On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [36]
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Because your book is a romance novel, readers will know from the moment they pick it up that the hero and heroine will get together at the end—simply watching them get acquainted and fall in love isn't intriguing enough to keep them reading. What will make your readers turn pages is the difficulty this couple faces in getting together. It's the conflict between them, threatening to keep them from reaching the happy ending you've promised, that keeps the readers interested.
Simply giving your characters a problem doesn't automatically create conflict. Only when the problem involves both of them and creates tension between them do you have conflict.
Perhaps the problem that brings your hero and heroine together is a project they're both assigned to. But if they're getting along great, splitting the work evenly, and each one is complimenting the other's achievement, that's not very interesting. They have a problem, all right—a big project to finish—but no conflict.
However, if each is convinced that he or she has the one right approach that will make the project successful, or each thinks the other is trying to avoid the hardest part of the work, or if the person who gets credit for the results will also win a big promotion that both of them want, then you have a situation that causes tension and keeps the readers turning pages to find out what happens.
If your divorced spouses have remained good friends through the years, their child's wedding probably isn't going to make a very exciting story. But if they haven't spoken to each other since the decree, and one of them is coming to the wedding with a new significant other—or if one of them is in favor of the wedding and the other opposed—then there are likely to be fireworks surrounding the nuptials.
WHAT CONFLICT IS—AND ISN'T
Conflict is the difficulty between the hero and heroine that threatens to keep them from getting together. What causes the hero and heroine to be at odds with each other? What prevents them from being too comfortable? What do they disagree about? What do the hero and heroine have at stake? Why is this difficulty so important to each of them? Why is it important to the readers? Conflict is not:
• Fighting, arguing, or disagreeing. Sometimes conflict is expressed in heated discussions or shouting matches, but two people can be locked in conflict without ever raising their voices, and they can also bicker incessantly without ever addressing an important issue.
• A delay. An event that simply delays a hero's or heroine's progress toward
a goal is only an incident. If another character sidetracks the heroine to talk about an unrelated problem, and this discussion keeps her from confronting the hero, that's not conflict.
• Failure to communicate. Misunderstanding each other, making wrong assumptions, jumping to conclusions, or wrongly judging one another are not illustrations of conflict, but of the hero and heroine's inability to make themselves clear.
• The trouble-causing interference of another person. If the meddling of another person causes problems, the main characters can appear too passive to take charge of their own lives or stand up for themselves.
• A main character's unwillingness to admit that the other person is attractive. Though romance characters attempt to fight off their attraction, conflict lies in the underlying reasons why it seems inappropriate or unwise to fall in love with this person.
DETERMINING CHARACTER PROBLEMS
What kind of problems your characters should face depends on a number of factors, including what sort of people they are. Not everybody will be bothered by the same events or issues. A difficulty one person would shrug off might paralyze someone