I think I must be a weird throwback from Happy Days or something. Because I’ll go ahead and be honest. I don’t see the appeal of the bad boy. When I see a man on a motorcycle do you know what I think? That the average life span of a motorcycle rider is two years. When I see someone all decked out in leather I think, “Aren’t they hot in those thick clothes?” When I see someone doing something just to be contrary I just think they’re an idiot.
Maybe deep inside I’m just too pragmatic to love the bad boy. It annoys me when people break the rules just to break the rules, or to make a point, or to entertain themselves. If my kids did something like that I’d pop em upside the head.
So what’s the appeal? I’m sincerely asking because I haven’t got a clue. I don’t have a single bad boy character. I have heroes who aren’t nice, or who drink too much or who repeatedly do the wrong thing (because they aren’t capable of doing the right thing) but other than a few little details they share nothing in common with that bad boy. So why should I make one? Help me out here. I live in my own little world and I just roll my eyes at real “bad boys.”
Tell me, why their literary counterparts?
AJ
4 Comments
June 16, 2008 at 11:39 am
I’m with you. I don’t get the bad boy thing. I haven’t written a single story with a bad boy as a hero.
June 16, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Finding a diamond under all that rough? yum!
Leading him to sweet surrender? yummy
Getting down and dirty with someone just a a bit wild? YUMMIEST!
June 16, 2008 at 3:29 pm
So like, nice people aren’t wild when getting down and dirty? I don’t think that’s true. Maybe it is. I don’t know. I think maybe it’s because I don’t seeing people having to change a lot to make a relationship work. And that’s the core of the bad boy story. That you have to make them into something else.
AJ
June 18, 2008 at 5:29 am
I don’t know, AJ. I married my bad boy, leather, bike and all. My favorite picture of him is in his biker jacket, jeans and sh*tkickers.
I think it’s the whole reformed rake/regency thing. Y’know, the love of a good woman? Sometimes, it really does work. They can stay bad if the woman is okay with it. You don’t have to change the core. If there’s love on both sides, everything else can be worked out.