On Writing Romance

by Leigh Michaels

  “Here,” I say in my best Superman, all-in-a-day's-work voice. “I think this is yours.”

  He clasps it tightly to his chest, and I glow with pride.

  A moment later, he hurls the wheel on the floor, and it rolls away, to almost exactly the same place. …

  “Right,” I say after a pause. “Right. Well … enjoy your flight.”

  This woman proves herself a heroine when the kid flings the toy a second time, and she doesn't lose her temper. (She also doesn't fetch it a second time, which makes it pretty clear she's not a wimp.)

  Through another character's thoughts. This technique is easy and tempting, but the character doing the thinking should be a major character, not a minor one. Having the hero think about the heroine can be useful, but allowing the heroine's hairdresser to characterize her takes the focus off the main story. In Deborah Hale's Regency novella Cupid Goes to Gretna, the hero's thoughts linger over the heroine just as his gaze does:

  As he let his gaze linger over Miss Ivy, Oliver wasn't so sure. In sleep her features had taken on a soft, ingenuous caste that accorded well with her temperament. Like a child, she was full to the brim of high spirits and sunny optimism without a thought to spare for the harsh practicalities of life or the troublesome consequences of her impulsive actions.

  Elsewhere in the story, we've seen Miss Ivy's high spirits and sunny optimism for ourselves, but now we know how the hero views her, too.

  Through another character's words. What one person says about another can't always be taken at face value, but the opinion is likely to be straightforward and reasonably honest. Whether it's true is a different matter, because that depends on the insight of the person who's talking. In either case, however, the readers get a better picture of the person who's the subject of the conversation. In her single-title contemporary First Lady, Susan Elizabeth Phillips gives a thumbnail characterization of a character through the hero's words:

  The attorney glanced at the folder, then looked back up at Mat. “You admit your ex-wife was pregnant with the older girl when you married her.”

  “… Sandy told me the kid was mine, and I believed her until … one of her girlfriends told me the truth. …”

  “You sent her money for a number of years.”…

  “Sentiment. Sandy had a good heart; she just wasn't too discriminating about who she slept with.”

  Of course, while Mat's telling us about his late ex-wife, he's saying quite a bit about himself as well.

  Through another character's actions. If a character walks through a room and the dog cringes to get out of her way, nobody needs to say much about the kind of person that character is. Without resorting to graphic violence, Roxanne Rustand uses a daughter's reactions to her abusive father to give us a clear picture of him in her long contemporary category romance A Montana Family:

  He turned and started down the hill, one meaty hand clenched tight as a tourniquet around her arm.

  She tried to escape into that secret place where she didn't feel the pain. … She knew all too well what awaited her in that house. … She charged forward and rammed into her father's back. …

  And then she ran for her life.

  This daughter's reaction — first attempting to mentally distance herself, then resorting to physical violence, and then fleeing — clearly shows what sort of man her father is.

  Through physical description. This is probably the most-used characterization technique — especially by inexperienced authors — and one of the least effective. It's particularly useless when the description is phrased in generalities or when it is overly detailed. Standards of beauty vary, so merely saying, “She was beautiful” will mean very different things to different people. But listing the details that mean beauty to you may turn off readers with a different definition.

  When a point-of-view character describes another character, the readers get a picture of both of them, as shown in Arlene James's inspirational romance Deck the Halls:

  He backed up a step … and took in the whole of her oval face.

  It was a bit too long to be labeled classically pretty, just as her nose seemed a bit too prominent to be called pert. But those eyes and the lush contours of a generous mouth, along with high, prominent cheekbones and the sultry sweep of eyebrows a shade darker than her golden-brown hair made a very striking, very feminine picture, indeed. The hair was the finishing touch, her “crowning glory,” as the Scriptures said. Thick and straight with a healthy, satiny shine, it hung well past her shoulders, almost to her elbows.

  In this passage we see the heroine, but we also get to know a lot more about the hero because of the specific details he notices and chooses to describe.

  Through habits or individual traits. Bad habits are often more illustrative than good ones, though either can be used to characterize. A man who issues a lunch invitation and then dodges the check creates a lasting impression. In her chick-lit novel Can You Keep a Secret?, Sophie Kinsella paints a quick but effective portrait of the heroine's grandfather:

  “I never throw away cards.” Grandpa gives me a long look. “When you get to my age; when the people you've known and loved all your life start to pass away … you want to hang onto any memento. However small.” …

  I reach for the nearest card and open it. … “Grandpa! This is from Smith's Electrical Maintenance, 1965!”

  In just a few words, Kinsella has shown us a guy who's not only got a collection of stuff but a sense of humor about it.

  Through the props that surround the character. A character who clings to a favorite ratty sweater, her mother's teddy bear, or a scrapbook full of clippings gives the readers a view of the things she thinks are important — and thus of the kind of person she is. If the hero walks in carrying a tennis racquet or a shotgun or a Bible, the readers will know quite a bit about him before he says a word.

  Lots of women like chocolate, but in her chick-lit novel Third Time Lucky, Claire Cross shows us a heroine who's almost defined by chocolate:

  I know the fundamental right of every mortal to eat chocolate is in the Geneva Convention. …

  Many foods have been banished from my kitchen and diet because of their betrayal of me in those dark teenage years … but my relationship with chocolate is beyond such restrictions.

  Our love affair borders on the divine. … I handle chocolate as a controlled substance, since prolonged exposure results in extreme lateral growth. One chocolate bar every month and not one bite more is my allotment. …

  I buy the chocolate on the first of the month … and ogle it in the fridge for as long as I can stand it. …

  After that introduction, any time the heroine mentions chocolate the readers get an instant picture of the character's state of mind.

  Through the character's name. A man named Sylvester creates a much different picture in the mind than one named Jake. A woman named Elizabeth is a whole different creature than one named Betsy. Does the name you've chosen for your character fit her personality, her time period, her job, her background? How does the name affect and reflect her personality? In her historical single title The Warrior, Claire Delacroix captures not only the personality but the time period as her hero and heroine discuss what she should call him.

  “I would not have matters so formal between us. … You need not address me as your lord when we are alone.”

  “Shall I call you Magnus? … Or Michael?”

  “The choice is yours, lady mine.”

  “Then I shall call you Hawk. … For your repute seems to fit your nature well. Does the hawk not tear out the heart of what it kills, then leave the rest as carrion?”

  Here we also get a picture of this historical hero's willingness to compromise, unusual for a real man of his time, and also of the historical heroine's typical independence. Even when she's in his power, she can't resist tweaking him.

  Through narrative description. Simply stating a character's type or traits, without showing examples of behavior or thoughts to illustrate
the statement, requires the readers to take your word rather than drawing conclusions of their own. Writing something like, “She was efficient at her job and thoughtful of everyone” is among the least effective ways of showing a character. When dealing with secondary characters, however, narrative description is sometimes the fastest and most efficient way to make the point, as when Arlene James introduces us to the hero's small niece in her inspirational romance Deck the Halls:

  Four-year-old Elizabeth Ann, known affectionately to the family as Bets, effectively commanded the coterie of Cutler grandchildren, numbering six in all. An only child, to the growing dismay of her parents, she'd never had any trouble holding her own against her five older cousins, four of whom were boys.

  Since Elizabeth Ann isn't a main character or even a significant third, showing her in action with all those boy cousins would take up space better spent on developing the romantic relationship.

  All of these techniques for showing characters work as well in other genres as in romance, but in romance novels it's particularly important to show rather than tell whenever possible, so the readers will feel like an important part of the story as they draw conclusions of their own about what sort of people the characters are.

  WHAT'S IN A NAME?

  Naming characters can be a very important part of developing their personalities. The first question, of course, is whether the name is appropriate for the character. The character we thought was Michelle might in fact call herself Mike — and that's a whole different sort of woman.

  Most romance heroes' names are short, and they often start with one of the hard consonants, like B, D, G, J, or K. The firm sound of the name seems to help characterize the hero as a no-nonsense man of action.

  Not only can a character's name help to show what kind of person she is, it can hint at the character's history and background. It may even help in a minor way to foreshadow story developments or to push them along. If a character named Courtney is told that her birth father was an attorney, her mother's action in choosing that name takes on significance and helps to convince Courtney that the story is true.

  But there are other important factors in choosing names for characters. Consider the look and the sound of a name, and its relationship to the names of other characters. Is the name easy to pronounce? Will it be familiar to the readers? If not, is it spelled phonetically so the readers won't be confused? Does the first name fit well with the chosen surname? Is it so much like the names of other characters that it might be confusing on the page?

  Unusual or unfamiliar names or spellings work best for main characters or significant secondary characters — not for characters who appear briefly and infrequently — because an unusual name may be more difficult for the readers to recall. If you use unusual names for both main characters, you multiply the risk of confusion. If you want to use a creative name for one main character, choose a simpler, easily recognized and gender-specific name for the other main character. If in doubt, retreat to basic, long-popular names.

  Make certain that the names you choose are appropriate to the time. Brooke and Dakota make fine contemporary characters, but in a Regency romance, they'd be out of place. Hazel or Mildred would be unusual choices for contemporary heroines, and the effect on the readers would be to remind them at every turn that they're reading a story.

  And think about the names in your story in respect to relationships between the characters. If you name a mother Jessica and her small daughter Thelma, your readers — who would associate the name Thelma with someone of an older generation — may have difficulty keeping them straight.

  It is also wise to avoid using several names that start with the same letter. Readers who are consuming your story in snatches need all the help they can get to avoid confusion, and the repetitive initial may cause them to stumble on each name as they try to recall who's who.

  Be cautious of using names that rhyme, like Derrick and Eric; of using unisex names, like Pat and Chris; of using names spelled in such a way that the character's gender isn't clear, like Jeramie; of using names most commonly identified with one sex for a character of the opposite sex, like Jack for a girl or Robin for a boy; of using hero-type names used for the Wrong Man (if there's both a Jake and a Matt, the readers may have trouble keeping them straight, but if you name one of them Gary or Kevin, it's pretty clear who's who); of using names with unclear pronunciations; and of using two names that look very similar typographically, such as Lee and Les.

  Referring to Your Characters

  When you're referring to characters via narrative or describing the action in your story, choose one name or nickname and use it consistently. If you refer to your hero sometimes as Jake, sometimes as Mr. Wilder, and sometimes as the Professor, the readers are going to become confused about who is who and how many people are involved. If you decide to call the hero Jake, use that name consistently in your narrative and your dialogue tags.

  In contrast, when characters talk to each other, the names they use will vary. The doorman will call your hero Mr. Wilder, his students will call him Professor or Dr. Wilder, and the heroine might call him anything from Wild Card on down. But in straightforward narrative, he should have one name and one name only.

  There are two exceptions to this rule. First, if your heroine is usually referred to as Elizabeth but the hero thinks of her as Betsy, then when you're writing from his point of view, you can refer to her as Betsy in narrative as well as in his dialogue. Consistency is the key.

  The other exception occurs early in the book and concerns both the hero and heroine. If they've just met for the first time, they're probably not on a first-name basis. If the first section of the book is in the heroine's point of view, the heroine will probably refer to the hero by both first and last name until a connection begins to form between the characters. If you're writing from the hero's point of view, he may think of the heroine as Melanie Stafford for a while before switching to Melanie or Mel. Once he makes the switch, however, the style should remain consistent.

  IN REVIEW: Surveying Secondary Characters

  Look through the romance novels you've been studying. How many secondary characters are there?

  Is there a villain? An Other Woman? A Wrong Man? A significant third?

  What purposes do the secondary characters fulfill?

  How much do you learn about the secondary characters themselves? About their private lives? About their opinions regarding the main characters?

  Surveying Your Secondary Characters

  What types of secondary characters will be useful in telling your story?

  Will the heroine have a best friend, a co-worker, a sister? What secondary characters will be most closely involved with the hero?

  How can your secondary characters help tell the story?

  Write a scene in which the hero or heroine talks to a secondary character about the other main character.

  ten

  Creating Sexual Tension and Love Scenes

  The love scenes in a romance novel are different from those in other kinds of fiction. Love scenes in romance novels are integral to the plot and to character development, thus they're more important than love scenes in most other fiction. Since the love developing between the main characters is such an enormous part of a romance novel, the physical expression of that love is a crucial element of the story.

  Like many components of romance novels, however, love scenes and all their particulars are difficult to sum up in a few words. People who haven't read a lot of romance novels are apt to ask, “Is there always a love scene?” or “How many love scenes are there in the average romance?” or “Where are the love scenes placed? Should there be one in the first chapter?”

  The answer to all these questions is “It depends on the kind of romance novel.” There are many varieties of romance novel, and physical affection is handled a bit differently in each one. A wide range of love scenes from many different kinds of romances appears later in this chapter.
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br />   LOVE SCENES

  It's important to understand that a love scene isn't the same as a sex scene; a love scene in the romance novel can be any physical expression of affection between the main characters. A kiss, a hug, a touch between hero and heroine are all love scenes on a smaller scale. Even a look can sizzle with sensuality, and a foot massage — if well written — can be as arousing for the readers as a sex act.

  Relatively speaking, sex is a very small part of love, and romance novels — even those toward the erotic end of the spectrum — are love stories, not sex stories. While it's hard to picture two people falling in love without displaying any physical affection at all, a romance novel might include nothing more than a touch of the hand here and there, and a single chaste kiss on the last page. Or it may include mind-bending and intimately described oral, vaginal, and even anal sex in every chapter.

  Physical attraction between the characters is important, of course, but when their attraction is deeply emotional as well, the love scene will be far more involving for the readers.

  To be effective, love scenes have to fit into the course of the story and heighten the tension and conflict. Even if the actual love scene is a calm interlude in the conflict between the two main characters, the act of loving should lead to increased difficulties later. Every love scene should have a purpose in the development of the overall story, not just be there to titillate the readers. If the love scene can be removed without destroying the story, it shouldn't be there in the first place.