Welcome to the new look of My Book Therapy! I hope you like it – it took us a few months to create it – we wanted something elegant, yet the feel of sitting down with your journal (or your therapist) and scrawling out your characters, plots and stories. (BIG APPLAUSE goes to Margot at SwankWebDesign for her amazing talents!!) In the future we’re hoping to have some cool chats, a store with products like our classes on CD Rom and other writing helps, writing retreats and perhaps even a magazine…but until then, we’re sorting out a few kinks, which is what stood between me and posting this week.
We started a discussion last week on ROMANCE, one of my favorite topics. We talked then about Virtures, ans in a great romance, your hero and heroine have to virtures that are brought out by the other.
Today, we’re going to talk about WHAT KEEPS THEM APART?
Obstacles! Like slow internet (and an even slower brain) and a story I’m trying to get down on “paper.” These are obstacles between me and my goal. What about between a man and a woman? What keeps them from finding true love? A great romance will have External Obstacles and Internal Obstacles. Let’s take a look:
Fool’s Gold is coming out soon – I love the sparks between Kate and Matt – especially in “How to Lose a Guy.” What a creative example of external obstacles – she wants to prove she can lose a guy in 10 days, he wants to prove he can make a girl fall for him in 10 days. Her outrageous behavior should drive him away. (And would have except for his goal). Their biggest External Obstacle, however, is HONESTY. Neither can be honest with each other about how they feel.
Cutting Edge is a bit simpler — He’s a hockey player and she’s a figure skater. It seems that they’re both skaters, but NO, figure skating and hockey are two different sports. More than that, do they both REALLY want the same thing? To win? At first his commitment is tested – is he really in this for the long haul? And then her commitment is tested, when she discovers that she doesn’t like figure skating. Their long-term goals are constantly at odds. Also – these two are very different people – their backgrounds conspire to create obstacles. He’s a roughneck blue collar worker from the iron range in MN, and she’s an uptight rich girl. Another excellent way to keep them apart.
The hero and heroine must have goals that keep them at odds. It could be vying for the same job, or having career goals on opposite ends of the planet. Maybe he wants to bulldoze the family farm, which belongs to the heroine, or maybe she’s a spy for the union army, and he’s a confederate soldier. Whatever – it needs to be strong enough to the reader to experience an increasing sense of tension when they discover the conflict between them. Or they can know their obstacles up front, yet fall in love anyway. At any rate, when you’re plotting, you should answer the question – why can’t/shouldn’t they fall in love?
But External Obstacles aren’t the only things holding them back from True Love. They should also have what I call: Heartbreaking Internal Obstacles
There should also be reason internally why these to can’t be together. Something that may be even harder to overcome than the external obstacles. Make it something from your hero/heroine’s past, perhaps, something that is revealed over time. Ie, maybe she was married before, and lost her husband and baby in a car accident, hence why she doesn’t ever want to fall in love again. Or maybe the hero’s father abused his mother, and he’s afraid he’s somehow inherited that legacy of anger. Something that is heartbreaking, yet strong enough to produce the internal obstacle.
In the Cutting Edge – Kate’s mom was a figure skater, but she died when Kate was young. Kate is afraid that if she’s not like her mother, a gold medalist, her father won’t love her. Which means that no man will love her if she’s not a winner. And she’s afraid to risk the truth – that is she wins and Dorsey still doesn’t love her, then she is unlovable. This breaks Dorsey’s heart when he realizes this.
Internal obstacles can be found by asking: Why are they afraid to love?
Asking these two questions as you develop your story will help you create a story that has that, “Aww,” factor, that moment when your reader, seeing your hero and heroine overcome their obstacles to find true love, will clutch your book to their hearts and sigh happily.
If all goes well and I overcome my internet and technical obstacles, I’ll continue the discussion on the romantic elements in book tomorrow with: Sexual Tension. (Yes, we have it, even in a Christian Romance…!)