Convince Me
Creating believable characters and story lines in Romantic Fiction
If you look around the forums and collect various facts about me, you will find that I’m a sixteen-year-old junior in high school with dark hair, dark eyes, a pixie cut and an absurd amount of freckles. I’m five-foot-five, read books as fast as you can get them to me and am still leaning how to get over my first ex.
Most of you have never seen or spoke to me in person. You have no reason to doubt what I’ve told you and you don’t know of anything that would contradict me, so you’ll probably accept these things a fact. Likewise, when you write a story (Romantic Fiction or not) your readers will never have seen the characters before and probably won’t have reason to doubt what you tell them.
However, if I tell you that I’m a thirty-seven-year-old, buxom, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Biomelecularnuerotic Engineer, that I enjoy sipping champagne, reading soup can labels and testing light switches and that I’m dating John Stamos, my believability factor becomes just about non-existent. Also, if you feed a character like this to a reader, they will go hunting for a statement like “just kidding” or “I wish” and upon not finding it, walk away. Why? Well, let’s take a look.
Believability Risk #1: Out of place characters
-“I’m thirty-seven.”
Look up at the top of this web page. You should see a cute little logo that says “Young Writer’s Society”. The average age of our members is seventeen. I do not expect to find a thirty-seven-year-old here and if I found someone that claimed to be, I would be highly suspect.
In the same way, I would be suspect of an astronaut who walked into a pet store and told the cute salesclerk behind the counter that he was preparing to go on a mission to the moon from which he may never return. Why is he in the pet store? Why is he telling the salesclerk all this? Why isn’t he off doing something useful?
Don’t send a character into a situation like that.
However, if you came online, told me that you were thirty-seven and that you were posting on these forums to get teenagers’ thoughts on the Young Adult novel that you were trying to get published, I’d be more likely to believe you. The thirty-seven-year old now has a reason to be here.
In the same way, if you explained that the astronaut is a single father who is coming in to the pet store to buy a puppy for his nine-year-old daughter so she won’t be lonely while he’s gone and I might believe you. Tell me that it was his daughter that started talking with the cute salesclerk and I’ll tell you that your character no longer seems out of place.
Putting a character in a place he would not normally be, is not an entirely bad idea. It gives him a chance to meet people he wouldn’t meet otherwise. However, he must always have a reason.
Believability Risk # 2: Perfect character
-“I’m a buxom, blue-eyed blonde.”
The stereotypical “beautiful woman” is generally stated as being blonde-haired and blue-eyed. However, in the modeling industry, actually having those stereotypical qualities can be the kiss of death because they’ve seen a million like you before. Often they are looking for something more real, someone that the masses can associate with a little and yet still holds a certain standard of attractiveness. A “flawed beauty” so to speak.
Making your character perfect is just about the worst curse you can place on him/her as well (or your story for that matter). While they can be appealing to the writer because they give us a chance to walk a mile in the shoes of someone that we wish we could be, it is not at all engaging to the reader. The reader wants to be able to relate to the character and root for him/her. Without a visible flaw, this will never happen.
That was always my problem with Disney’s Cinderella. Cinderella was perfect. She was kind, sweet, soft spoken and never got into a screaming match with her despicable stepsisters. She behaved perfectly through the entire movie so when things looked bad for her there was nothing for her to overcome or try to fix in herself and I felt completely disconnected from the character. Honestly, I felt more empathy with the mice than I did her. Even in their rodent form, they seemed more human to me.
On the other hand, in Kate and Leopold I felt very connected to the main character. Kate was a work-aholic with a barely workable relationship with her insane ex who seemed too caught up in daily life to take the time for anything else. She was extremely human. When Leopold Alexis Elijah Walker Gareth Thomas Mountbatten (wow… someone had fun with that name), a 19th century gentleman drops into her life, she struggles with the conflict between the complicated New York life she was born in and the old-fashioned hopes, dreams and standards that he presents to her. It is a struggle that most of us can at least in some way relate to and makes her a character that we enjoy to spend time with as her story unravels before us.
Believability Risk #3: False information
-“I’m a Biomelecularnuerotic Engineer”
Ever heard of a Biomelecularnuerotic Engineer? Me neither. That’s probably because (as far as I know) they don’t exist.
Often, people writing Romantic Fiction will give their character a job or occupation to try and add more depth to the story and actually end up making their character sound like an idiot because when they don’t know something, they make it up, rather than researching it. In situations like this, you end up with things that sound good, but when you attempt to analyze, they simply sound absurd. The reader then has one foot back in reality instead of being drawn into the story and you lose their belief in the people you are talking about.
Often, this can be avoided just by doing a little bit of research. It doesn’t take that long to google whatever your topic is and find enough information to last you a whole novel in only a few seconds. Take the time to look into getting the real information to give your story that much more credibility.
Believability Risk #4: Outrageous Quirks
- “I enjoy sipping champagne, reading soup can labels and testing light switches.”
In A Walk to Remember, you meet Jamie, the teenage daughter of southern preacher who befriends the resident bad-boy, Landon. Early in the story, Jamie tells him about a list that she has made of things she wants to do in her lifetime. This includes things like getting a tattoo, being two places at once and seeing a miracle. Later, after Landon and Jamie have gotten to know each other better, he drives her out to a small country road and instructs her to stand in a very spot on the paving. Then he tells her that she is now standing over the state-line with one foot in each state. She is in two places at once.
This is probably one of the greatest moments in the story and had both my sister and I wishing that we had a guy that would do something like that for us.
I’ve seen many different stories try to mimic this kind of thing. For instance, I can just see someone giving a character the obsessive-compulsive urge to read soup can labels, only to have the character’s significant other write some meaningful message on a label at a later date. Or perhaps, knowing that his girlfriend can’t resist flipping switches, he sets up a neon sign with the message “Marry Me?” knowing that she will turn it on.
These kind of things can be painful to read, since they are meant to get the “Aww” factor and instead receive the randomness award. These quirks (reading soup can labels, testing light switches, etc.) are generally mentioned once, forgotten for the rest of the story and then pulled up at a later date for a one scene and then left for dead again. These quirks, if included, must continue through the entire story and serve a useful purpose through the whole thing as well.
Jaime’s list is brought up several times and is well incorporated into the plot line. When first mentioned, it proves to be a hint at the terminal illness (leukemia) you discover she has later on. When her illness is revealed, it gives insight into her character to show how she is dealing with the knowledge that she may not live past this next summer. The list shows how much Landon cares about Jaime as she sinks further into the sickness and he systematically goes down the list, helping her achieve as many as possible. And finally, the list wraps up the movie when Landon tells Jaime’s father that he wishes that Jaime could have gotten her miracle and the father simply says, “She did. It was you.”
This list – Jamie’s quirk – is used well in the story, it moves things along, contributes to characters and is never forgotten, rather than just being included for the sake of one extremely sweet/cute scene. If you find yourself doing the latter, stop. Either chuck the idea, or find some way to incorporate it into the story more.
Believability Risk #5: Relationships that just don’t jive
-“I’m dating John Stamos.”
One of my biggest pet peeves in Romantic Fiction is the romantic relationships that just don’t work and yet are forced to under the constraints of the story. People have been forced fed the saying “Opposites attract” since they were toddlers and are now under the impression that they can stick any two people together no matter how outrageously different they are.
Wrong.
Take a look at any relationship (romantic or not) and you will find that they have one of two formula’s on practice.
Formula 1: They’re very different in a lot of ways, but they have just enough in common to keep their thoughts aligned.
Landon and Jamie are the perfect example of this. One’s a bad boy and the other’s the conservative daughter of a preacher. Yet, they both have a firm belief in love and the fact that there has to be something more out there.
Formula 2: They both have something that the other requires.
Kate and Leopold prove to be an excellent example of this. One is a 21st century executive and the other is 19th century gentleman, but she needs someone to slow her down a little and make her appreciate life and he needs someone who is willing to look a little farther beyond the constraints of his time.
You can make your love interests seems entirely different, but give the reader a little bit of insight somewhere to see where they have something in common.
~ Under the Influence of SPEW~
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