Timothy's Thoughts

R omance novels typically fall into a class of stories in which two people who can’t seem to get along come together and discover that they really need each other. In romances they have to fall in love, but in other stories of this type that is not a requirement. But how are we to pull this off without the reader hating one or both of the characters? A good place to start is to find a way for both characters to be right. In You’ve Got Mail it is a battle between the big huge store and the little independent store. There’s nothing wrong with either. Both the man and the woman are trying to make a living with their business. Each has its good points and each has its bad points. So aside from some prejudices, the audience has no reason to hate either character. While the battle between good vs. evil makes for many great stories, the ideal conflict in this type of story is created when both characters want directly opposing things and yet the reader is cheering for both of them. Of course...

W hen have we seen the half-man in romance novels? I used to read more romance novels than I do now. They generally don’t hold my attention, but I was trying to think if I have ever seen any. I’m sure there must be a few, but I don’t recall seeing them among the books I have read. A half-man in a romance novel would likely be a woman. She would likely be the man’s old girlfriend. “Yeah, I dated him for a while,” she would say. “I thought we were going to get married and then that rich blond came along. You know were that left me.” The problem with half-men in romance novels is that they make the male character look more like a real guy. That’s not good if the women reading these things are looking for a character to get all hot and bothered over. Another thing I’ve noticed about romances, in particular Christian Historicals, many of the secondary characters are characters from the series. If in book one, the character fell in love and got married, the character won’t work well as a ...