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*sigh* This is another trope I’m guilty of. What can I say, I actually quite like it. ^_^

Those of you who aren’t familiar with ‘Sugar Dust‘ won’t know about Cindy . . . I’m going to tell you about her.

She’s Karen’s best friend and flat mate. She’s a firm, out and proud lesbian, described as short, skinny, covered in tattoos with ice-white hair, shaved into a shoulder length strip down her head. She’s also the most foul-mouthed character I’ve written (and published) to date.

Here’s a tiny snippet, not from ‘Sugar Dust’, but from the second in the series, ‘Second Base’ which is currently with beta readers.

Cindy slapped her thigh. “Oh my fucking god, you’re going to be so high.”

“This isn’t funny!”

“It is. You get so horny when you’re high, it’s amazing. Why do you think I keep offering to cook?”

Dan inched away from the two women. He saw the storm brewing and preferred to be out of range.

“You cook because it’s your turn.”

“I cook because I get to spice up the food.” She winked.

“You spike my food?” Sam’s voice rose several octaves.

Cindy closed the small space between them and tucked a wisp of straight brown hair behind Sam’s ear. “You are so fucking hot when you’re pissed at me. That’s the other reason. I love it when you go all ‘copper’ on me.” Still smiling, Cindy shoved her girlfriend against the sideboard. “We’re gonna have so much fun tonight. You’ll be high, I’ll be drunk and we’ll fuck like bunnies until we’re too sore to move.”

This is tame, for her, but I don’t want to give away her best lines. 😉

Cindy likes sex. A lot. Like other ‘best friends’ in this trope, she makes no secret of the fact and is active and vocal in her encouragement of the lead (in this case, Karen) to ‘go out and get some.’ These characters can often (but not always) be gay too. Dunno why . . . they just are. *shrugs* Cindy is gay for the simple fact that my personal life is so full of LGBTQ folk that it feels unnatural not to include the same in my writing.

I’ve seen this character a dozen times over and though it’s usually a woman it can be a man too. What I love most about this trope, however, is that if done well, this character can tell you tonnes about your main character, just through their interactions. If readers enjoy them there is a risk that requests will come through to give this character their own story (yes . . . there will be Cindy shorts coming up one day) but given that these characters tend to write themselves, it’s a simple thing to do.

So long as they are real and three-dimensional. No one wants to read a 15,000 word sex joke, right?