Romance Author Hildie McQueen Plots A Return from the Dead

Troped Out

Thank you for joining us for the very first episode of typo production’s TROPED OUT. Hosts E.J. Wenstrom and Emma C. Wells sit down with your favorite (and future favorite) authors across all genres to talk all things books—especially tropes!

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We are so excited to have USA Today best selling author of historical Scottish romance (among other genres) Hildie McQueen joining us. Her newest release, The Fox, is available in Amazon Kindle Unlimited. You can get it right HERE.

All genres use tropes—but in our opinion, it’s the romance authors who really work them to their fullest potential.

• Welcome Hildie!
• Em met Hildie (and E.J.) in 2016 at Romantic Times Book Convention. Em sat in on Hildie’s panel and was very impressed and has been following her progress ever since.
• Hildie is deep into historical Highlander romance. She credits her time spent in Scotland for fueling her love for the location and genre. Her readers certainly can tell that she has a deep appreciation and knowledge of the Scottish Highlands—it comes across in her books.
• Hildie was born in Mexico, has lived all over the world (ex-military) but settled in Georgia. She is always looking for adventures. This is what really keeps her writing.
• Hildie’s new book is titled The Fox and is the fourth book in her Clan Ross of the Hebrides series—all available on Amazon (a few in series are available in our Troped Out Bookshop).
• The hero in this book is a little different. Hildie usually writes her Highlanders as kilted tough guys with a sword strapped to their hips, kicking ass everywhere they go. But this hero, Caelan Ross, is a half brother to the other heroes in the series. He grew up in the Glasgow area and is perceived as a little more English than the rest of his family. He has gotten picked on for being too English. However, his brothers never pick on him because when Caelan gets out the sword—he is a berserker.
• Em loves (LOVES) the word berserker and takes a very on-brand tangent about the word.
• Em asks Hildie if she has a trope that she finds she is drawn to using.
• Hildie writes beastly, huge alphas who are quiet about their emotions. Hildie loves a scarred hero. She loves writing heroines who help the heroes get over the pain of their past.
• Hildie also likes writing (not quite) enemies-to-lovers. Her couple will almost always have friction in the beginning before falling for each other and finding their HEA. It is safe to say there is no insta-love in a Hildie McQueen novel.
• EJ comments that Hildie’s grumpy heroes are very Darcy.
• EJ asks Hildie what works for her as a reader. Hildie admits she reads everything except for Scottish Romance because she doesn’t like to read in her genre. She adores cozy mysteries. She especially loves the friends-to-lovers trope that is often in cozy mysteries, and also how cozies often employ the second-chance romance trope as a secondary plot.
• Em asks Hildie if she has thoughts on what is so appealing to readers about a big, tough guy who doesn’t show the world his vulnerability, but reveals it to the heroine of the book.
• Hildie thinks it is about trust. There is something appealing about a closed off hero that trusts the heroine with his true self. There is the whole fantasy of being the one to help them change. Hildie comments that her readers must be nurturers at heart, and there is something to (in a book, at least) being the only one a scarred hero chooses to help him work through whatever has left him scarred.
• Hildie points out—she doesn’t want that in real life because she isn’t fixing anybody—but there is something about the fantasy of a big tough alpha guy trusting you to help him with his pain. The hosts agree—great for fiction. Not so much for real life.
• EJ thinks that, as a writer, there is a fun character ARC to creating this redeemable, grumpy hero.
• Hildie says yes, she thinks as a writer it is a fun exploration. She says that she doesn’t plot, so she enjoys writing to figure out the hero’s story and what has left him broken and scarred.
• Hildie points out that romance writers know what appeals to us and what we write best, and that is what we often (not always) tend to stick to. She knows there are talented writers who use all different tropes, but that isn’t how she works. Like she mentioned earlier, she doesn’t do insta-love. Hildie says she doesn’t think she’s ever experienced insta-love except for maybe with Henry Cavill.
• The ladies joke about the rugged handsomeness that *is* Henry Cavill.
• EJ asks if there are any other tropes that Hildie doesn’t really connect with. Not hating on other authors—but as a reader is there something that she doesn’t really like? Hildie says, secret baby doesn’t appeal to her. She says it has nothing to do with an author’s writing—she just isn’t a baby person. She likes dogs, and she has kids and they survived (lol) but that trope doesn’t speak to her. She also isn’t a big soul-mate reader or writer. She jokingly laughs that she isn’t a very romantic romance writer.
• EJ asks Hildie if there is a trope that she can’t wait to try, but hasn’t had the opportunity to tackle yet. Hildie talks a bit about writing a love triangle and admits she’s played with the trope a little bit, and might eventually go all in on a love triangle story if she can ever think of a situation that makes sense to her as a reader and a writer.
• She says she would love to tackle the “back from the dead” trope—where everyone thinks the hero is dead, but he is actually hiding out, only to appear later. Em thinks if she makes it Scottish—then take her money now, please!
• Em circles back to the fact that Hildie isn’t a plotter. She wonders what Hildie does to prepare for a new story.
• Hildie says she is a very hero-driven writer. She knows all about the hero—what he looks like and who he is as a person—before she begins writing. The next step is figuring out what his love interest is like. She admits she has begun a book and written up to ten thousand words only to realize that the couple she was writing didn’t belong together on the page and had to start over.
• Once she finds the right love interest and knows her back story—she’s all set. Hildie doesn’t write it down—she holds it in her head and gets to work! She is a very exploratory writer until the mid-point. By then, she knows everything that is going to happen—including the ending. Hildie says this is how she writes a book. Of course it is different for everyone.
• It is very interesting to Em, who is very much a plotter—as evidenced by her FBI-looking-for-a-serial-killer level of whiteboard notes hanging on the wall behind her.
• Em marvels at how prolific Hildie is as a writer. It is no surprise that Hildie knows and trusts her process.
• EJ asks Hildie when she writes in her subgenres—specifically cowboys and Highlanders—if there is anything she does differently.
• Hildie says for her personally—it isn’t that different, because cowboys are our version of a Highlander. They ride horses and go on adventures. They are rough around the edges. While they are a lot alike, Hildie says her cowboys are a little more flirtatious in addition to being alphas.
• When she writes co...