Tonight We're Gonna Party Like It's

1999 (words for the month so far).

I'm coming up on the end of Act I. Just one confrontation between my heroine and antagonist, and I'm on to the woolly wilds of Act II. I'm a little concerned about how my antagonist is coming off. He's definitely an alpha male, and as I'm writing I'm realizing that he's superficially behaving a lot like a Romance Alpha hero: thumping his chest, seizing political power from the weak, going to great lengths to possess the heroine. He doesn't love her, or even sexually desire her, but this is not apparent at this point in the story. My hero's been introduced, but he's not onstage in the heroine's story again for another 5,000 words or so. And he's definitely a Beta; he's not passive, and he will have his ass-kicking risk-anything-for-my-woman climax, but his default setting is charming rather than commanding, amiable rather than intense, and intellectual rather than physical. A diplomat rather than a chest-baring sword-wielder.

This is a SF Romance story, which I hope will one day be read by both fans of SF and Romance. I guess I'm just worried that the Romance folks will be confused and wonder why the heroine's not attracted to the dreamy megalomaniacal control freak. But I don't want to give the guy horns and a pitchfork; he does a lot of horrible things in the story, but he truly believes he's acting in the best interest of an entire culture.

And I don't mean to hate on Alphas. I love me a well-written Alpha. The hero of my next book (assuming I survive this one to write it) is an Alpha. I just don't want my Alpha antgonist to overshadow my Beta hero.

On an unrelated note, does anyone else have Prince stuck in their head now? "If you didn't come to party, don't bother knockin' on my door. I got a lion in my pocket and baby he's ready to roar."