Lindsay Townsend: The Romance of the Everyday

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 – I do this in A Knight's Enchantment and A Knight's Captive - and knights who are scarred or grieving and must find another path to live their lives  - I do this in  To Touch the Knight, A Knight's Vow and The Snow Bride.

I write about foresters and dairy maids (Midsummer Maid), slave girls and scribes (Flavia's Secret), serfs and peasants (To Touch the Knight, The Lord and Eleanor) bull-leapers and kings of small, rural kingdoms where the king helps with the harvest and is also a healer (Bronze Lightning).

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.

Writers, do you have stories that show and feature ‘everyday’ heroes and heroines? If so, please mention them with details  in the comments section of this blog. 


Lindsay
http://www.lindsaytownsend.net
http://www.twitter.com/lindsayromantic

My Characters run the show

I know that for most authors who I have talked with it seems characters take on a life of their own. In the story once they are created they begin to dictate to the author what they want to do, and can sometimes make it difficult for the author to do anything but. I know it will sound crazy to those who have not experienced this but I believe it is overwhelmingly true for authors.

Characters run the show. They are created by the author to be real and alive within the story with emotions pasts fears and opinions. I imagine that if you are not an author and have never experienced this perhaps you can remember a time when you were reading a book and it seemed that the character did something that you felt was completely out of character.

This shows that the character is real enough to have its own, not only what the author is writing but its own life and ideals. It is a very interesting thing for me, something that makes the writing process even more enjoyable and a good book even more interesting. If I can't imagine that the character is real, then I don't feel it was written well. It needs that depth to catch the attention and belief of the reader, to draw them into the story firsthand.

Well one of my characters has taken this "life" a bit farther. She has jumped out of the book and into the world of the Internet. It is a fun experience for me to watch this character living a virtual life of her own and I hope that it is enjoyable for those she interacts with on her blog and twitter. For me its more than a role play persona because she won't do anything that is out of character for what i have given her in my soon to be released book "Blood Visions."

My character is Zyra, a Vampire who lives in Oregon with her Werewolf mate. She is part of my series that is coming, The Immortal Council series. She is a very fun and interesting girl. If you are interested in finding out more about her check her twitter account. ww.twitter.com/ZyraZyra

I would love to hear what others think about this subject.