Category Archive

Romance novels are often blamed by outsiders for any number of silly objections, primarily by setting girls up for unrealistic expectations.  Now, I could go on for ages about people’s ability to separate fantasy from reality, and the value of quality escapist fiction…. but let’s set that aside for the day and talk about a few areas where romance novels really do mislead a bit:

Compressed Timeframe.  Boy meets girl, conflict happens, gets resolved, and then, boom!  They live happily ever after, even if they’ve only known each other a few weeks.  From a writer’s perspective, this happens because if we stretch the romance out to cover the span of a couple of years (a respectable amount of time to date to be certain the couple is in love, not merely infatuation.).  Well, this makes for a dull novel.  A handful of novels that go for an epic scope (Gone with the Wind) will have the time to let a relationship play out over a few years, however, most genre writers only get about 300 pages to make our case.  That is the length the public wants to buy, and the page count most writers are given to work with.  So the time frame will be short folks… don’t try this is real life.

Opposites Attract. This is a convention writers often fall back on because you have got to have conflict sparking in your book.  There are lots of other ways to have conflict, but opposite personalities is a stand-by that never gets old.  Something to keep in mind: That reckless bad boy who charmed the prim & proper heroine won’t be so charming after they’re married when she is home with the babies while he carouses with the guys and fritters his money on hot cars….. just sayin…

Oh, that healin’ heroine!  We love wounded heroes in Romance-landia.  I love to see a hero who has been scorched by experience and expose him to the cool, healing spirit of the heroine and he is magically transformed. If a guy is snarling, wounded, and bitter, the odds are he needs therapy, not little Miss Sunshine.

Damsels in Distress.  I’m also not a big fan of damsels in distress.  They are usually in distress because of a string of bad life decisions, and falling into the arms of a good man may solve the immediate problems, but give it a few years.   If these women took the easy road out of their troubles, odds are they aren’t good long-term bets. Men want a partner, not an obligation.

By the way….Ariel and Eric from the Little Mermaid are pretty much guilty of all of the above!

Love at First Sight, anyone?

We are closing in on Valentine’s Day, so this tends to bring out a lot of grandiose Hallmark gestures and romantic movies.  A wildly popular theme is love at first sight, which is easy to depict in a movie….but can it happen in real life?

Instant infatuation happens (been there, done that!) I also know of couples who claimed to have realized they met “The One,” within a few hours of meeting.  Some of those marriages are still going strong ten and twenty years down the road, but my hunch is they are the exception rather than the rule.

Fellow romance novelist Jody Hedlund recently wrote a great blog about the perils of believing in love at first sight. Her blog points to a handful of insightful problems stemming from believing in love at first sight. Here’s a summary:

• We don’t have time to test character
• We get caught up in the rush of feelings
• We neglect to build a solid foundation of friendship
• We indulge in a false sense of euphoria

Wow….what a downer for two romance novelist to give a hearty Thumbs-down on love at first sight so close to Valentine’s Day!  I’m actually not averse for single people to indulge these feelings….but what’s the rush? Wait a year to go sign the paperwork that makes it legal.

My latest novel, Beyond All Dreams, features a hero who believes he has fallen in love at first sight with the heroine. The ever-practical Anna knows loves at first sight is riddled with problems, and fortunately does not allow herself to get swept up into the whirlwind. I had a ball writing about the exhilaration and the perils of falling in love at first sight…. fun to contemplate, dangerous to indulge!

Photo courtesy of Nathan Rupert

The American Civil War brought a surprising opportunity to American women.  As men left to fight in the war, the government hired thousands of women to fill office vacancies in Washington D.C.   Even after the war, the floodgates had been opened and it was acceptable for American women to obtain respectable white collar jobs in cities all over the United States.  By 1891, there were 70,000 women working in American offices, and by 1920 that number had swelled to half a million.

As a romance novelist, this presents an irresistible temptation for me.  Although “dating the boss” is taboo in today’s society, in the late 19^th century women who ventured into the workplace were considered fair game.  Sometimes they welcomed the attention of their employers and sometimes they didn’t, but there was no law against workplace sexual harassment until a landmark Supreme Court case of 1974 (Barnes v. Train) recognized it is a distinct issue.

I’ve always been fascinated by professional woman of the late 19^th century, and most of my novels feature heroines working in professional capacities.    In Against the Tide, Lydia was a translator for the Navy when she meets a man who does undercover work for the government.  It wasn’t a terribly risqué plot, since Lydia never reported to Bane and could walk away from him whenever she wished.

I got a little more daring in With Every Breath (August 2014).  This is a hospital drama, and Kate is a government statistician who is hired by a doctor to help with his research.  Kate reports directly to Trevor, and both are well aware of the risks associated with getting romantically involved.  “Dating the boss” added a delicious layer of tension and complications to the plot….one which I wouldn’t be free to explore were I writing a contemporary romance.   Over the years we have too much instinctive suspicion of relationships that begin with such a disparity of power, but this is a 21^st century attitude, and I write 19^th century characters.  Trevor and Kate are smart enough to be aware of the emotional danger of their relationship, but it hardly stops them from pursuing it.

It took decades to establish commonly accepted expectations for how men and women should interact in the workplace.  For the most part, the government and Human Resource departments wanted to avoid the headaches of sexual harassment charges and did everything possible to discourage romantic relationships in the workplace.   None of this has been terribly effective.  Even today, I think most of us know people who met their spouse at work.  When you put men and women in close proximity and give them a shared mission, it’s hard to override the rules of natural attraction.

If you’re curious about professional women in the late 19^th century workplace, I hope you’ll take a peek at one of my novels!

Doctors make great heroes.  Hawkeye from M*A*S*H; Richard Chamberlain as Dr. Kildare, and who can forget George Clooney from ER.

I think doctors have a couple of credentials that make them automatic hero material.  It is a given that they are intelligent.  It is safe to assume they are also calm under pressure, have a certain measure of empathy, and oh yeah, they are probably financially secure.  All this adds up to the raw potential to be fabulous hero material.

Dare I say that such sterling qualities can sometimes be a little bland?  This is why if you scratch the surface of most fictional doctors you’ll find plenty of neuroses and obsessions.  Dr. House is a misanthropic narcissist, Hawkeye was a rampant womanizer, and Dr. Jekyll, well….he had lots of problems.  We tend to give physicians a pass because of the heroic, difficult jobs they do….. combine this with a couple of weird fixations, and you’ve got the makings for a great leading man.

So, Trevor McDonough, anyone?   The physician hero in With Every Breath is a man of stunning heroism, a brilliant mind, and smoking-hot good looks.  His problems?  They are legion!  He’s shy, prickly, and possibly the most competitive man ever born.  Given that the heroine is friendly, outgoing, and also massively competitive; the stage was set for the sparks to fly.

I like the storyline of the troubled physician.  Those who are in contact with life-and-death situations are under devastating stress, so is it any wonder that sometimes they succumb to human failings?  The duel of conflicting forces: compassion and intelligence vs. moody human failings was too much for me to resist.

Has anyone been watching The Knick on Starz?  Clive Owen plays an amazing Victorian-era doctor who battles various addictions and oddities, but nevertheless remains utterly fascinating. Even with the terrible mustache, I can’t take my eyes off of him.

Come back, Heathcliff!

I think there is something intensely appealing about Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, even though I’ve never been a big fan of the novel. I am pretty intensely committed to a happily-ever-after, and Heathcliff was a portrait of a self-destructive man whose bitterness ultimately overwhelms him.

And yet…..

I think there is a streak inside a lot of women who long for the idea of the helpless and enduring love Heathcliff has for Cathy. He is not a nice-guy hero. He is stormy, dark, and turbulent…. perfect reading for a blustery autumn day. In real life I would cross the street to avoid someone like Heathcliff, but in a guilty pleasure of a novel? There is a reason Wuthering Heights has an enduring appeal, and his name is Heathcliff.

Is it possible to “Age Out” of romance novels?

I am now into my forties, yet at the beginning of my career as a novelist, I sometimes wondered if there would come a time when I would “age out” of romances….either as a reader or a writer.

I can comfortably answer that question with a resounding No!

And I am not alone. Industry statistics gathered by the Romance Writers of America indicate that the typical reader of romance novels are between 30-54 years old. And yet, the typical heroine of romance novels, both in mainstream and inspirational romance, is in her twenties. Do older women really want to continue reading about this age?

The answer is YES.    A few years ago, Harlequin (the industry giant and master at gauging reader demographics), tried to launch some series lines featuring significantly older heroines. It failed to perform anywhere close to industry standards. I asked some older women who read romance novels why they continue to read about the trials and tribulations of heroines in their twenties. Here are a smattering of responses:

• Books about women my age (60) seem to be “issue books” dealing with illness, aging, problematic adult children, or something equally bleak.
• I don’t want anything that reminds me of my day job. I like the freshness of women in the earlier years of their life learning to grapple with overwhelming emotions.
• “Hen Lit” doesn’t do it for me.

As I writer, I am interested in women as they struggle to define themselves. I want to capture them on that upward arc when they come into their own in terms of their convictions, their hopes for a career, and what they are looking for in a man. To write such a thing about a woman in her 40’s or older simply won’t work… she will come off as immature and not someone the reader will be engaged with.

There is a recent phenomenon known as the “Twilight Mom.” These are women who picked up the book that was all the rage among their high-school aged daughters and got hooked. Why? Because they liked the depiction of unabashed love and the turbulent emotions portrayed in the books. The age of the characters didn’t matter. I am hoping that many of those Twilight Moms eventually picked up other novels in the romance genre and found them equally appealing.

In any case…I can safely say I have no desire to move into “Hen Lit!”

(photo courtesy of Martin Playing with Pixels)

Why is this Guy so Hot?

He is Peter Dinklage, the actor who portrays Tyrion Lannister in the wildly popular Game of Thrones. He also stands only a little more than four feet tall, which makes him a highly unconventional hero who is making teenaged girls rapid heart palpitations all across the country.

The Game of Thrones is an epic fantasy in which several noble houses are battling for control of the Iron Throne, and Tyrion Lannister is the dwarf son of one of these noble houses. As a dwarf, he is not in contention for the throne, and is constantly underestimated.

The Game of Thrones is too gritty for me, and I haven’t been able to watch much of it, but the rest of my family is addicted. Whenever Tyrion Lannister is on the screen I am compelled to stop what I’m doing to watch. As someone who does her best to understand the appeal of romantic heroes, I have been trying to figure out the wild popularity of this character. The actor is not conventionally handsome, and in real life he would probably come up to my elbow. And yet….

Tyrion Lannister is an underdog, and yet he is not bitter. He uses his wit, intelligence, and basic human decency to overcome the odds that are stacked against him every hour of every day. In a brutal, turbulent world he is brave and heroic despite his physical limitations. He quietly runs rings around his enemies by outwitting them. His strength is in his mind, not his body. Tyrion Lannister simply has this amazing sense of valor and spirit that powers him through the calamities in his world. He is mesmerizing.

At this point in my writing career I don’t think I’m brave enough to create a hero with such a stark physical limitation, but he gives me lots of inspiration.

Why do we Love Disasters?

The two most successful movies of the 20th century both featured a love story set against the backdrop of a disaster. Titanic and Gone with the Wind both showcase the drama and intensity that comes from those crisis moments when life is on the line.

What makes this work? For me, I like to see how people respond in a crisis. Some people will draw on every bit of mental and physical fortitude to emerge as a hero, while others will revert to cowardly, selfish behavior. And you don’t really know who will emerge as a hero until their life is on the line.

Take Rhett Butler. He is a scoundrel throughout most of Gone with the Wind, but at a few key moments, he lays his life on the line to do the right thing, all because he wants to be a better man. Jack Dawson is a different kind of hero in Titanic. He’s a nice kid, but has been wandering aimlessly through his life. During the crucial moments as the ship goes down, this carefree kid emerges as a man of stunning heroism. I wasn’t all that taken with his character until the end of the movie when he hauls Rose up onto that floating door and orders her to survive…even when he knows he is doomed, he digs down deep and summons up that immense, golden streak of heroism that makes him an unforgettable character.

Into the Whirlwind deals with the Chicago fire of 1871. I put my two romantic leads onto the streets of downtown Chicago as the buildings burn and collapse around them. As in real life, there were plenty of people who panicked and acted selfishly….while others risked their lives to lead children to safety, shield women with their bodies, battled flames to haul out survivors. The fire was a crucible that tested them all.

I had a ball writing Into the Whirlwind, and hope to do another disaster story someday. The drama and intensity of a disaster is simply too much of a lure to resist!

One of the first things I do in dreaming up a novel is think about how to write Big Scenes… those dramatic, sprawling scenes that put the lead characters through the wringer. I want the characters to be plunged into terrible situations when their backs are against the wall, and they must claw, shout, and scrape their way out of it. Making my characters suffer through such scenes makes the inevitable happy resolution that much sweeter because they have earned it.

Oftentimes, before I even know who the lead characters will be, I envision a couple of those huge, teeth-gnashing scenes, then draft a story that will lead to them:

• A heroine finds herself stranded in an isolated, snow-bound gothic mansion with a madman (Against the Tide)

• A hero watches his home burn to the ground, believing the woman he loves is responsible (The Lady of Bolton Hill)

• A courageous physician walks toward almost certain death, begging the woman he loves to wait for him, while she insists that he stay (my manuscript in progress…due next year!)

Here is a clip from The Last of the Mohicans that embodies the back-against-the wall, nothing-left-to-lose Big Scene. The hero and heroine have been cornered, and only the hero has a chance of survival….Cora pleads with Hawkeye to save himself. The good parts of this scene are at .30 through 1.30 seconds: