On Writing Romance by Leigh Michaels Page B

to recover will depend on the nature of the relationship. It will take much longer to grieve the death of a beloved spouse than it will to get over a steady date who suddenly decided he wanted to see other women.
Balancing the Heroine and Hero
    Main characters who are similar in style, in the amount of power they have over their situation, and in their degree of outspokenness create a nice balance in the structure of the romance. That doesn't mean they should act the same, or that they must be absolutely equal in every way — just that they should both have areas and times where one is stronger than the other.
    If the hero has the heroine completely under his thumb, if she's helpless to act or to put him in his place, then he may look more sadistic than heroic. Pairing a heroine who's an in-your-face screamer with a hero who's the silent type may make the heroine look verbally abusive. A hero who makes patronizing remarks about a heroine who simply absorbs the insults is annoying, but if she talks back to him in the same sort of way, they're in proportion. (They may both be annoying in that case, but at least the readers can be equally annoyed by each.)
    If one of your characters has a great deal of power over the other, look for ways to even things up. The romance is far more satisfying when the power between the characters is like a teeter-totter — sometimes she's on the high end, sometimes he is, but readers don't know from minute to minute who's going to have the upper hand.
    In my sweet traditional romance Maybe Married , the hero wants the heroine, his ex-wife, to pretend for three months that their divorce hasn't actually gone through so he can pull off a business deal:
    He picked up his coffee mug. “So tell me what you want in return for three months of your life.”
    Dana drew her knees up and folded her arms around them. She looked across the street instead of at him, and said, “A conference center.”
    Zeke spit his coffee all the way to the sidewalk. “You want what? You have to be talking a couple of million dollars. Five, maybe.”
    â€œActually, a nice round ten would be better.”
    â€œDana, darling, I know I said something last night about a payoff, but you are talking serious money.”
    â€œI know,” Dana said serenely. “You can afford it — or at least you will be able to … your business is worth hundreds of millions.”
    In the first version I wrote of this scene, Zeke stated his demands and Dana, though she wasn't happy about it, simply conceded; he moved in and they took up their charade. But the scene didn't work — the hero appeared to be a selfish jerk and the heroine a wimp. In the revision, encouraging Dana to be true to her personality balanced the power struggle. Now that the characters each have a big stake in their bargain, and a hammer to hold over each other, the entire scenario is more enticing.
I N R EVIEW : Studying the Heroic Couple
Think about the main characters in books you've recently read. In what ways were they heroic, in the sense of being larger than life? In what ways were they imperfect?
Were the characters realistic? Sympathetic?
How did the characters grow and change during the course of the story?
Which heroes were alpha types, and which were beta types? Did any fit some other profile?
Would you like to be friends with these characters?
How do the heroes and heroines vary in different kinds of books?
What are some things the hero or heroine of a single-title book could do that a category romance character couldn't?
What character traits or habits draw you to a person? What traits and habits do you want your main characters to exhibit?
What character traits or habits make you not want to know a person better? What traits and habits do you want to avoid when you create your heroic couple?
How can you maintain a balance between your characters so neither overwhelms the other? How will they talk to each other? How