What Makes A Romance?

By Jane Toombs

Is it the plot? No, not really, though all romances have some of the same elements in their plots. Is it an exotic setting? Not that, either. What's left, then? The characters, of course—more specifically the hero and heroine. Without them, there's no romance.

Since February is the romance month, what better time to concentrate on heroes and heroines of the romance genre? First of all, what traits must they have to allow a reader to like them enough to become involved in their story?

1. Virtue
2. Competence
3. Courage
4. Likability
5. Imperfections

Why virtue? Moral choice may make it clearer what's meant by virtue, because then the hero and heroine have the responsibility of making the choice. Romance heroes and heroines do have to believe from the beginning that good is preferable to evil and to choose good, not evil. By this, I'm not referring to any specific group's idea of what constitutes morality, but of the wider concept of good vs. evil.

How about courage? In genre romance, the hero and heroine, however much they may seem on the surface to be ordinary people, should be larger than life. As Jeffrey Boam, who did Indiana Jones' scripts said, "People go to movies because they have a deep-rooted need to see a heroic figure go through physical torture and come out victorious."

In a romance, though the torture usually is not physical, but mental, as they struggle with their emotions, the reader does want and expect them to come out victorious.

The two main characters are called the hero and heroine for a reason—think about it. Most, if not all, romances echo the hero myth, a series of trials the hero and heroine must pass before they emerge triumphant. This makes them larger than life, but doesn't mean they shouldn't have flaws. Why flaws? Because flawed characters seem more real and appeal to a reader's sympathy. Even Indiana Jones made mistakes.

To paraphrase something else Boam said, people don't go to movies to see reality, they go to see the good guys win. People read genre fiction for the same reason—they know the ending will satisfy them. Many romance readers confess that when they're browsing in a bookstore, even though they know all romances end happily, they first read the ending of a romance book they're contemplating buying— "just to make sure."

As for competence, if the main characters don't have it to begin with, then they must learn it because they have to cope reasonably well with the pitfalls that litter their path in life or else they won't be able to overcome the problems along the way to that happy ending.

Likability. Because most romance readers are women, they want to read about a hero they could fall in love with and a heroine they can empathize and/or identify with.

Okay, the writer has conjured up a hero and heroine who embody the listed traits. Is that enough? No way. In order to capture and hold the reader's interest, these two main characters must come into conflict, otherwise there is no story. Conflict should grow out of the characters as they interact with each other and the forces around them, but also should arise from within them.

Each hero and heroine has a past history, forces which molded them from babyhood on, so when they meet they're pulling what one psychologist refers to as their "little red wagons" behind them. This means we all carry good and bad from our pasts with us. The romance hero and heroine are no different. So there should be both inner and outer conflict keeping the two from their heart's desire.

Conflict forces decisions, which results in action and furthers the story. Each decision made, except the final one, can be either wrong or right. The final one must, of course, be the right decision to reach that happy ending. Each decision made by the hero and heroine must be in character with the kind of person they are and should be consistent with whatever emotional level they've reached at the time of the decision.

Don't ever try to bend any of your characters unnaturally to fit the plot. You won't be tempted to do this if you take care to know everything about the hero and heroine, from their ancestry to the way they trim their toenails. You really do need to know these two main characters even better than you know yourself.

How does one create believable characters? Essentially there are three ways.

1. The writer makes charts that cover ever possible phase of the character's life from infancy on, detailing likes and dislikes, etc.

2. The writer, before beginning the story, works at discovering why each character is the way he or she is, how this happened and, if necessary, who was responsible.

3. The writer starts the story and learns about the characters as she writes-in essence they tell her what they're like.

None of the three is right or wrong, depending on what the writer needs to do to get to know her characters. I belong to the third school, so I'm not much for depending on techniques for developing characters, I let them tell me who they are and how they intend to behave as I write their story.

For writers who do want more structure, there's a system called Enneagram (Any-a-gram) that types personalities, listing the main nine types and showing how most of us are combinations of types. I'm not going to go into it any further, but, if you're interested in learning more about this technique, there are quite a few books out there to help you, every one of which uses the word Enneagram in the title so they're easy to find in a bookstore or the library.

Take care never to create stock or cliche characters, interchangeable cardboard people who are one dimensional and, therefore, uninteresting. Cliche comes from the French, meaning to stereotype; of imitative origin; and originally meant the noise of the die striking the metal. One of the suggestions for the word cliche in Roget's Thesaurus is "warmed-over cabbage." Keep this in mind and you'll never be tempted to create a cliche character.

In a romance the hero is motivated to achieve a certain goal—and so is the heroine. Usually these goals conflict in some way with the developing romance between the two. In the ms. I just finished for my most recent Silhouette Special Edition, the hero, who has been betrayed by a woman in the past, is searching for a girl who disappeared fourteen years before—his goal. The heroine has every reason not to reveal what she knows about that disappearance—her goal. Yet they're attracted to each other. How can this basic conflict be resolved to reach a happy ending? Obviously each of them has to learn to compromise, to grow and change. And therein lies the story.

Another of my books, a paranormal fantasy, MOONRUNNER, opens with a naked and injured young man cast up on a deserted beach in Gold Rush California. He has no idea where he is or how he got there. Nor does he know who he is. More ominous, he doesn't know what he is. So both hero and reader are in the dark about the awful truth until the first full moon. But by then the reader has come to identify with this unfortunate but appealing victim of amnesia as he struggles to survive.

The woman he eventually connects with is a Finnish noita (witch), who at first wants nothing to do with this man she alone perceives to be a shapeshifter. She comes to realize that she's the only one who can help him—but will she? The reader can easily sympathize with her doubts, because in helping him she may very well lose her life.

While this book is not a romance, it does have man-woman relationships and both these characters have to make major adjustments in their lives to accommodate each other. They do this because they come to understand they must—they need one another in so many ways they can't stay apart.

Plots are important, but readers don't identify with or fall in love with plots—they need characters to bring the plot to life. It's the writer's job to make the main characters live in the reader's mind.

What is the heroine struggling with and why should the reader like her? These two things need to be established in the first chapter. The writer must also be careful with whatever flaws she saddles the heroine with. It's difficult to identify with a heroine who comes off as bitchy or unkind, for example.

Is the hero someone a woman could fall in love with? His sexy buns won't do it—that's lust. What's his unsolved problem? Why should the reader not only yearn for him, but like him as well. The writer has to show the interior man as well as the hunky exterior, preferably early on. And again, be careful to provide him with flaws the reader can identify with. For example, although the heroine may at first perceive a hero who is sure of himself as arrogant, the hero should never actually be arrogant—that's a negative trait. And no hero ever abuses a woman, or a child or a horse, dog or cat. He may not particularly care for cats, but he would never hurt one.

Therefore, before staring a romance you should make certain your hero is appealing, someone a woman could fall in love with. You also need to know what his goal is and what his unsolved problem is. And, of course, he has to have a flaw the reader can love with.

How about your heroine? Have you created someone a woman can identify with? Someone with a flaw another woman can understand and sympathize with? She also should have qualities that will appeal to a man-because the hero is one. Again, this needs to be more than physical attributes.

After writing three chapters, ask yourself if you've met these criteria. In a romance, if you haven't convinced the reader in the first three chapters to accept, like and identify with the hero and heroine you've created, then you've lost the chance to entice them to get lost in your story.

If you find yourself having trouble making your hero and heroine appealing, try rereading the first three chapters of several romances you've enjoyed and highlight how those authors made you identify with their characters. Then try those techniques in your story.

All the way through your book, you need to continue to create the appropriate emotions between the two main characters so that their interaction can create the appropriate emotion in a reader. If you do, the plot will work and the story will be successful. If those emotions don't come through, the plot fails.

Always remember that, in category romance, whatever else is in the plot plays second fiddle to the relationship developing between the hero and heroine. The story should show how the initial attraction between the characters slowly grows. Though it may be, and often is, purely physical at first, each of them must notice positive personality qualities in the other so that the relationship grows and changes form lust to love. As the relationship grows and changes, so do the hero and heroine as they come to realize they were meant for each other.

If any plot obstacles remain near the end, they must be resolved before the relationship come to full flower. In other words, if the story happens to have a suspense element, that must be solved and ended before the romantic ending.

It's important to show all along the way how each of the characters is affected by how he/she feels and how he/she perceives how the other feels. This is the core of a romance and, if it's missing, an editor isn't likely to buy your ms. because she knows what the romance reader is looking for and expecting.

You need to keep asking yourself these questions throughout the story: What is it the heroine wants? What is it the hero wants? How do these goals differ? What can the heroine do to gain her goal? What's preventing her from reaching it? What can the hero do to get what he wants and what's blocking him?

Why must you keep asking? Because, with a developing relationship, goals shift and change and so do the reason why the goals are not reached. Only when each of them understands what she or he really wants and can change in some way to get it (and this need not be at the same time for both of them) can either of them start up the path toward the happy ending.

It's also important to keep in mind that lovemaking, not sex, is what goes on in a romance, but that's a whole other topic.

About the happy ending. While this is a given, it doesn't mean unhappy experiences and even tragedies can't have occurred in the main characters' lives, sometimes even in the present, as the story moves along. What the characters must do in the story is come to terms with such occurrences and go on with their lives, growing and changing to reach that happy ending.

In a nutshell, then, make your characters appealing and memorable with emotions that communicate to the reader, because the characters are what either sell or doom a romance. Offer real conflicts to keep hero and heroine apart. Show the developing feelings between the two main characters all the way through the book. And, don't forget that, although the hero and heroine appear to be functioning in real settings and occupations, they need to be larger than life to appeal to the reader.

Why? Because a romance is not reality, but a fantasy providing a setting that seems to be real.

The reader lives in reality and she expects a romance to take her away from it for a few hours.

Remember—as in any story, there is no plot without memorable characters, and this holds true for romances as well.

Happy Valentine's Day. Buy a romance and read it! I promise you it'll have a happy ending.

©2000, Jane Toombs

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