On Writing Romance (36 page)

Even before you finish with the book, you may start thinking that some of your secondary characters are too interesting to leave behind. Do they deserve a story of their own?

It's hard enough to write one book at a time without also planning ahead for a sequel. But if you are intent on continuing your story, now — before the first book is set in stone — is a good time to do some thinking ahead. To prepare for a possible sequel:

• Make sure you haven't included any more specifics about the secondary characters in the first book than you absolutely need to use. By limiting the details you include in the original story, you leave yourself room to maneuver and to allow your new set of characters to grow.
  

• Give your sequel characters as heroic a persona as you can in the first book so they're worthy of being heroes and heroines in their own book. Best friends and family members can be tart without being nasty, which allows them to be useful secondary characters while preserving their heroic potential. Just don't tone them down so much they aren't able to function in the roles they play in the original story.
  

• Keep your eye on the ball. It's the first story that is important right now; if it doesn't sell, the second one in your series has much less chance of making it.
  

1. Look back at the romance novels you've been studying and read the last few pages of each one. Can you locate the black moment? The switch?
   

2. How does each ending relate to earlier elements in the book? Is the tone, the sensuality level, the humor similar to the rest of the story?
   

3. Does the ending hark back to the beginning of the story? Does it answer a question or use a theme the author has developed earlier in the rest of the story?
   

1. What will be the black moment in your story when everything seems to be lost and there can't be a happy ending?
   

2. Which of your main characters will break that impasse and switch things around so there can be a happy resolution?
   

3. Will there be a proposal? How would your hero (or perhaps your heroine) propose?
   

4. How will your story end? Can you use elements from the beginning of your story to create a circular ending? Can you repeat thematic elements from throughout the story to bring events to a neat close, perhaps tying up one last loose end? Can you create a genuine surprise for your readers?
   

No matter how good a plan you had when you started writing your book, your first draft is likely to have problems, holes, inconsistencies, and spots where your characters did the unexpected and threw you off course. The story may have ended up shorter or longer than you thought it would. Or perhaps you've got the horrible feeling that something is off-kilter, but you're unable to deduce exactly what it is.

If there is something wrong with your story, chances are it's one of the Big Five:

(1) inadequate conflict, (2) unrealistic characters, (3) lack of force, (4) focus not kept on the romance, or (5) poor writing.

In every unsuccessful romance novel I've ever read, one (or more) of these problems lies at the heart of the trouble:

1. There isn't really a conflict, or the conflict between the characters is a misunderstanding rather than a real disagreement about substantial issues.
   A story that features two people who are fighting their overwhelming attraction for each other, but doing nothing else, is unlikely to hold up for the necessary number of chapters.
   

   If your hero, on the slimmest of evidence, jumps to the conclusion that your heroine is a slut, while your heroine reacts to the hero's first statement by writing him off as a bully, and they continue thinking of each other this way throughout the story, you have a misunderstanding but not a conflict.
   

   Real conflict involves important issues. What's at stake? What do both hero and heroine want that only one of them can have? Or what do they both want so badly they have to work together to get it?
   

   A real conflict has at least two realistic, believable, sympathetic sides — positions that reasonable human beings could logically take. If you (and the readers) can't argue from either POV, changing sides from time to time as if you were a debater, then your conflict is one-sided and flat.
   

   When you have real conflict, your characters will have lots to talk about. When you don't, they may argue till doomsday, but their conversation won't lead anywhere.
   

   Symptoms of this malady include:
   

   1. Characters who argue but don't simply talk to each other.
      If explaining their positions would solve the problem in chapter one, then it's only a misunderstanding, not a conflict.
      

   2. One side is presented as right and the other is presented as wrong.
      If one of them is trying to save the rain forest and the other takes glee in trying to destroy it, it's hard to be sympathetic to both sides.
      

   3. Circular arguments.
      The characters argue the same points again and again, without making progress toward a solution. If the conflict is genuine, a real discussion will develop and the antagonists will modify their points of view as they explain their positions.
      

   4. Coincidental interruptions.
      Just as the hero is about to explain what he really feels, the phone rings, or someone comes to the door, or another character happens to say something that perpetuates the wrong impressions — so the misunderstanding lives on for another day. A wrong number or someone asking for directions would not have the power to derail an important conversation.
      

   5. Not enough at stake.
      The issue doesn't seem important enough to deserve a story, either to the readers or to the characters. A difference between two teachers about how to run a classroom, or a quarrel between parents about whether their little girl should wear jeans or dresses, isn't likely to keep the readers up at night to find out what happens.
      

   6. Unrelated disasters.
      Throwing in earthquakes, car accidents, broken bones, etc. — unless they are actually related to the main story — fills space but doesn't develop conflict or advance the plot. Does every incident move the story forward? Does every incident have a connection to the characters' goals?
      

   7. Main characters whose every conversation consists of getting-to-know-each-other, first-date talk.
      If the only thing the main characters have to chat about is pets and jobs, there may not be enough of a problem between them.
      

2. The hero and heroine aren't realistic and sympathetic characters, or they aren't behaving in realistic ways.
   If your heroine's past experience with the Other Woman has shown that the Other Woman is a liar, but the heroine believes her anyway, then your main character is not only illogical but downright aggravating.
   

   If your hero and heroine act on their very first meeting as if they've known and hated each other for years, they're not believable characters. If they behave badly toward each other throughout the story without overwhelming reason, they're not sympathetic. If they show nothing but distaste for each other throughout the book but then fall into each other's arms on the last page, their chances of lasting happiness are not convincing.
   

   Symptoms of this malady include:
   

   1. A heroine you wouldn't want to befriend.
      If she isn't someone you'd want to hang out with, odds are your readers won't either. You may know that, down deep, your heroine is really a sweetheart, but if she spends all of chapter one shrieking at her mother, the readers will see an unsympathetic, unpleasant woman.
      

   2. A hero you wouldn't want to be married to.
      (Notice that I didn't say “a hero you wouldn't fall in love with.” Being attracted to someone is one thing, but he has to be more than handsome and sexy to have lasting appeal.) If he's angry, have the readers seen convincing reasons for his anger? Can the readers empathize with the character's emotions? Does the bad boy show a balance of characteristics, or is he so dangerous that a sensible woman would run?
      

   3. Characters who are out of balance.
      If the hero is aggressive and the heroine weak, or the heroine is pushy and the hero passive, the story is apt to trail off. In a good pairing of characters, the hero and heroine will be roughly equal in strength and assertiveness.
      

   4. Telling the readers about the characters rather than showing them in action.
      If the characters are not realistic, sympathetic, and believable, it will be difficult to bring them to life — and thus easier to write
      about
      them than to show them interacting.
      

   5. Unmotivated opposition.
      The hero shouldn't try to prevent the heroine from getting what she wants (or vice versa) simply to be nasty. Both characters are more sympathetic if there's a good reason for their opposition to each other.
      

   6. A wandering or unclear viewpoint.
      It's hard to take in more than one character's thoughts at a time, especially if it isn't clear to the readers whose head they're supposed to be in. The result of an unclear viewpoint is often a lack of sympathy for all the characters.
      

   7. Too much internalization.
      The readers hear all about the character's thoughts — more than they want to — but they don't have any real reason to care.
      

   8. Cutting sarcasm, or arguments that are filled with anger to the exclusion of opinions, logic, and respect.
      When name-calling takes the place of discussion, it's hard to like any of the people involved.
      

3. There isn't anything forcing the main characters to stay in the situation.
   If he dislikes her (even though he thinks she has a great body) and she detests him (even though he's quite a hunk), there isn't anything preventing one or the other from just walking away. What makes it necessary for them to stay in contact long enough to discover that their attraction to each other is really love? If you can't state in one sentence the reason your hero and heroine need each other, that reason needs redefining.
   

   Symptoms of this malady include:
   

   1. A hero and heroine who have very little to say to each other.
      If there's something forcing them to stay together, they'll have that issue to talk about. If they're talking about nothing, maybe they need more of a reason to be together in the first place.
      

   2. Characters who are motivated to oppose each other by petty irritation rather than by real disagreement.
      Are they just sniping at each other rather than discussing a substantial problem? If they pick at each other rather than talk about opinions and feelings and events, there may be no reason for them to be together.
      

   3. Characters who are too cozy and comfortable together.
      If they get along so well, what's keeping them from solving the main problem?
      

   4. A hero and heroine who are often separated instead of in the same physical space.
      When they're not together, there's no interaction — so the lack of something to talk about may not be obvious. And if they're not together, perhaps it's because there's no reason for them to spend time with each other.
      

4. The romance is not kept at the heart of the book.
   The other parts of the novel — the mystery of the missing money, the child in need, the past history of hero or heroine, the subplot involving secondary characters — are sometimes more fun and are often easier to write than the immediate interaction between the main characters.
   

   But the readers want to see a developing relationship — fondness, trust, liking — between the characters. The rest of the story, important though it is, serves as the background for the romance.
   

   Symptoms of this malady include:
   

   1. Main characters who don't seem to have anything to talk about.
      People who are interested in each other will be asking questions, exploring opinions, and finding out more about the other person.
      

   2. Main characters who argue rather than just talk.
      Even characters who are very much opposed to each other will — if they're honestly interested in each other — try to find some common ground, something they can talk about
      without
      arguing.
      

   3. A hero and heroine often separated by the circumstances of the plot.
      If the hero and heroine are apart, thinking about each other rather than being actively involved, their feelings for each other can't develop.
      

   4. Overly complex plots.
      Too many events or too much space spent explaining the details of subplots means less time for the developing relationship.
      

   5. Too many people in the scenes.
      If the hero and heroine aren't alone together, it's more difficult for their feelings to develop. Even in a packed auditorium you can isolate your two main characters; move them off to a corner, or let them carry on a whispered private exchange while surrounded by other people.
      

   6. Scenes that veer off track.
      Side issues become more important than the main story, and everybody — author, characters, and readers — forgets what the point of the scene was. Or the family history and in-depth views of secondary characters distract readers from the main story.
      

   7. Interference by other characters.
      Whether the interference is intended to create trouble between the hero and heroine or bring them together, it takes the focus off the main relationship. The hero and heroine should solve their own problems.
      

5. The story simply isn't well told.
   You haven't put words on the page in a spellbinding way. Perhaps you're summarizing your story, telling instead of showing. Or the sentences may simply be unclear, so the readers have to deduce or interpret what you mean. You may show the action in the wrong order, confusing the readers. Or maybe you're showing only part of the scene, leaving out details necessary for the readers' understanding. For whatever reason, the actual words on the paper do not convey to the readers the images you saw as you wrote.
   

   Symptoms of this malady include:
   

   1. Slow starts.
      The first chapter might consist of the heroine reflecting on her past and what has brought her to this stage in her life. If you start with action instead, you give the readers a reason to care about the character; then they'll sit still to hear about the roots of the problem.
      

   2. Peaceful endings.
      Chapters or scenes that end with the heroine drifting off to sleep without a care are wonderful places for the readers to do the same thing.
      

   3. Rushed dramatic action.
      Watch out for words and phrases like
      later, after a few minutes, when she'd had a chance to think it over
      , and other indications that the readers are being told rather than shown what happened.
      

   4. Low emotional levels.
      When the story events and characters are not emotionally compelling, the readers find it difficult to care whether the hero and heroine get what they want.
      

   5. Wandering viewpoints.
      The POV shifts back and forth for no good reason, or it's difficult even to figure out who the viewpoint character is.
      

   6. Random dialogue.
      Instead of relaying important information, the dialogue focuses on everyday detail — lots of instances of
      hello
      and
      good-bye
      and
      How do you like your coffee?
      

   7. One-sided characters.
      It's easy to show the difficult, angry side of a character and assume the readers will know that the guy's really delightful underneath — because after all, he's the hero.
      

   8. Below-standard grammar, spelling, word usage, and mechanics.
      Anything that takes the readers' attention off the story and forces them to figure out what the author really meant makes it easier for them to put the book down.