On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [53]
"Pray stop at once!" Thea said, more sharply than she had intended. To hear her sister itemize the material benefits of the match made her feel intolerably guilty, for she was marrying Bertie Pershore for his money and could scarcely deny it. She wished that it was not so; somehow she felt that Bertie deserved better than that she take advantage of him. Yet she was in desperate straits and he was chivalrous enough to come to her rescue.
Cornick is careful not to overdo the explanation here; she simply shows Thea feeling guilty, hints that she would like to find a way out of the marriage not for her own sake but for Bertie (another honorable touch), and then moves on with the story.
THE HERO AND HEROINE MEET
One of the most critically important moments in the first section of your book is the first meeting of the hero and heroine. This moment may be the first time the two of them lay eyes on each other. Or it may be their first meeting after a long separation, if they've had a previous relationship. Or they may see each other regularly, but this is the first meeting that is significant to the plot and conflict—the first encounter connected with the event that is going to change their lives.
This first meeting sets the stage for the interaction in the rest of the book. If
the readers don't see it happening, they will feel cheated and left out, and won't likely be involved enough with the characters to want to continue reading.
Yet many beginning writers tell about the first meeting, rather than show it as it happens. Or they include just a couple of lines of dialogue between hero and heroine, then jump to a scene hours later where the heroine is telling her best friend in five pages of dialogue how gorgeous the hero is. Or they have the hero think about how he reacted to the heroine.
The importance of the first meeting cannot be emphasized too highly.
It should receive the amount of attention from the author—and therefore the readers—that it deserves.
Show the hero and heroine as they meet. What does the point-of-view character—let's say it's the heroine—notice about the hero? What makes him stand out? Some of that will be physical, like the color of his hair, but what makes him different might be the way other characters respond to him.
What do the main characters say? What do they do? How do they react to each other?
The very beginning is not a good place for the main characters to be experiencing overwhelming sexual attraction, but even if they think they don't like what they see, there will be an extra level of awareness between these characters—a sense that the other person is somehow very important.
In this example from the sweet traditional category romance In the Arms of the Sheikh, Sophie Weston shows us a few physical characteristics of the hero, along with reasons for both hero and heroine to be wary and suspicious:
The man emerged from the darkness between two huge bushes. He was not stealthy, but he walked lightly. He was tall, wearing something dark.
Natasha's first impression was that he was very professional. Professional what, she was not sure. ... Her second impression ... was total arrogance.
Natasha knew arrogance in all its forms. ... [0]nce, it had nearly cost her her life. She detested it. ... Her backbone locked and her chin came up like a fighter plane taking off.
The man looked at her. ... The reflected light from the porch picked up high, haughty cheekbones and eyes that pierced. Just for the moment she thought of a jungle cat, watchful and contained. And dangerous. ...
"Ms. Lambert to see Ms. Dare. ... Ms. Dare invited me for the weekend."
He pretended to think about it—with insulting slowness. "That was the weekend that started last night? Or this morning at the latest?"