When it comes to writing romance, I am in love with the everyday. Again and again, I actively seek out fiction and romance that deals with so-called ‘ordinary’ people.
Why?
Because to me a hero or heroine is more striving and heroic if they win through after many trials and adventures with their own skills, wit and effort, not because they happen to be born into a class or position.
Because a hero is more beautiful to me if he is not massively handsome but that feeling, true emotion for the heroine, makes him ‘pretty’. (I also like this theme the other way round – I love the part in Jane Eyre where the heroine goes down to breakfast after accepting Mr Rochester’s proposal and she looks, even to herself, glowing and pretty, ‘truly pretty’ as Mr R tells her.)
Because if the hero or heroine has tons of money or special powers that they can use at the snap of their languid fingers, where is the tension?
Skill impresses me and has a poetry of its own. Watch anyone who is really good at something – a potter with a wheel, a farrier, a shepherd, a dustman dealing with wheelie bins – and there is an elegance, a romance. I love to celebrate skill in the romances I write and I always have my warrior have a gentler skill as well as their fighting. (I don’t admire a fighter who can do nothing but battle, because how can such a person create a life and a relationship if they only destroy?) A warrior as strong protector, yes, a warrior fighting for kudos, OK, but a warrior who is a glory-junkie and no more? No thanks.
We live in a complex world and I like to write romances that reflect this and celebrate whose who heal, who create, who build, who make.
So I write about knights but mainly younger sons, who have to make their own way and who don’t have everything handed to them and knights who are scarred or grieving and must find another path to live their lives - I do this in The Snow Bride and A Summer Bewitchment.
I write about foresters and dairy maids and cooks (The Master Cook and the Maiden), serfs and peasants (A Knight's Choice and Other Romances) jugglers and travelling players (Dark Maiden), kingdoms where the 'ruler' must fight the everyday elements and more to survive (The Viking and the Pictish Princess).
In all these, I try to weave the everyday into the stories, those special everyday moments – the first kiss, the ‘I love you’ time, the recognition that this person is ‘the one’, the moment when my hero and heroine meet again, feeling a happy glow, even if they’ve only been apart for a moment.
We all have times when the world shimmers about us and we feel apart from the hurly-burly, when we step into our own magic world with those we care about.
Everyday but special. That’s what I love to write about and read about.
Lindsay Townsend
An insightful perspective. Cynthia Breeding
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I loved the line about the world shimmering about us when we step into our own magic. And we do manage to find that - if we are lucky.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks, Cynthia and Christine!
ReplyDeleteSo agree with this. I've been dipping into Regencies and Victorians over the past couple of years, and as soon as I find out it's about a Duke, now . . . well, it's not like there are a whole lot of other options in those subcategories.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely way to describe life and the natural extension of attraction that leads to love. Thank you. Doris
ReplyDeleteThanks, Doris. I agree, Cate, about the numbers of nobles in historical romances.The past seems to have been swarming with dukes
ReplyDeleteI love your stories, especially The Snow Bride because you didn't make the hero handsome, in fact he had many flaws in looks, but a heart that brightened the night and showered love on the heroine.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about having main characters loaded with cash, living privileged lives not having to struggle against obstacles. Of course, there are some situations in which one of the main characters DOES have that kind of life and they use it to help others or have some other obstacle blocking their path to happiness. (Modern day people like Prince Harry proves that all is not easy and happy in some privileged lives.) Stories about common people reaching for happiness and struggling for it is memorable and noble. I also like the idea of a character having a special skill.
A good and thoughtful blog, Lindsay. I wish you all the best.