I’d wholeheartedly intended to keep the scenes in Heroic Lies short. The story is told in medias res, with the scenes alternating between the present and the flashbacks of how the situation came to be, and I’d planned to keep both types of scene short, atmospheric, and to-the-point.
Then Zorei and Alexandra opened their mouths, and wouldn’t shut up.
Alexandra is the classic, spunky red-haired reporter, and Zorei is the strangely polite, enigmatic alien villain who repeatedly kidnaps her so he can use her as bait for her superhero boyfriend.
I’d known that Alexandra was going to be saucy, cheeky, and borderline fearless in her dealings with Zorei; I just hadn’t foreseen the sheer degree of chemistry and momentum the two of them could generate. Once they start bantering, they just don’t stop.
There are times when I have to regretfully cut the conversation short, as gracefully as I can, even though they could have easily kept playing verbal tennis until I’d written an encyclopedia.
I just love the chemistry between them; Zorei is so calm, patient and practical that he can handle Alexandra’s zaniness (to a certain degree), and Alexandra is one of the few people who can be as playful with him as she is.
...Huh. I hadn’t thought of this until about 5 seconds ago, but suddenly those two almost remind me of Scorpius and John Crichton. One’s the calm, patient alien antagonist, and the other’s a human who just can’t stop cracking jokes and mock-flirting at him.
I just can’t seem to get off this Farscape tangent, can I? Well, it’s their fault for making the series so darn good. But back to Alexandra and Zorei.
Of course, there’s a lot more to the dynamic between those two than cheerful, snarky remarks, though the banter certainly amplifies and underscores those hidden depths, and hints at revelations to come in a way that would probably only be truly appreciated during a second reading. I like things like that in fiction, where a scene or theme is good in and of itself, but later plot twists add a whole new meaning and put everything in a different light.
I suppose I could try harder to tone the banter down, cut it short - but why? If it’s half as fun to read as it is to write, every word will be well worth keeping in.