Leigh

Michaels

Author, Teacher, Editor

read an excerpt

table of contents

Creating Romantic Characters:

Bringing Life to Your Romance Novel

ISBN 1892689073

No matter how exciting the plot, it's the people

who make a story memorable. Techniques and examples

to help you produce provocative, forceful characters.

now available as an e-book

Table of Contents

The world of romance novels .  . 8

Heroic Characters . . . . 17

The Supporting Cast . . . 56

Naming the Baby (and Everyone Else, Too) 111

Building a Character . . . 115

Bringing Characters to Life . . 131

The Pursuit of Love . . . . 144

References . . . . . 175

Index . . . . . 190

Many new romance writers create heroines who are perfect. They’re not only shaped like Barbie dolls, but they never have to break a sweat at the gym to keep that perfect figure. They’re smart and witty and run a multimillion-dollar business in their spare time. They’ve never cracked a fingernail and they can wear white shorts to a picnic and not get a single grass stain.

Or the new writer goes the other direction and creates a hapless, helpless heroine. This woman can’t get herself across a room without help. She gets mixed up in one bad relationship after another, she’ll believe any fool story she’s told without ever stopping to consider the source, and she’s wildly inconsistent in the ways she reacts to people and events. She’s still gorgeous, but she doesn’t believe for a moment that she’s the least bit attractive. Because this woman doesn’t respect herself, she commands no respect from others– including the reader.

A satisfying, sympathetic heroine is a woman with a past. That doesn’t mean she necessarily has dark, deep secrets (though indeed she may have). It doesn’t mean she’s been a stripper or is on the lam because she’s facing criminal charges.

Having a past simply means that our heroine, like all human beings, has been shaped by her experiences, and her reactions to what has happened to her make her a person distinct from every other individual on the planet.

Was she raised in an orphanage? Or did she grow up with a stern and critical father? Or was she the much-pampered only girl in a family of five boys? Those three women will have entirely different feelings about families.

The heroine’s past experiences affect everything she does and every decision she makes. But it isn’t necessary for the reader to know all of that history right away. In fact, one of the bigger mistakes made by most new romance writers is to pour all the information about the heroine’s past into the first chapter. It’s much better to wait until later in the book, when the reader must know about the heroine’s past in order to understand her, to share that information.

copyright 2002 by Leigh Michaels

Available from www.bn.com     www.alibris.com    www.pbllimited.com

or any bookstore.

For more information email pbl@pbllimited.com

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