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I let you guys come up with blog topics you wanted to see here. You came up with some interesting ones and there was very little repeating. I thought that was interesting all on its own. One of my fellow Tweeters asked about how I come up with my male characters and since there are certain similarities between a lot of them does this reflect my personal preferences?

OK, I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it. One personal preference is for long hair. I have a real thing for nice hair, and long means there’s more to play with. But I’m very into texture about everything, and have discovered that not everyone’s hair is playably soft when its long. Some people’s hair is so coarse that it’s not pettable. I was very sad to find this out. So, it would be fair to say that I love hair with a soft, or pettable texture, and more is better. Though as my own hair gets longer and I have friends with even longer hair I am reminded that it gets caught in, tangled on, and in the way of things. I maybe making more of that in future books, because now having been around some people with hair almost as long as Nathaniel’s, Doyle’s, and Frost’s, it really does get tangled on things. The last time I had hair to my butt and a little past I was fourteen so I’d forgotten how in the way it could get, but I wasn’t dating at fourteen either so certain situations just never came up. Jon and I have had more than one instance of stopping in the middle of things to have one or the other of us get off the other one’s hair, or even trapping our own hair.

I’ve always been a sucker for nice hair, and pretty eyes. That is actually what I’ve always noticed first about men. If you look at who I’ve dated I don’t seem to have a preference on color of hair and eyes, or even skin tone. I’ve fallen in love with eyes that were perfectly brown with lovely, long lashes, to hazel (mixture of brown with anything these days, but once it meant brown with some green to it), to pure pale blue, to blue/grey. Hair has also run the gamut from pure black to nearly every shade of brown, to blondish/brown, to red, strawberry blonde, and blonde that was nearly white. Skin tone has ranged from dark Hispanic to tans dark in summer, all the way to that creamy red-head pale. Height wise I’ve dated men my height to 6’ 4”. I’d have dated men shorter than me but they’re hard to find since I’m 5’ 3” and a half. I wouldn’t really want to go taller than 6’ 4”. A guy would have to have some really nice qualities to over come more than a foot in height difference.

In fact, taller men faired less well with me when I was younger. I just wasn’t as comfortable with tall men. I think part of that is that I’m tall for my family and have male relatives shorter than myself. I’m now more comfortable with height, but as I’m married, dating height of other men just isn’t as important as it once was. If you go by the men I’ve had successful relationships, over a year or more there is where my height prejudice comes into play. I have a very narrow range between 5’ 6” and 5’ 9”. Both my ex-husband and my husband, Jonathon fit right in there. In fact the two of them are only an inch apart in height. Weird, and I did not do it on purpose, but I must really like 5’ 8” to 5’ 9” as a height. I have no idea why.

So if I wasn’t comfortable with six feet or more of guy why are so many of the men in the Anita Blake books, and the Meredith Gentry books six feet or or more? Simply answer, the male characters wanted to be tall. The few men that are shorter like Rhys at 5’ 6”, Micah at 5’ 3”/ 4” (I’ve stated that he’s the same height as Anita, but when they kiss, or interact he seems taller by as much as 5’ 6” sometimes) So I either have to raise his height or something. Jason at 5’ 3” or 5’ 4” I think he’s been both, is perfectly comfortable with his height and never seems taller when I’m imagining the scenes. Rhys is also very comfortable with his height, but then Merry is only 5 feet even, so six inches taller is quite a bit taller. Nathaniel has grown an inch in the books on purpose as he was only 19 when we meet him and I grew two inches in college, so why not? He’s now 5’ 7” and I’ve toyed with him gaining that last inch, but he’s fine without it, or with it, up to me. They were secure enough to be OK with being male and short.

Jean-Claude had to be tall. He just walked on stage every inch of six feet. Asher is at least an inch taller, maybe two, but not sure on that. Richard had to be 6’ 1” he would not be shorter than Jean-Claude. It was a guy thing apparently. Most of the men in Merry’s entourage are six feet or taller and once I made them tall as a race, well, I was stuck with it. Though Doyle and Frost would not have been short, they just wouldn’t have gone for it. Even Galen who doesn’t complain much wanted to be tall. Think of it this way, if you were a character and could influence how you looked physically how tall would you want to be?

I guess Edward is only 5’ 8” but he just seems taller. I don’t mean physically in the books, but no matter how tall everyone around him is, you just never see his not being six feet tall as a disadvantage. Funny that.

Most of the men prefer to have more muscle development and to hit the gym hard. Its imaginary exercise I just say the magic words and they work out and you almost never see it on stage. Don’t we wish it worked like that in real life?

One thing that is a serious preference for me personally is pretty men. I like pretty rather than handsome. I’ve never been into that square jawed masculine look, and yet some of my male characters are just that. But it was their choice, not mine. I prefer my men with a certain femininity to them, not feminine, but something softer about them, no matter how much muscle they put on. That does show up in the books and the male characters, but not in all of them, not even in all of them that my main characters are lovers with. Again, the men get to influence their physicality.

If you looked at the men I’ve actually dated you wouldn’t be able to find that preference for pretty men. Again, I’ve dated a wide range of physicality. But the serious relationships have that softness to their attractiveness. Nice hair, beautiful eyes, pretty, or even beautiful men. I have a strong preference for sensual full mouths, but its not a deal breaker. I’m also very not fond of certain noses, I know that sounds weird, but looking at who I’ve dated I’m not into a strong profile. I think that goes back to the whole too masculine for me thing. But its not a deal breaker if there are other qualities to make up for it that matter more. In fact if you have the hair and the eyes, almost everything physical can be negotiated if there are other qualities that make me not care.

Personality wise the men in the books are their own people. In dating, I prefer men who read widely, and are interested in a wide range of subjects. I want a man that can keep up with me intellectually whether I’m talking about religion, philosophy, biology, or literature, etc . . . Smart is very sexy. Remember that one of the most important sex organs on the body is the mind. I’ve never found anyone pretty, or handsome, enough to make up for not being interesting intellectually.

I don’t get to show that in the books as much, the characters are always too busy trying to stay alive to talk in depth about much of anything but the mystery being solved, and the relationship itself. A lot of what makes a relationship interesting never gets into any book, because it has nothing to do with the plot. Most really fun conversations are full of non-sequitur. One idea bouncing off another. One fact, sparking the other person to remember that article they just read.

I’m more fond of blue eyes for characters than I was a decade ago, because a decade ago the eyes I was gazing into were brown. Jonathon has blue/grey eyes which means they’re very changeable everything from pure cobalt blue, to pale spring sky, to rain cloud gray, to white gray. Notice I’ve yet to give anyone those eyes. Just as no one has his hair yet. I’ve had redheads and I’ve had blondes in the books, but no strawberry blondes which is what he is. Do you get more pale skinned men in the books because my husband is pale? Maybe. It is the skin-tone I’m looking at most often.

So are the men in the books my preferences? No, not really. They, like real people, come into my life looking like themselves. The big difference is that my imaginary friends got to help shape themselves more than my real friends do. We flesh and blood mortals are less able to pick our height, skin-tone, eyes, hair, and how pretty, or handsome, we’re going to be.