Today we have a guest post from Page Morgan, author of the recently released The Beautiful and the Cursed. Morgan shares with us her inspiration behind the character of Marco who started off as a minor character until he took off in a completely different direction.
Page Morgan has been fascinated with les grotesques ever since she came across an old, black-and-white photograph of a Notre Dame gargoyle keeping watch over the city of Paris. The gargoyle mythologies she went on to research fed her imagination, and she became inspired to piece together her own story and mythology for these remarkably complex stone figures. Page lives in New Hampshire with her husband and their three children.
Character Sketch: Marco
Let’s face it: We all love a bad boy. There is something deliciously intriguing about a guy who breaks all the rules. Think about Damon Salvatore or James Dean or all those hot guys from all those Fast & The Furious movies (I can’t keep them all straight!). They can slay a female’s good sense with one melty, “I’m so dangerous” glance, am I right?
But the best kind of bad boy is more than just a rule-breaker. The best go against the grain for a reason. They have purpose, and it’s usually hidden underneath a cool, thick, and well-protected exterior. They don’t want to let anyone in — so of course, that is exactly where we want to go.
When I started writing The Beautiful & the Cursed, I intended for my bad boy to be the main gargoyle character, Luc. However, the deeper I got into the story, the more I felt I was forcing that title onto him. The shoes just didn’t fit no matter how much I wanted them to. But they did fit another gargoyle, one I had originally planned to be a side character with minimal importance: Marco.
From his very first scene, I knew Marco was more interesting than I’d anticipated. Anyone who writes knows how characters can sometimes become so real that they suddenly start winging off in directions that you hadn’t planned for them.
From the moment Marco tricked another character, Ingrid onto a dance floor at a ball in which he had crashed, and began to dance a waltz with her, my hold on Marco severed. He simply took off and became his own character and all I could do was follow him. And it was in the following exchange at the ball, before Ingrid knew who he was, that I realized he was the worst kind of “bad boy” —charming and dangerous.
“Why should I trust that you mean me no harm?” Ingrid asked, trying to calm the mad rhythm of her heart. She didn’t want Luc to sense anything. Of course, it was probably too late for that.
The man swung her counterclockwise, his dance steps liquid and graceful while hers were distracted and bumbling.
“I should take that back. I am murdering your toes at the moment.” He peered down at her feet. “Do us both a favor and climb onto mine. No one will see.”
“I will not. I’m most certain everyone would see.”
The man sighed and simply lifted her from the dance floor and set her back down so that she balanced on the tops of his shoes.
“There. Much better. Now I can honestly say I won’t harm you.”
Marco so intrigued me that I had to find out more about him. I ended up devoting the first of three original short e-book stories to him, but I’m still not sure I’m done with him yet! Look for more of Marco in The Wolf of Paris coming soon!
To follow the rest of Page Morgan’s blog tour check out Books Complete Me.