God Bless America…and Writing Romance

Fourscore and seven years ago, we set down to provide our country with some really good…HUNKS of burning love! 

Caught you off guard there, didn’t I?  But what would the world of romance be without these hotties?  Admit it—don’t you pick up a novel at the store and look at the cover to drool at the hunk?  I do.  When we (or people we know) go to the Romantic Times convention and come back with pictures, don’t you scan through them, looking for the gorgeous cover models you can print off and hang on your wall?  So slap my hands and shake your finger at me, but I love to gaze at a good-looking man on romance novels.  In fact.

But is it the hotties on the book covers that make our stories?  I would hope it was the heroes inside the books that make them memorable.  I can still recall every one of Johanna Lindsey’s Mallory stories.  Why?  Because she made me fall in love with her heroes.  I’ve always been a big fan of Judith McNaught’s, and I still drool over her men. 

So what’s the formula for writing characters readers will remember?  I’m still trying to figure that one out, but I’d like to think it’s creating a hero (or heroine) that has flaws.  Sure, I like my men to have dark hair, muscles all over his body, a humorous personality…and sexy beyond reason, but we shouldn’t make them too perfect.  We need to give our characters a taste of real life and have them grow throughout the story.  We need to help our readers fall in love with our characters despite their flaws, then have our readers enjoy the journey while we bring our characters together to work out life’s problems.  Make them passionate about their goals and motivations as they leap—or stumble—over the conflicts thrown in their path.  By the end of the book, you’ll have your readers sighing with happiness…and thinking about our stories months or even years after they read it.

I encourage all of you to write a memorable hero…and have fun doing it!