On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [37]
The severity and intensity of the problems you give your characters also depends on the size of the book you're writing. The longer the story—the more pages you need to fill—the bigger the problem you need to create for your characters. A story involving the hunt for a serial killer will take more space
and time than one in which the hero and heroine are figuring out who vandalized the local school.
Whatever the problem is, it must strike readers as important. A problem that makes the readers roll their eyes and say "Get over it" isn't likely to drive an emotionally compelling story.
The central difficulty your characters face must be one that can grow more complex and involved as the book continues. If all they do through the whole story is talk about the problem introduced in chapter one, the ending—when they finally settle on an answer that should have been apparent from the beginning—will be unsatisfying. If the supposed conflict arises because the characters misunderstand each other and they don't find out until the last chapter that there's no real problem after all, the story will bog down.
SHORT-TERM AND LONG-TERM PROBLEMS
In order to make conflict even more compelling, you need two problems— not just one.
First, you need an initial situation that brings the couple together and keeps them together so they can get to know each other. This problem is known as the short-term problem, or the external conflict. It might be a job or a family situation—a difficulty outside themselves that they have to resolve.
But you also need a deeper difficulty for each character. This deeper problem—called the long-term problem, or the internal conflict—is likely to be a past experience or a character flaw that makes it seem impossible for these two people to ever find happiness together.
The Short-Term Problem
The short-term problem is the difficulty or event that puts the couple in contact and causes their initial disagreements. It's often called the external conflict because it is usually caused by something or someone outside of the characters' control.
Since the action of the story doesn't really get started until the hero and heroine are both present and the conflict is under way, this initial problem appears early in the book—often starting in the first few pages. At the latest, the rough outlines of the short-term problem are in place by the end of the first chapter.
The short-term problem is often the event described in the back cover blurb. It is usually connected to the hook, the attention-getter that will cause readers to pick up the book.
You can also think of the short-term problem as the difficulty or obstacle that makes the main characters interesting enough to be the subject of a story. What change does the heroine face that threatens her way of life, that will change her forever? What challenge must she confront? This difficulty is the character's short-term problem—the change, challenge, or threat she faces at or near the start of the story.
The heroine's short-term problem is not simply the entrance of the hero into her life. He may appear because of the change or threat the short-term problem represents, but simply meeting him is not the problem.
Each of the main characters will have a short-term problem—though some-limes there's just one short-term problem that affects both the hero and heroine:
• They're assigned to work on a project together.
• They're a divorced couple whose grown child is getting married and who insists they sit together at the wedding.
• He's just bought her family's ancestral estate.
• There's only one apartment available and they both need a place to live.
If the short-term problem isn't actually shared, then the two individual troubles will be closely related. Perhaps they can help each other to solve their difficulties:
• He needs a house and she's a real estate agent desperate for a commission.
• She's trying to establish