Elle Hill

“You, sir, are a masher and a cad!” “Who shall hold me responsible for being beguiled by such a nymph?” “Yeah, well, your approach really threw me for a loop.” “You’re in the major leagues now, fair maiden.” Er, what? Imagine you’re reading a romance novel set in a place and time that requires  a specific parlance: Regency English, for example, or early-20 th -century American English, or even that funky-formal-high-fantasy speak. Now imagine falling into the unfamiliar but intriguing rhythms of the language, feeling it lull you into a cozy state of sleepy receptivity. And then, out of nowhere, BAM!, an idiom squeaks its way into the symphony, jarring you back into the real world. Alas, the dreaded novelist trap has been sprung: you as a reader have become aware of the mechanics of the story. As authors, we should of course be wary of slipping into the verbal shortcuts of clichés, colloquialisms, idioms, and slang. It’s an English 101 lesson, sure, but clichés diminish th...

As writers, we sometimes feel like gods. Not just of our make-believe worlds -- where we decide on the parameters of existence and, if our characters and situations comply (as gods everywhere can attest, subjects don’t always do as they’re told), of the ebb and flow of action and feeling – but of this world we all inhabit. And isn’t that part of the seduction of writing? By decoding our worlds into paragraphs, sentences, words, and punctuation, we define the boundaries, decide how to interpret events, choose what matters and what doesn’t. Our lived worlds aren’t neat or tidy. Single emotions are vast enough to inspire countless paintings, poems, and essays, and that’s just one component of our lives. Approximately 80 billion things are happening every single second. Living in this world and deciding how to navigate its vast complexities is difficult and often frustrating. From the time we’re children, we have to learn what to recognize and ignore, value and not, touch or look or...

I papered the walls of my adolescent and early adult existence with the pages of romance novels. As I got older, I expanded to other genres, but romances will always mean safety, comfort, and reliability to the adult Elle. I love romances: their predictable narrative format, their feel-good happily-ever-afters, their celebration of relationships as the most crucial aspect of human existence. I have great affection and nostalgia for some of the more common romantic staples: the initial dislike and distrust that hides  bubbling passion, the BFF who represents the shero’s and/or hero’s id, the shero’s stumble or fall from a tree root or from a ladder (oopsy-daisy!) and into the strong arms of that oh-so-insufferable man. I even find adorable some of the impossible euphemisms for orgasms. Overall, I’m a flag-waving fan of the genre. Only one thing causes a slight snag in my overwhelming devotion to the genre: A preponderance of alpha men. I like alphas; they’re great peeps and all....

I like the different. I like the weird. I like things that don’t quite fit, that look a bit too large or taste a smidge too bitter. I celebrate ugly and find inspiration in dissonance. If I wanted to be like everyone else, I would have become an accountant. Instead, I write paranormal romance. Like many readers of paranormal romance, I like characters who don’t fit the archetypes. My heroes aren’t all alpha males, my sheroes are sometimes fat and happy about it, my female villains (gasp) don’t always sexually smolder to prove they’re powerful. I wrote my very first published piece of paranormal fiction, Hunted , after pondering, “What would a world look like if women were the warriors and men the healers and thinkers?” My second novel, Hunted Past , grapples with definitions of beauty: Can people with scars – inside and out – be beautiful? Is beauty a noun, an adjective, or a verb? In my third, not-yet-published, novel, Hunted Dreams , my main couple is interracial, interspecies, and...

You, like me, may have stumbled several times across the op-ed entitled “ Christmas 2011 – Birth of a New Tradition .” Its chief message?: “Buy American,” a sentiment many of us can support. It’s the writers’ reasoning, as well as their repeated, and disdainful, waving of the phrase “the Chinese” like a nativist, pro-American flag, that knots my granny panties. Below is a response I posted to a listserv of which I’m a member. Enjoy. Hey, all. Thanks for sharing this call to action. I, for one, am a huge fan of not buying people more stuff , since that's the last thing most of us need. My own personal philosophy is to either eschew presents or else buy people experiences, especially dinner with an amazing person like, well, me. :-D  Also, I'm deeply annoyed by our consumerist culture, which thrives on making people feel the answers to all of life's questions can be found in the aisle of a store. It also actively promotes sizeism, looksism, and other inequalities in hopes...

I’m sure some wise person somewhere at sometime said something to the effect of, “When authors create characters, they are in fact merely articulating pieces of themselves.” The fact is, we write what we know, and, if we’ve been doing things right, we tend to know ourselves pretty well; in this way, at least some aspects of each of our characters end up mirroring our own. That acknowledged, I want to learn to make my characters speak with extremely distinct voices. I just finished writing a book featuring a young, well-educated White woman and a mixed-raced, ex-Army vet. They have distinct personalities and have lived enormously different lives; as such, I don’t want them to sound anything like the other. I found this my single biggest challenge when penning the book. I ended up differentiating them in large and obvious ways: Katana, my shero, refuses to swear and, as a college student, has a pretty decent vocabulary, while Reed, my hero, swears a lot more and uses some slang, as I fi...

The cutest things in the world are kittens and puppies, right? Those disproportionately-large heads, those enormous eyes, that boundless energy and clumsiness, the amoral gleam in their eyes: Nothing in the world is cuter. Right?  In spite of the obscene, cuddly cuteness of baby kittens and puplets, I admit I find something else even more adorable: An adult animal, especially a senior, that doesn't pee all over my carpet and expend enough energy to make a meth addict crave a nap.  I LOVE SENIOR ANIMALS. They're awesome. Like me, they're low-key, snuggly, and already know what truly matters in life: snuggles, warmth, and boundless love.  In case I haven't yet totally harshed your kitten/puppy buzz, below are some reasons from Petfinder and me listing why senior animals are a family's best friend : 1. Baby animals, especially puppies, pee a lot. Seniors have already been potty trained. 2. You're in the mood for a nap and some bad TV? Guess what? So i...