I took my new story to critique this weekend, the story I love. I want to enter it in the Merritt Magic Moment contest, and so I took chapter 7, which is where the heroine decides she will go after what she wants (the hero), everything else be damned.

Okay, consider that my critique group has been reading Breaking Daylight, where Alex, the hero, is alpha, overtly sexual and pretty darned crude. He swears a lot and rarely has tender thoughts toward the heroine. They thought my new hero Noah wasn't physical enough. That he thinks about wanting to touch her, but they didn't feel like he FELT it, you know?

Noah is nothing like Alex. He doesn't swear - the one time he does, my heroine is surprised. He goes to church, though his thoughts when he sits by my heroine are NOT on the service. He doesn't think the same words Alex would use.

How do you write a beta guy without making him into a woman?

I finished my revisions on Vanished last night. I need to do a query letter this AM, then I'm starting Wayback from scratch. I plan to be done by April, though.

Okay, I've written two query letters and it isn't even 6 AM - go, me!