Pleasure buttons #amwriting
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Dr. Jennifer Barnes is fascinating. She teaches this course called Writing Your Id, which discusses how books have pleasure buttons. Some, like beauty, wealth, and power, are hardwired into us. We gravitate towards these stories.
She encourages writers to make lists of our own pleasure buttons, those tropes or locations or character details that we love. When a scene is flagging, we can go to that list and find something to breathe life back into it.
My list wasn’t surprising for the most part: snarky T-shirts, secret societies, strong female friendships, cranky alphas, social outings with friends, witty banter, however, what did surprise me? How often I write characters of varying ages, who start out in conflict with a mother or mother-figure.
Author, psychoanalyze thyself. This amuses me because if pressed, it was my father whom I had a contentious relationship with, and yet, I don’t mine that territory as often.
Maybe, I’m just not ready.
I think that being a mother myself, I’m more sympathetic to the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. It’s important to me that these female parental figures have a voice and get to share their point-of-view.
Interestingly, it looks like the main character of my new urban fantasy series is a mom. I’ve never written one as the heroine before and I’m having a lot of fun really leaning into this character.
What other pleasure buttons do you think I gravitate towards?
While I write this new book, how about you check out Ash’s relationship with her mother in the newly completed Jezebel Files?
Grab book one – Blood & Ash here: readerlinks.com/l/994482