On Writing Romance_ How to Craft a Novel That Sells - Leigh Michaels [71]
In any of these variations, the Wrong Man can be thoroughly unpleasant if he doesn't get his way, and he's not above deliberately causing trouble between the hero and heroine.
The heroine may have already realized how bad this man is for her, or she may come to understand this during the story because of the contrast between the Wrong Man and the hero.
The Wrong Man can be just as much fun to create as the Other Woman. But it makes sense to be careful when building the character, especially if you want your heroine to he seriously involved with him before she meets and falls in love with the hero. If he's so bad for her, or he's such a loser, why hasn't your brilliant heroine seen through him already? If you let him show his true colors slowly and subtly, your readers and the heroine will discover together exactly how awful he is.
In her sweet traditional That Old Feeling, Cara Colter shows the moment her heroine, while talking to the hero, realizes that the guy she's been dating is the Wrong Man:
"I have to leave," she said, and hoped he could not hear the faint note of desperation in her voice. ... "First thing in the morning. ... I've had a call from Jason."
"Ah," [Clint] said. ... "And Jason is?"
"A friend. A good friend. The boy who's asked me to marry him, actually."
She knew as soon as she blurted it out how wrong it sounded, but he picked up on the part of it that was wrong.
"A boy," he said, with the softest edge of scorn.
And she knew it was true. Jason was a boy. Immature and self-centered, perhaps even colossally so. They'd been friends for years, and none of those things had mattered, as long as they were just friends.
Then ... in a moment that was probably inspired by too much champagne, Jason had seen her romantically. ...
She had said she needed time to think things over, but her time with Clint was not helping her sort through anything. It just confused everything more.
Only one thing was crystal clear: Clint was a man. Jason was a boy.
Until she compared him with the hero, Colter's heroine thought that Jason was a pretty good guy. But once she spots the contrast between Jason and Clint, she can't ever go back to thinking that Jason might be right for her.
Like the Other Woman, the Wrong Man may try to take over the story, absorbing space and story time. Be wary of letting the focus of the story slide off of the main characters and onto the Wrong Man.
The Parent/Grandparent
Meddlesome parents, grandparents, and other assorted relatives used to be a staple of the romance novel. Now that young adults are more independent and less concerned about what others think of them, the managing relative is less useful to the romance novelist. But that doesn't mean the breed has died out.
However, the relative plays a different role today than she did in the past. Instead of matchmaking or actively manipulating the hero and heroine, the relative expresses a real problem or need that the hero and heroine get caught up in resolving.
A big temptation when dealing with a parent or grandparent is to let the story drift into details of the past, concentrating on things like the relationship between parent and child during the adolescent years—whether or not it has anything to do with the current story.
Occasionally the parent/grandparent doubles as the villain, as in Jo Beverley's single-title historical The Devil's Heiress. In this passage, the hero, Hawk, confronts his father, who he suspects is planning to destroy the family estate:
Hawk was blunt. "Is Slade planning more building here?" His father twitched, then looked away. "Why?" Guilt, for sure.
But then the squire looked back, arrogance in place. "What business is it of yours? I still rule here, boy. ..."
"It is my inheritance, sir," Hawk said, "and thus my business. What is Slade planning, and why are you permitting it?