Book Club Questions for
Rowena Cherry

June 10, 2008. Interview with Queenie D on Rowena's Science Fiction Romance novel Forced Mate

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

Before we get into the plot of this story, I know readers are wondering - did you come up with the entire family tree before starting to write or did it evolve as the story unfolded?

Ah! The family tree.

Maybe a timeline will simplify a complicated answer. I started writing FORCED MATE in 1993 around the time that I met both Fabio and Chuck Yeager at the Indy 500, and rode around in one of the pace cars just in front of Ari Luyendyk (as I recall). I copyrighted the family tree in 1995. I did not find a publisher until 2003.

The family tree began as a tool for me. When the Kinko's graphics designer who translated my genealogical table into its first layout commented on how exciting a family I'd conceived, I decided to send out the family tree with my proposals.

(By the way, a "proposal" directed to an editor is an offer to "submit".... submit a manuscript for consideration. The jargon of publishing is rather amusing!)

In some ways, I painted myself into a corner with my family tree. My two biggest mistakes were getting my arithmetic wrong, and in giving every character at least one (out of seven) royal "Djinn" name beginning with Dj---.

The D is silent.

In my ignorance, I thought that a Dj- would be a convenient signal to my reader that this was another Djinn Prince or Princess. Not everyone agrees with me.

As for the arithmetic, that left me with the choice of being nasty or inconsistent. I chose to be consistent, and rely on Egyptian and European history where royal marriages --even between infants-- was accepted, puberty was earlier, and fifteen year old Princes led armies into battle.

Thus, my family tree has given me intellectual challenges, but has also supplied a structure... and plenty of skeletons in the Royal closet.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

On the surface the main conflict is all about the men - warring over women and worlds. But if you look deeper the true conflict is internal for 2 characters. For Tarrant-Arragon the conflict is dispelling a negative view of his character and having a woman fall in love with him for who he really is and for Djinni the conflict is upholding her honor and her vows while also staying true to her own heart. Was this your original intent or a lucky genius?

(Laughing) Not men, Des, "gods". Self styled "gods". The only man in FORCED MATE is the human mercenary who goes by the hard alias of Grievous. (Long before George Lucas unveiled his General Grievous.)

I'm a wordgeek. I take particular care to refer to my alien heroes as "males" , but occasionally a copy-editor will slip an inappropriate "man" between my pages, where no man was before.

As for your question, thank you for your fine analysis of the internal and external conflicts. It was intentional.

I'm much more interested in "character" (in every sense of the word) than I am in "plot". For me, the "Who" and the "Why" are the most interesting questions, rather than the "What", the "When", the "How", and the "Where".

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

Sex is the center of everything in this world, yet it is not tawdry or cheap. You've built an entire society around things like condom wrappers and menstruation cycles! It's very clever. How were you able to go beyond the basic romance plot to come up with these unique characteristics?

It's amazing how much a writer can get away with if her editor believes she is funny... or logical. As I recall, the battlefield applications for urine were left on the cutting room floor, but the talking toilets remained. And of course, now there are toilets in Japan that deliver instant urinalysis, so I was ahead of the curve with that, if you will pardon the expression.

FORCED MATE was written as a loving spoof of the Historical abduction romance (or marriage of convenience romance involving courtship during a journey). I took every stock situation, and twisted it into an alien abduction romance.

I'm particularly fond of the bath scene, where the god-Prince alien from a high tech world does not appreciate that human's bathtubs are not intelligent, and will continue to fill until the faucets are manually turned off.

As for bodily functions, have you never marveled at the Historical hero who never visits the bathroom, or the bushes, for a week, and yet remains fragrant and sexy? Or the sweet-tempered, kidnapped heroine --on board a pirate ship, sailing across the Atlantic-- who does not get PMS until back on dry land, with no explanation?

I certainly have. Now, in my alien romances, I'm asking my reader to suspend disbelief over some major plot elements, such as whether or not there are aliens, and if they are, why they look like our statues of Greek gods. So, I feel that I might as well be as realistic as possible when it comes to the facts of life.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

Who is your favorite character? Besides Tarrant-Arragon (now that's a guy a girl could fall for!), I am partial to Grievous. Seems to me on Earth he was probably considered scum but in Tarrant-Arragon's world his advice and knowledge is highly esteemed. Did you base him on anybody real?

So far, touch wood, I've never heard from a reader who does not like Grievous.

He's got a bit of the classical Greek Chorus in him, and a lot of the Shakespearean military side-kick for his literary influences, and there was a janitor in a public school who would be absolutely horrified to think that a character in a Romance novel had any part of him, and also a boyfriend who told apocryphal stories (I think they were tall tales!) about his exploits in Britain's Special Air Services.

Is Grievous my favorite character? Possibly not. If we rule out Tarrant-Arragon, and limit my choices to other males within FORCED MATE, I think I'd choose Djinni's brother 'Rhett as a very strong runner up, because he is unattainable, snarky, smart, and not entirely trustworthy. He thinks of himself as an intergalactic statesman, and does not toe the party line.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

How did you create the "slang" that is used by the characters? For example "slack-damn" or "carnality!"?

Swear words, curses, and expletives are intended to upset and offend. That's the point. My friend Linnea Sinclair is very eloquent on this topic. You should read what she has to say about a catlike society where the citizens are proud of their ears, and to call someone earless is the greatest insult.

My insults pale by comparison. However, it was either an astronaut or a rocket scientist who told me the direction that all gas takes in zero gravity, and I'm sure everyone has heard jokes about the misery of an attack of flatulence inside a sealed space suit. I imagine that antisocial behavior in a space ship is much like antisocial behavior on a submarine... only worse, because you cannot surface and open the hatches.

Polite people have well toned muscles, and do not surprise themselves or others with any type of leakage. Nor do they suffer from inconvenient erectile dysfunction. Hence the major meanings of "slack" damn.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

I'm not sure if this was implied or not but was Tarrant-Arragon always in human form or did he take it on for the purposes of courting Djinni? If he's not human form, what is he?

Tarrant-Arragon is bigger and better than most of us, much as we would imagine a mythological Greek/Roman/Norse god to be. He has a few superior adaptations: a penile bone, more senses, voluntary control of his head and body hair, extra brain.... and so forth.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

Will we see Tigger and Djinni again? As the main characters of a story?

You will see Tigger and Djinni again, but I will never mess with a happy ending. That's my problem with soap operas. Nobody stays happily married! In my opinion, a Romance writer enters into a sort of unspoken contract with her reader. There is supposed to be a happy ever after.

Well, it can't be a happy ever after if there's a sequel and the hero has to win the heroine all over again.

So! Tarrant-Arragon may interfere in other people's lives, and play the heavy-handed matchmaker, and Djinni isn't going to approve of everything he does, but she will have his baby, and he will love her forever.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

Where do you get your inspiration for your stories?

From the characters... who in turn come from the lifetime I've spent watching some of our world's most powerful, glamorous, exciting and brilliant people at moderately close quarters, (and eavesdropping) and also from watching Discovery, and Animal Planet, and The Science Channel and wondering why we as humans are so fascinated by animal behavior that we would find utterly repellent if human beings acted in the same way.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

What are you working on right now?

I've just finished KNIGHT'S FORK, which is due for release in October 2008. It's 'Rhett's story, and readers who have followed Rhett through FORCED MATE and INSUFFICIENT MATING MATERIAL are --I hope-- in for a treat.

Book Club Questions for Rowena Cherry

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