A Slice of Orange

This month, I’m blogging around the blogosphere on various aspects of the science of birth order, looking at how a person’s position in their family – oldest, middle child, youngest, or only child – affects their personality, decision-making, education, career and even their marriage.

I’ve read a few books on the subject, but my favorite is The New Birth Order Book, by Kevin Leman. I bought the book because I was interested in understanding my kids better…and along the way I gained some insights into myself and my husband. I’m an oldest child; he’s a psychological oldest (meaning, in this case, there was a big age gap between him and the next kid up the line) with a heavy dose of middle child thrown in.

How does this affect our personalities, and our relationship? We’re both fairly strong-minded…oh, okay, I’ll come right out and say it. We’re both bossy control freaks! As you can imagine, that leads to sparks. But I can console myself with the fact I’d rather have a healthy discussion with someone as opinionated as I am, rather than deal with one of those complex, brooding middle children, or an undisciplined, never-serious youngest child. Of course, I’m probably the worst nightmare of those other birth orders, too!

Now, I know this is generalizing. But there are lots of insights in Dr. Leman’s book that provide food for thought about how we recognize and deal with our own flaws, plus how we deal with conflict with others.

The book also gave me insight into the characters in my novels. When I read it a few years ago, I realized that in most of the romance novels I’d read, and all of the ones I’d written, the heroes were oldest or only children, or psychological oldest children. Not surprising – romance novel heroes are usually successful, commanding, often bossy, and those are often traits of the oldest or only child.

I found I shook up my writing when I considered other birth orders for my characters, both heroes and heroines. I’ve recently completed two trilogies – Those Merritt Girls is a Harlequin Superromance trilogy about three sisters which ended in January with Her Surprise Hero, and for Harlequin NASCAR I wrote three books about the Matheson brothers. The last in the series, The Comeback, is out this month. It was a lot of fun creating a realistic family dynamic for those series, based on the mindsets of different birth orders. The characters’ goals and conflicts rose naturally out of their birth orders, and that made it easier to develop each story.

Got any comments about birth order – yours, your siblings’ or your significant other’s?

I have finally finished Sam’s story. At several points I didn’t think I would ever finish, but, his story has come to an end, been sold, and will be out June 6^th under the name of Freedom’s Treasure.

Now it is time to start a new book – an alternative universe book. I have been working on how to make the reader know that the characters are moving into an alternate universe. There has to be something that is the same in both universes. In this universe, both sides are in Manhattan. Central Park is the same in both. The difference is that one universe is magical and the other is not. In the non-magical universe, there is city hall and the mayor’s abode. In the magical universe, there is a prince and a palace.

Both universes have police and detectives. That is because the hero is from our universe and is a police detective. The heroine is from the alternate universe and is a police detective. They have something in common, except he carries a gun and she uses magic. Since they are in her universe, he only has a limited supply of ammunition while her magic is never ending.

I have spent so much time figuring out how to make the alternate universe, I suddenly realized I really don’t have a story to go with the universe. There is an evil wizard slipping between universes and killing people in the hero’s world. He has to be stopped. Of course, he also has to have a reason for killing. He has to want something.

That is what plot group is for.

When creating a new world, sometimes the little things matter. In my world of Augeas, the guards play a dice game. The picture is of the dice for the game.

Art work by Loki Cornelow