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Thursday, May 28, 2015

Tara Fox Hall Guest Post: Rules for being a villain. + giveaways

RULES FOR BEING A VILLAIN
  • PLEASE don’t wait to kill your enemies. Be expedient in any and all killing. Whether it’s a monologue, an overly complicated deadly trap that needs hours to actually kill the prey, or something unrelated like your best girl betraying you or choosing not to put out when requested, its all bad logic and strategy. You lose your focus, you lose audience points and their interest, and thus you deserve to be vanquished by something as benign as a concealed splinter of wood harvested from a boxcar wall with a watch chain.

  • Have an interesting or sexy name, or one so simple it’s equally creepy. R.I.P stands for Rest In Peace, an epitaph found on tombstones. It also happens to be the name of a demon in my Promise Me Series, who got his nickname from all the priests and do-gooders who keep sending him back to Hell with that parting comment. Any name that will fit a dark hero (Lash, Erik, Devlin, Vince, Harrison, etc.) is just as good for a sexy villain, IMHO. And no one is going to forget the seemingly-sweet-but-truly-evil cannibalistic Mary or The Governor from Walking Dead, either.

  • Be either handsome/interesting enough for sex appeal, or ugly/odd. Pretty much anything is possible for a villain’s physical form anymore: shifter, vampire, magical creature, human, all the way down to the Christian demon with reddish skin, short black horns, and black hooves.

  • Have a great sense of humor and don’t stick to traditional roles. Nothing is more compelling that a villain who dashes off great one-liners and keeps his audience guessing on what he’s going to do next. Predictability is boring in villains just the way it’s boring in heroes. Be someone we love to hate, and yet can’t bear to take our eyes off of.

  • Don’t be smart up until the very end and then do something stupid. Go out with a bang, but not because you blew yourself up with a stick of dynamite you meant to kill someone else with. If you have to fall, go out in style. And if you’re redeemed in the final scene, don’t trade in your hard-ass steel-toed shoes for a pair of candy-ass loafers. Stay true to your character and keep your balls intact. Which leads to…

  • Don’t compromise your evil to turn sickeningly sweet in a total character reversal over your love interest. Redeem yourself for love, yes, but redeem while retaining your evil charm, history, and nature. What’s the point of finding redemption in love if the sins you’ll need solace for aren’t huge? I don’t want some pure as the driven snow Prince Charming to sweep me off my feet. I want someone to get down and dirty with, an Alpha male who is going to make me laugh before and after he makes me come. I want some high cold walls insulating his heart to the point I wonder if he has one, because when he finally does show some emotion his feelings will be all the stronger for being repressed so long.

by Tara Fox Hall
April 30, 2015A chain of tragic events culminating in the shattering of the magical “dream bond” between Theo and Sar turns the lovers against one another, as Ulysses attacks from all fronts, hoping to destroy Devlin for good. The return of Lash reignites the fire between he and Sar, even as he saves her daughter Elle from certain death. Finally joined under Oath, Lash, Devlin, and Sar face the storm of Ulysses’ wrath, knowing it will take their combined strength and courage to save all they love from his tempest of vengeance.


Buy Links: 
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1PK5n2O
Amazon UK: http://goo.gl/vJw2MO
Melange Books (PDF and HTML): http://goo.gl/P3To8d
Smashwords: http://goo.gl/2iu916


Excerpt:
It was now or never. I said a quick prayer as I slid my hand to my belt, flipping open the blade as I yanked it free. I kneed Theo as hard as I could. He let out a cry, struggling to hold me. I stuck the knife Lash had given me into his arm, and he snarled in pain, flinching back from me, but he still had me with one hand. I bit his wrist as hard as I could, then jerked free. Theo was almost fully shifted into cougar form, but he was not only injured, he was tangled in his clothes. I ran out of the room as soon as I’d unlocked the door, and upstairs to the study, the knife still in my hand.

Before I reached the top step I heard a throaty purr, and heard clawed feet scrabbling on the stairs as they bounded up them after me. I got into the study just in time to slam the door and lock it, hoping to God Danial hadn’t moved the gun he had kept here since the attacks by Manir more than a year ago. Because I was running to a dead end with no way out, if what Theo had told me about teleporting was true. But I’d never have made it out the front door before he was on me. I tried to teleport immediately, and nothing happened. I tried the phone to call Terian, and got only static. An extension had to be off the hook somewhere.

Shit!

The office door shuddered under Theo’s assault. He roared, and hit it again. Danial, however, had put this door on after the assault by Manir. The reinforced steel and oak creaked, but it held.

I wiped the knife off on my pants and folded it up, clipping it back to my belt loop, thanking God I’d put it on tonight. Unlocked the hidden safe in the wall, I retrieved a gun and bullets from inside, swearing because it was a regular silenced gun, not an explosive bullets gun. At least the rounds were jacketed hollow points. I had just gotten the first bullet into the chamber when I heard a key in the lock.

The door opened, and Theo stood there, nude, his blue eyes determined, a key in his hand. His arm where I cut him was still bleeding. “I’m not healing, Sarelle. You have werepoison on your blade,” he growled, advancing slowly. “That’s Lash’s knife clipped to your belt! I recognize it!”

I trained the gun on him, holding it with both hands so it didn’t shake too much.

“That’s a regular .38. You shoot me, you’d better hit my heart,” Theo growled. “Because you miss, and I’ll be on you in a second. This little chase you’ve led me on is over! Terian isn’t here to save you! Danial and Lash aren’t here to save you! And Devlin will be too late!”

“You have one chance to leave,” I said in a hard voice. “Or I will shoot you, Theo.”

Theo looked at me for a few moments, and then he lunged for me with a roar.

About the Author:
Tara Fox Hall’s writing credits include nonfiction, erotica, horror, suspense, action-adventure, children’s stories, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She is the author of the paranormal fantasy Lash series and the paranormal romantic drama Promise Me series. Tara divides her free time unequally between writing novels and short stories, chainsawing firewood, caring for stray animals, sewing cat and dog beds for donation to animal shelters, and target practice. All of her published children’s stories to date are free reads on www.childrens-stories.net.

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