this way –

“Find the characters’ issues or pain and dig into it. If you start with that, the reader will understand how much the characters torture themselves over either what they’ve done; what they’ve failed to do; or who they are. The readers will give you a lot more latitude in what they’ll allow, because they understand these men aren’t evil for the sake of being evil.” 

Pain, sorrow, and regret are universal. Instead of starting with a huge grandiose moment, Tracy starts with a quiet, simple heart wrenching moment of pain.

Who can not relate to and forgive someone for less than stellar actions?

I learned from Tracy Wolff to hook the reader with a moment of the character’s pain or fear. Then, the readers will not just follow through the character’s lowest moments rather they will beg for more hoping for that final redemption.

If you haven’t noticed, the second book in her Dragon series, Hidden Embers just came out April 5th and the third to follow Dark Embers on June 1. Yes, two books same series in two months. You don’t have to wait around for a year or so for the sequel. If you get a chance, check out the steamie hot covers at www.tracywolff.com