Fav 5 - Romantic Heroes from Literature

Before I ever opened a romance novel, I fell in love with those classic romantic men penned by such women as Emily Bronte and Baroness Orczy.  After I started reading romances, I saw many similarities between those incredible men and the ones who graced the pages of my contemporary novels.

But seriously, who can compete with the classics?  That's why we loved them so much as young people and why we still love them.

So, without further adieu, here are my favourite romance heroes from classic literature.  Enjoy.

The Scarlet Pimpernel:
Okay, I won't give his identity away in case you haven't read the book yet but let's just say that this British aristocrat masquerading as a hero to the French elite during the Terror is a man for all occasions--and a great actor.  He's brave, dashing and captures the heart of every young women in England as he performs his daring deeds.  But his heart belongs to one woman alone.  Sigh.

Prince Andrei:
If you've struggled through War and Peace more than once then it might be because of this Russian prince, an intellectual widower who still kicks butt on the battlefield and wins the heart of the young heroine Natasha.  What is amazing about Tolstoy's character is that we first see the Prince at his worst, suffering in a loveless marriage, and later come to love him as his inner strength and beauty is revealed.  Truly, a great man.

Rhett Butler:
He's a jerk, I know, but you fall for him right from the start--after you finish gasping with indignation.  Poor Scarlett.  She never stood a chance.  Rhett had both the brains and wiles to survive in high style during a disastrous war (for his side) and he soon gains what is often essential for a romantic hero: power and position.  And he uses it to woo his woman.  While their relationship is fiery and tempestuous, Rhett holds his own against our girl and when he walks out at the end, we all know that they will somehow end up together again.

Romeo:
Come on, dying for love?  Is there anything better than that?

Heathcliff:
Oh wait, how about living in spite of your loved one's death?  Going around cursing the gods and your beloved to walk the earth until you can meet her in death?  Yes, that's Heathcliff.  Uncivilized, untamed, and wildly attractive.  He drives himself--and everyone around him--mad out of love.  And when his love turns into hatred for almost everything else in the world, we ache even more for him.  I cry every time he gives his speech, begging Cathy to haunt him.  Oh no, here I go again.

Naming your Main Characters, or Nom d’un nom d’un nom

Naming my characters is one of my favourite writing-related activities. But it’s also a chore I obsess about. Names have to be perfect. Who wants to read about a romance between Silas Twingletoe and Kezia Birtwhistle? I didn’t even make those names up. They’re from a Lucy Maud Montgomery book called Magic for Marigold. The beginning chapters of the novel focus around finding a name for a newly fatherless infant. Needless to say, it is my most read part of the book.

Main Characters

It goes without saying that the hero and heroine are the most important characters in your novel. They get to do all of the fun stuff, like argue, misunderstand each other, have sex, and fall in love (not necessarily in that order).

I spend a lot of time finding the right names for my main characters. My own peculiarity is that I prefer names that sound good as well as have an interesting meaning. For instance, I search out names that are from different cultures and see if I can produce a name that means something. For my hero, I want a name that means ‘brave’, ‘loyal’, or ‘stalwart warrior’. Or all three. I also have personal preferences.

I find that I gravitate towards names that start with A, C, and L. Don’t ask me why…there isn’t even an L in my name! I just find that names that start with those letters sound strong or forceful. Hard sounds also help. Short names that end with ‘n’ or ‘m’ sound tough and masculine (but sweet and sensitive inside, of course!).

For my heroines, I want a name that rolls lyrically off the tongue. My preference is for feminine names that start with A, L, S and V. Again, that’s just my personal tastes. However, for female names, the endings are often what give the name its ‘feminine’ character. Names that end with ‘a’, ‘l’ or ‘y’ are easier on the ear and distinguishably feminine, even when you get creative with the name itself.

Which leads us to my method of choosing names for my main characters.

To find these names, I pour over baby name websites. Cheesy, I know. But where else are you going to find thousands and thousands of names, arranged by gender, first letter, meaning and language of origin? All of these aspects play a part in my ultimate choice. This blond hero needs to have a strong Teutonic name? This brunette needs a softer Arabic name? I know just where to look!

Last names work the same way, although these are often found on different websites, usually dealing with genealogy. Just Google the language/ culture you want, with “surnames” and you’ve got more choices than you can handle! To filter, try a specific country of origin.

With all of these names, I like to experiment. Adding an ‘a’ at the end of a masculine name might give me a suitable name for my heroine. Changing the first letter of a name might reward me with an appropriately tough-sounding hero.

Experiment. Try these tips and make your own tweaks to them.

Photo courtesy of Pixomar at freedigitalphotos.net

Writing Sexual Tension: Slowing Your Roll

A black tie awards ceremony.  An attractive man sees a beautiful woman across the room, one of the awards recipients.  He likes the look of her.  She spots him checking her out.  Their eyes connect and...he yawns.  Hard day at the office.  Boy, is he tired!  Maybe he should check out early and go home.  Lie in bed, watch some television, or maybe go over those figures for that early morning meeting one more time.  He's sure he saw some discrepancy...

Meanwhile, the woman is thinking about that cute little leather jacket she saw in the store window that afternoon.  Can she afford it?  Maybe if the cheque that goes with the award is big enough, she'll swing by and pick it up...

<Screech>

Not very interesting, is it?  Why?  Well, apart from the bad writing (which is my fault), the scenario is missing one of the biggest aspects of romantic fiction: sexual tension.  If a man and woman aren't feeling that frisson of awareness when they first glance at each other, that alert energy when they first speak, that hot shiver when their lips first meet, then neither are we as the readers.  And let's face it, that's what we all want to feel.

So how do you create sexual tension in a romance novel?

First of all, we slow things down (and not in the needle screeching over a vinyl record sense we saw above).  We savour.  We hear about that first look in detail.  Their eyes meet.  What do they feel?  What do they think?  What do they see in each other?

Tension builds as we see our characters anticipate the next step.  They don't just race across the room and start making out, they see each other, maybe they ask some of the other guests about that man or woman across the room, in the designer suit or tailored black dress.  Perhaps they rub each other the wrong way.  She thinks he's barbaric and sarcastic.  He thinks she's snobby and full of herself.  But fate keeps throwing them together.  They advance, they retreat.

Sexual tension is all about anticipation.  They notice each others' lips.  They start thinking about what it would be to kiss.  Maybe one of them has a naughty dream that seems all too real.  When they finally do kiss, time slows down to a near stop.  We read about the texture of their mouths, the rate at which their breathing speeds up, the rigidity of his arms around her back, a sigh, the slip of a tongue.  Bliss.  And it's all the more blissful for the delay.

Sex scenes can be the hardest ones to write.  When we get to that moment, we may be tempted to speed right through it.  Do the opposite.  Slow it down.  Spin it out.  Describe the details that evoke every sense: sight, smell, touch, sound, taste.  Red lips, fragrant perfume, soft tongues, softer sighs, the lingering flavour of the chocolate dessert they've just eaten at that awards ceremony.  Wait, what awards ceremony?

Photo courtesy of Carlos Porto at freedigitalphotos.net

The End of the Affair

Over the years, I've written more than a dozen romance novels.  These manuscripts live in the bottom of my hard drive, coming out only once in a while or so to be re-read, re-loved, and wrapped up carefully again and put away.  They are, by default, for my eyes only.  Some of them I have tried to publish, been rejected, and tried again.  Each rejection leads to revisions, doubts, and self-flagellation.  But each rejection also makes me hug my creations closer.  My poor manuscripts.  If I don't love you, who ever will?  The answer is clearly no one.

Some of these manuscripts I have never submitted for publication.  These are truly creatures of my own midnight experiments, written long after the networks no longer air entertaining programs and most reasonable people are in bed.  I, too, should have been in bed on those nights where I was clattering away on my laptop and falling in love with my many characters.

Over the years, I have not only created more than a dozen loving couples (well, in the end they end up loving -- in the beginning of the book, they might fight like gladiators).  I've agonized over what they will do, what they will say, and, most importantly, how they will react to one another.  I've learned how they talk, walk, kiss, and make love.

But it's more than that.  I can obsess about my friends and family in that way (not that that would be at all healthy).  But my feelings for my characters go beyond mere interest, concern, curiousity or even love.

These are my creations.

I breathed life into each and every heroine, have molded each and every hero.  Given them names.  Given them their mannerisms, their laughs, their personal sense of style.

So how do I say good-bye to them?

Well, first of all, I've left my characters in a good place.  If I've done my job as a writer, all doubts and misunderstandings have been explained and swept aside.  All loose ends are tied in a tight little bow.  So, the plot is resolved.

Secondly, the characters have grown.  My plot has put them through a lot.  Their love has been tested, but even more so has their character.  The woman who never felt that she belong can find belonging in the dawning of her new life.  The man who was left bitter by betrayal can trust again.  And so on.  So the characters too have progressed to a place where they can be set free.

Lastly, and most importantly for me, the emotional rollercoaster I've put both characters and reader (singular, since it's often just me at this point) has come to an end and the paying ticketholders can exit the ride.  After running through the gamut of emotions, I can let everyone off of the hook, satisfied and cathartically released.  Because, really, isn't that what we all need -- to feel vividly alive as we read, yet knowing that we can put the book down at the end of the day and head back into our real real lives?

Now, of course, we have to put the book down and I have to press Save and store my completed file away.

Saying good-bye is like closing the book.  I suppose, literally, it is...The End.

Photo courtesy of nattavut at freedigitalphotos.net

Six Foot Four and Violet Eyes



Why do we read romance novels?  For entertainment?  For an escape from reality?

Whatever makes us to it, to bottom line is that romance novels give us pleasure.  The men in the books we read (and write) do and say those strong-willed and strong-hearted acts and words that we often don't see on the bus, sitting in traffic, in our office buildings or outside in the backyard (no offense to our dear spouses and partners!).

The books we read give us men who are men, to use a tired old cliche, and women who are free and independent, spirited and adventurous -- women we want to be, let's face it, and often can't.  Sure, I can work up the courage to ask for a raise next time I feel I deserve it, and after researching the how-tos and what-fors endlessly on the internet.  Maybe I'll even get the raise (fingers crossed!).  But I don't know if I could everything I know for the love of a man.  I don't know if I could venture into an uncharted land in search of intrigue and end up in a stranger's bed.  I don't really think I want to find out.  But the books we read let us do that.

We can see the exception to our workaday rules in the romance novels we love, where every man:

• is at least six feet tall (and often taller);
• is handsome (runners up: craggy, "vital" or rugged);
• has muscles; and
• carries about him an "air of" sophistication, power or raw sexual energy.

The women we imagine ourselves to be are just as fantastic.  These heroines are:

• young;
• beautiful;
• plucky;
• violet-eyed (runners up: turquoise, azure, emerald etc.); and, invariably
• trim, slender, or voluptuous (but never as a euphemism for chubby).

We get older.  Our violet eyes fade.  But our heroines are eternally young and lovely.  Entertainment?  Escapism?  How about just pure pleasure?

Photo courtesy of Jomphong at freedigitalphotos.net



Book by the Cover

I'm a big fan of vintage romance novels circa the 1950s and 60s.  I hunt for them in secondhand bookstores, in the past travelling many miles to do so.

Why?

Because they are so sweet and stereotypical, yet include a great deal of variety in terms of style and scope.  Many of the vintage titles in my collection are set in Africa or South America back when it wasn't possible to check for the best airline prices online.  They were innocent yet adventurous, just like the heroines who star in them, often the younger sibling or relative of a pioneering Englishman living abroad.

Just as the heroines are invariably young (very young, compared to contemporary titles -- often barely out of adolescence), the heroes are usually older sophisticated men of the world.  They are the manliest of the species when the species was considerably hardier.

But, really, what drew me to these books in the first place were the covers.  Or, to be more precise, the cover art.

Illustrated covers have always captured my imagination. A photograph, while lovely, can only show you the faces of the models who pose for them (Fabio overdose, anyone?). But a drawing done by hand is evocative.  I can fill in the story between the pencil lines, adding my own touch in my imagination. Plus, those vintage drawings are absolutely adorable. The nearly cartoonish quality to some of them remind me of well done anime, except more realistic. Or maybe they just remind me of my childhood dolls, with their clear waxen features and smirking semi-smiles.

Whatever this elusive allure is, it is borne out of nostalgia -- for an innocent time I lived through and an innocent age I didn't get to experience.

Photo courtesy of nuttakit at freeditigalphotos.net

Books that Stick in your Head

What kind of novels stick in your head long after you've turned the last page?

For me, I don't necessarily care how innovative a book is (although, that can often catch me as I'm browsing the aisles of my favourite bargain bookstore).  Sure, I like the aliens living among us or the well done apocalyptic tale as much as the next person, but I also like the tried-and-true done right.  That is, maybe with a little bit of a twist somewhere in the plot or a few strange new characters never before encountered (one of my favourite quirky books contains a bad Elvis impersonator and a pair of Siamese twins).

But I'm a fan of genres that tend to stay largely on the safe side: romance, both contemporary and historical, with a side order of mystery/thrillers.  So what makes a romance novel stand out to me as a reader?  Well, it's exactly what I strive to accomplish every day in my writing:

• vivid characters
• clear, crisp prose
• minimal but compelling detail
• a bit of foreshadowing but not enough to ruin the story

Of course, these are broad strokes and subject to exceptions.

Sometimes characters are flat because they don't have to be fleshed out in detail to push the story along, although the main characters (hero and heroine) have to be "real" in every sense.  I want to know how they dress, how they talk, even what they like to eat.  I want to live in their world for a while, after all, so I need to know what that world looks, sounds, and tastes like.

Same with the writing (both prose and the amount of detail).  Clear and crisp is my preferred style but sometimes it's wonderful to luxuriate in pages of adjectives, like snuggling into a sun-warmed quilt that's been hanging out in the summer sun all day.  Or something like that.

Lastly, like a good mystery novel, I want to look back and know why things turned out as they did at the end of the book.  Put another way, I want to follow the clues.

I don't want to read about a heartless hero who gives the heroine every reason to slap him full across the face ends up being a big old softie underneath, after he's kicked the dog and his grandmother down the stairs a few times.  I want the signs of his softness peeking through at odd times in the book, and I don't want to read about him doing something that leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that I'm not rooting for him in the end.

Maybe I'm a softie too, because I want to leave a book with a good taste in my mouth.  A little sweetness, perhaps.  Knowing that the world is alright again and everything is as it should be.

Photo courtesy of Matt Banks at freeditigalphotos.net