Try a Little Kindness

The marketing task for authors becomes more daunting by the day and sensible authors of romance books usually restrict themselves to a specific setting - such as rural (Australian outback or English villages or American midwest), or military, or contemporary city life, or aristocratic circles in the early 1800s, to name a few.  In a crowded market place it's much easier to establish a recognisable presence with readers that way.

Clearly I'm not sensible (I won't say I'm stupid, because I'm not! I was once a member of Mensa) because each of my three novels has a different setting - rural Victoria, financial markets in Sydney, a developing country (Papua New Guinea). Those settings were important to me because I understood them. I could recreate them authentically.  My next story is in progress, set in another place I know well, the Hawkesbury district near Sydney.

So settings are definitely important, and can even act as a character but, for me, it's the people characters that drive a story, regardless of whether you like them or hate them. Some authors go for the bad guys, the tough guys, the rich guys, the brave guys, but I prefer kindness to resonate in my stories. That's what I'm trying to build as the common ground, the link, between them. 

I need a break from all the nastiness and chaos swirling in our world. The idealistic hero Sam Baldwin in the American movie 'Sleepless in Seattle' appeals to me. So does the worldly-wise 'gentleman George' in the British TV series 'Inspector George Gently', set on north east coast of England. The calm competence of the humane and incorruptible policeman Christopher Foyle exuding his quiet style in 'Foyle's War', another British TV series, set on the south coast of England in the aftermath of the Second World War, is so sexy!

Yet kindness can be cloying without energy and drive. When Julie Andrews (as Eliza Doolittle) exhorts her faithful suitor Freddie to 'Don't talk of love, show me' in the classic musical 'My Fair Lady' you can sense her passion and frustration at his lack of action. The wickedly amusing but fundamentally kind-hearted Australian movie 'Strictly Ballroom' ends with the irresistible high energy, toe-tapping song 'Love is in the Air'. In the wonderful movie 'Mrs Harris Goes to Paris', Mrs Harris is unrelentingly kind but even she has her limits and goes into battle for a cause. 

The most recent example of how kindness resonates with us came with the death of the much-loved actor Sam Neill, recognised for his prolific output as a talented professional but lauded worldwide for his unrelenting kindness and humanity.

To conclude, I'll keep heading down the path of trying to be kind in my 'slow burn' romance stories, currently available at a discounted price on Smashwords, until the end of July.