Memorable Characters - Romance Writers Weekly - #lovechatwrite

This week's topic on the Blog Hop:

​How do you create memorable, lovable protagonists and their love interests?

This is a question I ask myself each time I sit down to write. How do I make the reader care about these characters? What reasons can I give the reader to turn the page?

Luckily, reader tastes range far and wide. What one loves another will hate. So in the end, the question I ask myself is – what would I like to read?

I’m a huge fan of competent characters doing their best under unusual circumstances. My failing is I make them too competent sometimes, and they fix their issues too easily. That’s not interesting for anyone, LOL! I have to remind myself that readers want characters to have flaws and foibles. No one loves a goody-two-shoes, right?

When it comes to their love interest, I try to imagine the absolutely worst person for them. Not worst as in bad or evil. But worst as in the person who challenges them, forces them to confront tough issues, stretches their patience, that sort of thing. Since the end of a romance is a foregone conclusion, the conflict lies in how the characters come to terms with their new relationship. That’s where the fun is!

Two of my favourite characters to write were Claudia and Titus from Richly Deserved. Claudia made a new life for herself and her daughter when she escaped an abusive marriage. Titus looks like an MMA fighter but is an artist of imagination and skill. Together these two spark!

What kind of characters do you like to read? What makes one more memorable than another? I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Now head over to Jill Haymaker for her take on this topic.

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RICHLY DESERVED

More than twenty years ago, Claudia Aronson escaped an abusive marriage. She built a secure, stable life, and is now only weeks away from realizing a long-held dream—opening her own art gallery. But her well-ordered world is threatened by the compelling, abrasive man essential to bringing her new venture into the spotlight.

Artist Titus Wilcox is reclusive, nomadic, and passionate. His solitary, drifting habits have fed his creative soul, but played hell with his love life. Soon after he meets the statuesque, seemingly-serene Claudia, however, he feels a compulsion to paint a new reality—with her.

When an antique painting reveals mysterious documents concealed behind its frame, Titus and Claudia unite in a hunt for lost riches—a pursuit that takes them into the remote hills surrounding the fabled gold rush town of Barkerville.

To these two skeptics, true love is as phony as fool’s gold. But this improbable search for buried treasure could lead to their hearts’ hidden desires.

Read an exerpt here!

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After his mom passes, Tuf Brody comes to Pine Meadows looking for his long lost brother. What he finds is so much more and maybe even a chance at love with sexy bartender, Lacey Westwood. Lacey has always guarded her heart, but there’s just something about this newcomer that makes her want to take a chance. Can they find their way to romance while solving the mysteries that have haunted them for years?