Purple Hearts

My hero, Brennid, is perfect.  I’m in love with him myself.  Tall, dark and handsome (of course, all the Serians are tall and dark – and I guess handsome is subjective). He’s intelligent, thoughtful and looking to win a permanent peace for his people. He sees to all the heroine’s needs, struggles to understand her, and cossets her from harm.

So why the heck isn’t she swooning???

Well, there is that whole kidnapped-her-in-the-dead-of-night thing. And, he only wants her because he’s unable to take his rightful place as ruler without her beside him.

Ah, re-writes.

Taking a step back, I realized a few things. The first of those being that any man who steals a 15-year-old princess because she’s the key to his throne and thus “belongs” to him, must be a tad bit, well. . . arrogant.

Don’t tell my best guy friend this, but he just became a prime model for the hero. I’m not talking alpha here, I’m talking “I know what’s best even when I don’t know anything” with a hint of “well, of course I’m right” thrown in for good measure.

But, Brennid still felt too good to be true.

The second ah-ha was that no matter how much we want the person in our lives to show us love at every turn in every way – it just ain’t gonna happen! So he needed to be less EVERYTHING. 

Gary Chapman has written a wonderful book entitled, The Five Love Languages. It isn’t a writer’s guide, it’s a “self-help” (for lack of a better word) book. In it, Chapman discusses how everyone has a way they feel or show love.  For example, your significant other is constantly buying you little gifts but what you really want is for him to take out the trash and fix the bathroom window.

His way of showing love is “Receiving Gifts” BUT you feel loved by “Acts of Service.”

With this in mind, I narrowed down some of the positive things my hero did for my heroine and honed the ones he got to keep. Not surprisingly, Brennid began to feel less perfect and more real and it made more sense that the heroine didn’t fall at his feet in adoration.

And, to be honest, perfection is overrated.

Is there a non-writer’s book that helps you make your characters more ‘real’ – let me know!  

As always, the links here will be posted in Bria’s Page under the RESOURCES link.