A Dom and His Warrior (Club Whisper #3) by Xenia Melzer
Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: Aaron Anderson
Sales Links: Dreamspinner Press | Amazon
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is happy to host Xenia Metzer today on tour for her new book in the Club Whisper series, A Dom and His Warrior. Welcome, Xenia.
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How to write a fight scene
When I chose to make Leeland an MMA fighter, I had many reasons to do so and none of them was any eagerness on my part to write a fight scene. I’m not good at writing fight scenes. They never turn out like the ones in my head, which are perfectly choreographed things of beauty that could put Mission Impossible or Charlie’s Angels to shame. Sometimes I feel like a child who has this great picture of a happy family in front of a house complete with sunshine and trees in the garden in mind and when I’m done painting, it’s a bunch of stick-people with a vaguely sphere-shaped ball in bright yellow and elongated brown smears with green blotches on top.
When I wrote A Dom and His Warrior I realized I had to somehow connect the picture in my mind with the painting/words on the laptop, which was a process, to put it mildly. First I had to learn the right words, because ‚and then he punched him in the face‘ gets old pretty quickly. Luckily for me, the internet is this huge space where you can find the answers to almost every question. At https://breakingmuscle.com/learn/what-s-that-move-called-a-glossary-of-mma-terms I found a treasure chest of terms to describe a fight. And after several highly instructional hours on YouTube I also knew what those moves looked like when executed by pros.
A little warning, if you are squeamish, MMA is not for you, since there is blood. And heavy punches. And kicks. And almost naked men with muscles in places you never thought possible.
In my mind, Leeland is a very elegant man whose fighting style is gracious. In MMA – as the name suggests – different kinds of fighting, like martial arts (all kinds), boxing, and wrestling are combined. Fighters usually come from a certain direction, like boxing, or taek won do and adapt movements from other styles. This diversity is what makes the fights interesting and what helped me to write fighting scenes that didn’t get boring after the first couple of sentences. Being able to choose from a wide variety certainly helped me to describe the fighting in a gripping way – if I do say so myself.
In the book, Leeland has fight scenes with men who come from boxing and from kick boxing, while he himself has a background of karate and jiu jitsu. I did my very best to show how these sports influence the fighters and the fight itself and how highly adaptive an MMA fighter has to be.
Lastly there’s the way the winner of a fight is determined in an official UFC fight. If there is no knock out (one of the fighters gets down without getting up again) or tap out (one of the fighters taps the mat, usually when they’re in a submission hold, to show he gives up), there’s a rather complicated system in place with points deduced at each round for fouls or timid fighting. This system leaves room for lively discussions and some of Leeland’s best friends indulge happily in them.
Writing the fight scenes for A Dom and His Warrior was a challenge for me, one I took on with a certain amount of apprehension, but I think (and hope) it was worth the effort.
About A Dom and His Warrior
Leeland Drake and Jonathan White are a committed BDSM couple and have just moved in together. Leeland has only one year left in college, and everything seems perfect… until Leeland’s uncle asks him to stand in for an injured UFC fighter.
Leeland wants to help his uncle, but he remembers all too well from his years competing in martial arts how strenuous life as an athlete can be. He doesn’t want to risk his relationship with Jonathan. After some discussion, they decide Leeland will go pro for a year.
As if the training and strict diet weren’t bad enough, the pressure skyrockets when Leeland encounters homophobic fighter Tommy Adams—especially when they end up facing each other in the championship
Between the bigoted rants of his opponent, the scrutiny of the media, the pressure from his sponsor, and a fire in his uncle’s gym, Leeland is close to breaking down. Only Jonathan’s support and love keep him focused enough to set foot in the octagon once more—and maybe even walk away a winner.
Biography Xenia Melzer
Xenia Melzer was born and raised in a small village in the South of Bavaria. As one of nature’s true chocoholics, she’s always in search of the perfect chocolate experience. So far, she’s had about a dozen truly remarkable ones. Despite having been in close proximity to the mountains all her life, she has never understood why so many people think snow sports are fun. There are neither chocolate nor horses involved and it’s cold by definition, so where’s the sense? She does not like beer either and has never been to the Oktoberfest – no quality chocolate there.
Even though her mind is preoccupied with various stories most of the time, Xenia has managed to get through school and university with surprisingly good grades. Right after school she met her one true love who showed her that reality is capable of producing some truly amazing love stories itself.
While she was having her two children, she started writing down the most persistent stories in her head as a way of relieving mommy-related stress symptoms. As it turned out, the stress-relief has now become a source of the same, albeit a positive one.
When she’s not writing, she translates the stories of other authors into German, enjoys riding and running, spending time with her kids, and dancing with her husband. If you want to contact her, please visit either her website, www.xeniamelzer.com or write her an email: info@xeniamelzer.com .
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 