On Writing Romance

by Leigh Michaels

  IN REVIEW: Studying the Heroic Couple

  Think about the main characters in books you've recently read. In what ways were they heroic, in the sense of being larger than life? In what ways were they imperfect?

  Were the characters realistic? Sympathetic?

  How did the characters grow and change during the course of the story?

  Which heroes were alpha types, and which were beta types? Did any fit some other profile?

  Would you like to be friends with these characters?

  How do the heroes and heroines vary in different kinds of books?

  What are some things the hero or heroine of a single-title book could do that a category romance character couldn't?

  What character traits or habits draw you to a person? What traits and habits do you want your main characters to exhibit?

  What character traits or habits make you not want to know a person better? What traits and habits do you want to avoid when you create your heroic couple?

  How can you maintain a balance between your characters so neither overwhelms the other? How will they talk to each other? How will they treat each other?

  GETTING TO KNOW YOUR MAIN CHARACTERS

  Now that you're familiar with the various heroines and heroes who appear in successful romance novels, take a closer look at how to develop your characters and make them come to life for your readers.

  What makes these characters live on long after readers have finished their stories? The more realistic they are, the more believable — and the more memorable. So you must endow your hero and heroine with real attributes and — even more important — real motives.

  What does your heroine want or need badly enough that she would put herself at risk in order to get it? What makes this character tick? What is her motivation?

  People don't take actions without cause. They aren't nasty just for the sake of being nasty. With rare exceptions, even a person's most misguided actions result from a deep belief that she is doing the right thing, the best thing under the circumstances. Every character, then, has to have good reason for her actions, so the most important question you can ask about the character you're creating is why. But if you begin with that question, you're almost certain to come up with a stereotypical and predictable answer.

  Start building your character from the basics — but keep asking why. Question even the smallest of details, like the origin of a name. For instance, is your heroine named after an aunt? Did her quirky mother make it up? How has carrying that name affected her life? Where does your character live? In a condo? A mobile home? Does she live alone? Why did she choose that location and living arrangement? (Or was her home chosen for her, as it often is with historical heroines?)

  Ask about her education and her job. What attracted her to that career? How does she feel about her work? (Even a heroine who doesn't hold an actual job — the heroine of a historical novel, for instance — will have some sort of occupation.)What does she want to be doing in twenty years?

  Think about how your character relates to others. How does she feel about the opposite sex, and why? What experiences have made her feel that way? If your heroine has sworn never to marry, what made her decide that? What factors in her life make her want a big family — or not want a family at all?

  Who is her best friend, and why? Who is her worst enemy, and why? (And please don't say herself. We are all our own worst enemies, but that doesn't lead us far in story development.) What does she like most about her life, and why? What does she dislike most about her life, and why?

  And then go on to more important questions that further probe your character's mindset and past: What does she want to keep secret from the world? What would she die to defend?

  And possibly the most important of these questions: What single event in her life has made your heroine who she is today? What opportunity, success, trauma, or loss was the turning point in your character's life?

  All of these are why questions, and each can lead you down new paths in finding out what this person is all about. Answers to the latter questions may send you back to change or expand answers to the earlier ones.

  Once you've completed the heroine, repeat this questioning process with your hero. Many writers create a tailored list of questions in a worksheet they can print and fill out for each significant character in a new story.

  As you get a clearer picture of your two main characters, start asking yourself what makes the two of them perfect for each other. What gaps or weaknesses does one have that the other can balance? Equally important, what makes them seem to be the worst possible combination for each other? What is there about him that's going to drive her up the nearest wall, and vice versa?

  You may be wondering if it's really necessary to go to these lengths. Not every one of these questions will reveal critical information about each hero or heroine. Some will be more important than others. It's difficult to tell ahead of time, however, which ones are crucial — and asking them all gives you every opportunity to learn the hidden facets of the characters you're creating.

  Often the real advantage of asking and answering these questions is simply to make the characters more real to the author. That's a sense that carries over to the readers almost automatically, even if the information from the answers is never revealed in the story. Exploring your main characters fully will help you establish their heroic qualities, problems, and conflicts, and will help you develop satisfying outcomes.

  Creating Your Heroic Couple

  Answer the following questions about your main characters. It's usually most productive to address one character at a time, but if you run into difficulty answering the questions about one, try switching over to the other main character for a while.

  As you're answering the questions, look for points of agreement and disagreement between the characters. If he's from a big family and she's from a small one, how might that create problems for them in developing a relationship?

  What is this person's name?

  Why was he named that?

  Age?

  Birthday?

  What astrological sign was he born under? Does it matter to him?

  Where does he live? (Urban? Small town? Rural?)

  Why did he choose to live there? Was this geographical location his choice or someone else's?

  Does he live in an apartment? A house? What type or style? Did he choose the residence, and why?

  Does he live by himself? With others?

  What kind of vehicle does he drive?

  What are his important material possessions?

  Give a brief physical description.

  What are his hobbies?

  What kind of music does he enjoy?

  Does he have pets? If not, why not? Would he like to have pets?

  What are his favorite foods and drinks?

  If he has an unexpected free half-day, how does he spend it?

  How would a friend describe him?

  What is his education?

  What is his job? (For historical heroes and heroines, describe their place in family life or society. How do they occupy themselves?)

  Is this a long-term career or just a job?

  Why did he choose that type of work?

  How does he feel about his work?

  What does he want to be doing in twenty years?

  How does he feel about the opposite sex?

  Why does he feel that way?

  Is he married? Single? Divorced?

  Does he have children?

  Does he have former lovers?

  How would a former date or lover describe him?

  Who are his parents?

  Does he have brothers and sisters?

  Where was he born and raised?

  How important is the family relationship to him?

  Who is his best friend? Why?

  Who is his worst enemy? Why?

  Which one event in his life has made this person what he is today?

  How does tha
t turning point in the character's life relate to the other main character in the story?

  How does he feel about himself?

  What trait does he want to keep secret from the world?

  What does he like most about his life?

  What does he dislike most about his life?

  What one thing would he like to change about the world?

  What would this person die to defend?

  What is his most likeable character trait?

  What is his most unlikeable or troublesome character defect?

  As the story begins, what is his problem?

  What does he do that makes this problem worse?

  Who is this person's love interest?

  What qualities in the other main character are most attractive to this person?

  What is this person's ideal happy ending?

  What reaction do you want the readers to have to this person?

  Why should the readers care about this person?

  Did your discoveries about your characters surprise you? Do you feel more prepared to write about these people? Do you have more insight into how they might act or how they'll behave under stress or pressure?

  You may feel tempted, now that you have all this information, to find places to plug it into the story. But just because you know something about a character doesn't mean your readers need to know it. What your heroine does on an unexpected afternoon off might have relevance to the plot, but usually it doesn't. Select those facts that best illustrate the person — the ones that have a strong impact upon the story — to share with the readers, and leave the rest out.

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  Conflict

  Because your book is a romance novel, readers will know from the moment they pick it up that the hero and heroine will get together at the end — simply watching them get acquainted and fall in love isn't intriguing enough to keep them reading. What will make your readers turn pages is the difficulty this couple faces in getting together. It's the conflict between them, threatening to keep them from reaching the happy ending you've promised, that keeps the readers interested.

  Simply giving your characters a problem doesn't automatically create conflict. Only when the problem involves both of them and creates tension between them do you have conflict.

  Perhaps the problem that brings your hero and heroine together is a project they're both assigned to. But if they're getting along great, splitting the work evenly, and each one is complimenting the other's achievement, that's not very interesting. They have a problem, all right — a big project to finish — but no conflict.

  However, if each is convinced that he or she has the one right approach that will make the project successful, or each thinks the other is trying to avoid the hardest part of the work, or if the person who gets credit for the results will also win a big promotion that both of them want, then you have a situation that causes tension and keeps the readers turning pages to find out what happens.

  If your divorced spouses have remained good friends through the years, their child's wedding probably isn't going to make a very exciting story. But if they haven't spoken to each other since the decree, and one of them is coming to the wedding with a new significant other — or if one of them is in favor of the wedding and the other opposed — then there are likely to be fireworks surrounding the nuptials.

  WHAT CONFLICT IS — AND ISN'T

  Conflict is the difficulty between the hero and heroine that threatens to keep them from getting together. What causes the hero and heroine to be at odds with each other? What prevents them from being too comfortable? What do they disagree about? What do the hero and heroine have at stake? Why is this difficulty so important to each of them? Why is it important to the readers?

  Conflict is not:

  Fighting, arguing, or disagreeing. Sometimes conflict is expressed in heated discussions or shouting matches, but two people can be locked in conflict without ever raising their voices, and they can also bicker incessantly without ever addressing an important issue.

  A delay. An event that simply delays a hero's or heroine's progress toward a goal is only an incident. If another character sidetracks the heroine to talk about an unrelated problem, and this discussion keeps her from confronting the hero, that's not conflict.

  Failure to communicate. Misunderstanding each other, making wrong assumptions, jumping to conclusions, or wrongly judging one another are not illustrations of conflict, but of the hero and heroine's inability to make themselves clear.

  The trouble-causing interference of another person. If the meddling of another person causes problems, the main characters can appear too passive to take charge of their own lives or stand up for themselves.

  A main character's unwillingness to admit that the other person is attractive. Though romance characters attempt to fight off their attraction, conflict lies in the underlying reasons why it seems inappropriate or unwise to fall in love with this person.

  DETERMINING CHARACTER PROBLEMS

  What kind of problems your characters should face depends on a number of factors, including what sort of people they are. Not everybody will be bothered by the same events or issues. A difficulty one person would shrug off might paralyze someone else. The difficulty faced by your characters is particularly important and involving to them because of their past experiences or their personalities.

  The severity and intensity of the problems you give your characters also depends on the size of the book you're writing. The longer the story — the more pages you need to fill — the bigger the problem you need to create for your characters. A story involving the hunt for a serial killer will take more space and time than one in which the hero and heroine are figuring out who vandalized the local school.

  Whatever the problem is, it must strike readers as important. A problem that makes the readers roll their eyes and say “Get over it” isn't likely to drive an emotionally compelling story.

  The central difficulty your characters face must be one that can grow more complex and involved as the book continues. If all they do through the whole story is talk about the problem introduced in chapter one, the ending — when they finally settle on an answer that should have been apparent from the beginning — will be unsatisfying. If the supposed conflict arises because the characters misunderstand each other and they don't find out until the last chapter that there's no real problem after all, the story will bog down.

  SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM PROBLEMS

  In order to make conflict even more compelling, you need two problems — not just one.

  First, you need an initial situation that brings the couple together and keeps them together so they can get to know each other. This problem is known as the short-term problem, or the external conflict. It might be a job or a family situation — a difficulty outside themselves that they have to resolve.

  But you also need a deeper difficulty for each character. This deeper problem — called the long-term problem, or the internal conflict — is likely to be a past experience or a character flaw that makes it seem impossible for these two people to ever find happiness together.

  The Short-Term Problem

  The short-term problem is the difficulty or event that puts the couple in contact and causes their initial disagreements. It's often called the external conflict because it is usually caused by something or someone outside of the characters' control.

  Since the action of the story doesn't really get started until the hero and heroine are both present and the conflict is under way, this initial problem appears early in the book — often starting in the first few pages. At the latest, the rough outlines of the short-term problem are in place by the end of the first chapter.

  The short-term problem is often the event described in the back cover blurb. It is usually connected to the hook, the attention-getter that will cause readers to pick up the book.

  You can also think of the short-term problem as the difficulty or obstacle that makes the main characters interest
ing enough to be the subject of a story. What change does the heroine face that threatens her way of life, that will change her forever? What challenge must she confront? This difficulty is the character's short-term problem — the change, challenge, or threat she faces at or near the start of the story.

  The heroine's short-term problem is not simply the entrance of the hero into her life. He may appear because of the change or threat the short-term problem represents, but simply meeting him is not the problem.

  Each of the main characters will have a short-term problem — though sometimes there's just one short-term problem that affects both the hero and heroine:

  They're assigned to work on a project together.