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heroines

Plot Analysis: The Romance

September 16, 2016 by Elizabeth Drake

I realized my last post was about the plot outside the romance in a romance novel. All the things happening around the characters so they can’t just focus on what they feel for each other. We don’t want to make it too easy on them, now do we? Of course we don’t!

And while no one falls in love in a vacuum, I also thought I’d take a moment to discuss the plot of the actual romance.

Heart
You gotta earn it, buddy.

Yes, I think there should be a plot, a progression to the romance. Even for the soul mates trope. Even for the love-at-first-sight trope.

Think about this for a moment. You see a handsome guy at Starbucks. You are instantly attracted. He comes over to you and you start talking. What’s your first reaction? Whoohoo, let’s jump in bed together? I’ve never known anyone like that, but okay, maybe it is. But are you then instantly in love with him? Ready to spend your life together? Ready to give up everything for him?

How does your heroine know she just pledged the rest of her life to Sir Lancelot and not Charles Manson?

Is this the kind of heroine a reader is going to care about? Or is she the kind of heroine a reader hopes you’re going to kill off by the end?

Yet, I have read this over and over again. One night and the hero/heroine is in love, ready to do anything, give up anything for that love. And it is completely unbelievable.

The romance is an integral part of the plot. It should grow throughout the book. Perhaps the characters even say they love each other midway through the story. That’s fine, especially if there’s going to be things that test that commitment, and through the challenge, strengthen it.

In really good romance novels, the non-romance plot helps drive the romance. It keeps the characters working together when they wouldn’t otherwise. It provides time and opportunity for the characters to fall in love. Perhaps even a few challenges and pitfalls.

This brings me to another point. In a really good romance, the heroine also won’t settle for a jerk.

If you don’t believe me, think back to Pride and Prejudice. I remember my first read through being shocked when Elizabeth told Darcy off after he professed his love for her. And then I was ecstatic. Yes. He deserved being told off. He was being a jerk. Why would she want to marry that? Spend the rest of her life with his condescension and derision?

Why, indeed.

Yet, in books written 200 years later, I’ve regularly been reading heroines settling for worse than Darcy. Heroes who’ve let them down when they needed them most. Heroes who used them and cast aside their feelings like McDonald’s wrappers. Heroes mentally or physically abusive. Really? Why do authors end their story with their heroine stuck with one of these guys? Jane Austin knew better 200 years ago.

Am I saying characters can’t start out as jerks and then learn and grow through the story?

No.

Can an author convince me a truly selfish jerk suddenly becomes Mr. Perfect?

Maybe.

Depends on the crucible of the plot that author just put him through. The nastier the character starts, the more he has to go through to make his change believable. That makes the author’s job harder, but when done right, it also makes the reward for the reader that much sweeter. Best of all?  The reader doesn’t get yanked from the world the author built when they roll their eyes.

Filed Under: Analysis, Uncategorized Tagged With: characters, Hero, heroines, plot, Romance, Writing

Heroine Analysis: Part 4

August 12, 2016 by Elizabeth Drake

For my last look at heroine analysis (for the moment, anyway), I took a look at the novel I am currently revising.

crown-759296_640

I finished a first draft and my first revision that made me rewrite the whole ending. The heroine is a slave in a fantasy world trying to escape and find freedom.

So, can I not hate her if she were another author’s heroine?

  • Is she Passive? – She’s a slave, so there are areas that she is a bit passive, especially in response to the hero . . . And yet, she has struggled to find a way out of slavery and she is more than willing to stand up to powerful men. I might need to take another look at her interactions with the hero and make sure they aren’t passive. Make sure the reader understands her thoughts and manipulations to gain her freedom.
  • Do I tell one thing and show another? – I don’t think so. Again, I don’t believe I actively tell you that she’s determined. I try to let you feel how she longs for a family and a place to belong, how it’s shaped her, and how she’s willing to give a lot and risk a lot to get it.
  • Does she do stupid things? – No. At one point in the story, she does flee the safety of the palace, but that’s because she has inside information on bad stuff going down. Not foolish, and I laid the groundwork in advance as to where she’d go and why. I had some stupid in the story, and I cut it during the first rewrite. There may be more, but nothing I can quickly identify. Perhaps on revision two. . .

So, I might need to work with her to make sure she doesn’t come across as passive without making her overstep too many bounds as a slave. At least, I should take another look at it and try to be objective on whether I’d be annoyed with her or not.

Now, does she exhibit the traits I’m looking for to like her?

  • Is she actively involved in solving her problem? – Yes. From the beginning, she is fighting to escape and goes to great lengths to do it.
  • Can you identify with her? – I feel like this is harder as she’s a slave in a fantasy world. But perhaps the reader can identify with her feeling alone, unloved, and wanting a home and a family of her own.
  • No Damsels – I need to be very careful with that on this story. The rewrite I’m working on has been addressing a little of this, but the very dominant alpha hero can make it difficult. I need to balance her doing things to save herself with his need to protect. I might need to foil him more, throw much harder obstacles in his path. This will have to come through more on my second or third rewrite.

 

I think the heroine here has potential, and I’ll need to really focus on making her active, not letting the hero do too much rescuing, and showing her strength and determination. Thoughts to keep in mind as I begin the next round of revisions.

Filed Under: Analysis, Uncategorized Tagged With: characters, editing, heroines, prince, revision, slavery, Writing, Writing help

Heroine Analysis: Part 3

August 5, 2016 by Elizabeth Drake

After going through and thinking about what I like and dislike about heroines, I decided to take a look at the ones I’m writing. Trying to turn thoughts into action. But more than that, trying to be honest with myself.

If I’m going to put other authors’ work under my microscope, I should do the same to my own.

I don’t know why it’s so much easier to write passive heroines. I have done it numerous times in the past, and even as I wrote Knight of Valor, I had to constantly keep in my mind that the hero couldn’t just make everything better all by himself (like he did in the first draft).

Perhaps this is my upbringing in our current culture. Falling back on so much of what I’ve seen all my life. So I’ll have to fight doubly hard to exercise the damsels. But it’s a fight worth having.

GirlMoon

Knight of Valor

This book is complete and I’ve been working on trying to publish it. The heroine in it is a sorceress trying to stop a necromancer from sacrificing her soul.

  • Is she passive? –  She escapes from her master and actively works to get to safety. Even when her magic is weak at the beginning of the story, she always joins the fights to help the hero. She never mucks up the fights, either.
  • Do I tell one thing and show another? – This is harder for an author to fairly judge in their own work. I try very hard not to tell the reader anything. I try to focus on them liking the heroine through her actions – being a bit sassy with the hero when he deserves it, rescuing a dog, playing with children. I don’t see anywhere that I tell you she’s kind or strong willed.
  • Does she do stupid things? – I worked very hard on this and forced myself not to give in to the temptation to “make” things happen by the heroine foolishly leaving the hero no matter how insufferable he could be at times. The only action I could see actually being a bit foolish was when she frees some souls trapped by a powerful spell. It’s a risk, but a calculated one.

So, I think the heroine passes the: I won’t hate her if she’s someone else’s heroine test.

Now, would I like her?

  • Is she actively involved in solving her problem? – She fights for her soul and her freedom, up to and including making the deal to get a Knight to help her travel to safety. In the climactic showdown at the end of the story, it’s her actions that save both her and the hero.
  • Can you identify with her? – This is harder, I think. She’s a sorceress in a fantasy world. But perhaps you can identify with her not being strong enough and needing a bit of help but still being proud. Perhaps you can identify with her helping a stray dog. Or falling in love with someone she thinks she can never have. Or maybe that she can’t ride a horse well and hates camping. Those last bits might be a little reflection of the author . . .
  • No Damsels – I don’t think she ever comes across as a damsel in the story. Does she need the hero’s help? Yes. But is she also working hard and fighting alongside of him? Yes.  And, she even comes to his aide a time or three

So maybe I could actually like her even if she was someone else’s character.

At least, I’ve tried to craft that.

 

 

Filed Under: Analysis, Uncategorized Tagged With: characters, heroines, knights, no damsels, passive, sorceresses, Story, Writing, Writing help

Character Analysis: Heroines 1.1

July 25, 2016 by Elizabeth Drake

I am rescheduling my normal Monday book review to answer Mariah Avix‘s question: “What would have made you like these characters?”

That is fuel for thought and helps me better understand what I like to see in a character.

 

Stephanie Plum Series – I would’ve liked to see her become tougher, more bad*ss as the series progressed. I was on book four, and there had been absolutely no character growth. Part of the joy of a series is seeing the character grow into the challenges life has sent to them. Have her enroll in a fitness program. In a formal gun care and target practice program. Have her learn how to hide her family and friends from the bad guys. Let her become an amazing bounty hunter.

This changes who she is, and maybe she’s not entirely okay with it. But it’s part of her story. You have a series. Give her a character arc worthy of one.

 

Journey’s End – This is actually a really tough one as it basically forces a rewrite of the entire story. If it were me, I’d begin the story when she was already in the US rather than on the boat through Ellis Island.

I’d show her as a cold, ruthless woman that has done whatever it took to get to the top. All so she can tear down her grandfather. We’d see this through her actions. See her as a shadowy figure with a name that could be male or female so everyone would take her seriously. No one knows who she really is, but she is feared and respected. We see the wits and cunning she developed on the streets on London in her business dealings and take-no-prisoner behavior.

She has built this, done this, all so she can destroy the man that ruined her mother and left her to rot on the streets. He enjoyed wealth beyond imagine while she picked pockets to eat.

Let her be self-conscious of her low-brow accent and manners that she slips into even after years of trying to drill them out of herself.

Let us see that she fought for every scrap of knowledge she has. Yes, she can read, write, and is a numbers genius. But she fought for it. Every bit of it.

Give her a jaded eye on American upper crust society. People being foolish because a woman wore the same dress twice. Let her mock them ruthlessly. Let her be as cold and callous as someone from the streets would be over these “worries”.

As she is building up to finally being able to destroy her grandfather, to stepping from the shadows and revealing who she is as she takes him down, let her then and only then consider the price of revenge.

Is this who she wants to be? Is revenge worth the price to her, to the people who’ve come to depend on her? Will it cost her the man she loves? (Romance novel, remember?)

And if she does decide to put revenge on hold, make it cost her. She doesn’t get a happily-ever-after ending right away. She has to earn it.

After living her life for revenge, the sole driving force that got her through some of the darkest days of her life, she has to find a purpose and goal worthy to keep her going. Love will be part of it (this is a romance novel), but it has to be more. Perhaps jobs for those that were once in her straights. Perhaps education for the poor. Perhaps a crusader for workplace safety. Whatever.

You’re not going to convince me a woman like this will ever be happily simply as a top 1% wife.

 

Earl Next Door – I liked the heroine quite a bit, until she lost all of her personality and became the proverbial doormat in front of her mother.

I’d have liked to seen the heroine stand up to her mother, send the woman packing, whatever. But then the mother would’ve needed to be a more robust villain to continue to have a part after this. She’d have either needed something actual to use against the heroine, or she’d have needed to be far more scheming.

Perhaps the mother needed to arrange an “accident” for her daughter. Yes, murder is quite the villainy, but this author already had mustache twirling villains, so add it to the pile.

 

Mad about the Marquess – I liked the heroine until she started robbing coaches. Yup, she goes from petty theft to full-on armed robbery.

I think this was the author being in love with the idea of her heroine robbing stage coaches. Rather than earning this with an appropriate villain, back story and the rest, (think Robin Hood – you hate the Sheriff of Nottingham, and you’re fine with Robin Hood stealing given what the poor have been through), she just sort of tosses it in there.

Ruining both the heroine with the action, and the hero with how he responds to it.

She already had a perfectly good plot going on. She didn’t need to escalate to the nuclear option.

I’d have rather seen the conclusion of what happened after the hero figured out the heroine was the one stealing the bits and bobs at parties. Liked to have seen the author resolve that, have the hero force himself to learn why etc. Maybe respect her for it, and love her all the more for her compassion and ingenuity.

I mean, he had no actual proof he could bring before a magistrate (not that this appeared to matter later int he story w hen he knows she’s robbing coaches and still not doing anything about it). But he could’ve convinced himself he was looking for this proof as he learns more about her.

 

Study of Seduction – I have no idea how to reconcile a rape victim to her world and how to help her find happiness. So, I would’ve never had the heroine raped. There could just as easily be another reason that the gentleman who raped her had something bad happen to him.

Perhaps he attempted to take liberties, and that’s when her brother called him out. But then her brother wouldn’t have been banished, and that gets rid of the reason to have the hero with her. Of course, her brother could be otherwise indisposed all these years later, and the earl steps in for his friend. Wouldn’t take too much creativity to come up with something.

Or, perhaps something she inadvertently says or does gets him killed. whatever. Be creative, but make it something other than rape.

Than you can show me this effervescent, witty young woman who feels some guilt over the man’s death. That may have dimmed her a little, but it doesn’t become this huge and massive thing that ruins the rest of the story.

 

Deliver Me from Darkness – I hated this heroine  and hoped the author would find some interesting way to kill her by the end.

The heroine desperately needed to channel some Buffy. She needed to be as awesome as the author tells me she is. Maybe not at the beginning, but by the end? I want to see her staking vampires and holy-smiting demons. I want to see the rest of the Paladins staring at her in awe as she brings down the holy wrath of the One God.

This means no stupidity.

This means not tearing apart a guy’s apartment in a childish fit of rage and impotence. It means surveying your surroundings, figuring out what you can do to take him down. When he wakes up, she almost gets him. And this is the beginning.

When the rapey paladins try to mark her against her will? Let her tear the mark apart and leave the man that did it lying in agony on the floor. Let her tell them if any of them ever do it to her again, she will send them to the One God. Let her mean it, and let the threat be real. She is super powerful, after all.

It means no being dumb and going out after dark alone. Or if she does, let the demons that try hunt her learn just how much of her powers she’s come into. No being stupid and leaving her vampire bodyguard to go into the sunlight. Make the bad guys who want her earn it. Big losses as they throw wave after wave to take her down.

Better yet, don’t let them get her. Let her save herself and her vampire bodyguard.

If the author so desperately wants to make her a vampire rather than redeem the hero, this is the spot to do it. She saved them both, but she’s dying.

Given that this is a series about Paladins, I’d rather see him bite her to change her to a vampire and her blood redeem him. Once redeemed, he can now channel the One God to heal her.

 

Goblin King – I didn’t much care for the heroine in the beginning when she acted like a doormat to her controlling and abusive fiancee.

To get me to really like the heroine, the author needs to give me a better reason as to why she’s marrying the jerk. Maybe she was adrift after her father’s death and he offered the illusion of protection and love. An illusion shattered when she finds him with another woman. That could be the opening of the story.

Or maybe she’s marrying him because it’s who her father wanted her to marry him and she doesn’t want to disrespect him even in death.

Whatever. Just make it something that doesn’t make her look like an idiot. Also, make sure she graduated from law school. C’mon.

Give the heroine more in the solving her lover’s issue. Let her find the cure. Let some insight she has lead to the cure. The entire second half of the book is a lot of sitting around whining about their plight and doing nothing.

Make them do something, and give her an integral part in it. Then, let their actions resolve the curse.

Filed Under: Analysis, Uncategorized Tagged With: Book Review, characters, heroines, rewrite, Romance, Writing, Writing help

Character Analysis: Heroines Part 1

July 22, 2016 by Elizabeth Drake

As I have been reading and posting reviews, I thought it would be a good idea to take Mariah Avix’s advice and do a bit more thinking about what I like and what I  don’t like.

Angel

To keep this discussion within the confines of reasonable, I thought I would break it up into a couple of different posts.

I thought I’d start with the past few books where I haven’t liked the heroine, or I started to not like the heroine by the end of the series.

 

Stephanie Plum Series – I actually liked Stephanie at the beginning of the series. She was thrown a curve ball with losing her job and did what she needed to do to get by. But I grew annoyed with her as the series progressed and she neither became a better bounty hunter nor attempted to find other employment. (No character arc in sight).

Journey’s End – Another heroine I strongly disliked. All the interesting and intelligent things she did were in her backstory. The novel itself showed her to be directionless and easily swayed.

Earl Next Door – I liked the heroine until she wilted in front of her mother.

Mad about the Marquess – I liked the heroine until she started robbing coaches.

Study of Seduction – I never really liked the heroine. I had a huge disconnect between the witty vibrant woman the author told me she was and the frightened rape victim she was portrayed as. She never really tried to take back her life and was “content” to let her brother stay in hiding to defend her honor while she spent her life as a spinster.  She didn’t even do a whole lot when the French diplomat started stalking her.

Deliver Me from Darkness – I hated this heroine  and hoped the author would find some interesting way to kill her by the end. She repeatedly did stupid things, and I was so tired of hearing how amazing and powerful she was when all she did was play the damsel in distress.

Goblin King – I didn’t much care for the heroine in the beginning when she acted like a doormat to her controlling and abusive fiancee.

 

As I think through all of these scenarios, a couple of things stands out to me:

  1. Passive Characters –  these seem to be #1 on my dislike list. I want characters to be actively solving their problems, and when they aren’t, they annoy me. A lot. In the Goblin King, I only started to like the heroine when she grew a spine and started standing up to her fiancee. In Deliver Me from Darkness, I hated the character all the way through because she never did anything for herself. Same with Study of Seduction. She endured a terrible ordeal, but she allowed her brother to reside in exile while she pursued the life of a spinster. Even when she’s being stalked by the diplomat, she does very little.
  2. Characters Different than the Author “tells” me– This is probably due to a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. I am “told” a character is one way, and they act another. In Journey’s End, I am told the character is form the worst part of London. Yet she walks and talks like an American from the top 1%. I’m told how tough she is and how rough she’s had it, but she’s trusting and foolish in the story. Deliver Me from Darkness was really awful about this. The author repeatedly tells me how powerful the character is. All I ever see is her being saved over and over and over again.
  3. Characters Doing Stupid Things – This is a big one. I started to dislike Stephanie when she kept doing things that kept getting her in trouble. She was an agent of her own misery. Mad about the Marquess was fabulous until the heroine decides highway robbery is the “logical” next step after pilfering forgotten trinkets. And the heroine in Deliver Me from Darkness did so many stupid things I wondered how she was smart enough to breathe. Sure, go outside after dark, and not even realize it’s still dark until after the door closes and locks behind you. And yeah, after your vampire bodyguard says not to go outside in the light, go right ahead and do that, too. Thank god she became undead before she could procreate.

 

Filed Under: Analysis, Uncategorized Tagged With: characters, creativity, editing, heroines, protagonist, revision, Romance, Writing

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