We have an epidemic in the romance genre.

Romances where writers are putting everything into the plot and overlooked the characters. Their psychology, their arc, who they are separate from the romance.

Consequently, you have all these romances on the shelves that haven’t done the real work of getting a reader to care about what happens to the characters.

Other than the HEA, of course.

Let me be clear. I want to like your characters. I want to root for them and relate to them. And the more specific your characters are, the more rootable and relatable they are.

To put it bluntly, too many romances have characters that feel like they know they’re in a romance.

Think of your favorite romance. At the beginning of the story, the characters didn’t know that love was hurtling there way. They were living their lives in a way that was shaped by their experience, not the knowledge that they’re going to get to an HEA at the end.

This knowing usually happens because your character’s psychology and life isn’t built strong enough separate from the romance.

You might have heard your character needs to want something. You might have heard that they need to fear something.

But I want writers, especially of romance, to take it to the next level with The Big Four.

The Big Four

Similar to the Big Three of astrology (sun, moon, rising sign) the Big Four are elements of character psychology. These four elements will flesh out your characters in a way that will separate them from the romance and allow a reader to see their specificity and exactly why they should care.

Those four elements are as follows.

1. A Desire

2. A Fear

3. A Misbelief

4. A History

No, that’s not right. These elements aren’t nearly strong enough.

Let’s modify them to make them stronger.

The Bigger BETTER Four

1. An OVERWHELMING Desire

Your character doesn’t just want something. They want something so bad it’s eating them alive.

And no, “wanting love” is rarely a strong enough desire.

Usually the easiest stop along the way. We can almost always tell what our characters want on some level. While their needs to be a want related to desire, connection, and partnership on some level for a romance to enter their life, this is not what the desire is meant to represent.

This desire is what they want when you open the book, the very first thing. The greatest desire. Not just something small. What do they want on a big life level. in some respect it might be scary for them to pursue. Which leads us to the 2nd requirement.

2. A CRUSHING Fear

What does your character fear most? How does that fear keep them from acting on or realizing their true desires?

If you aren’t sure, think about what’s keeping them from their greatest desire because this fear most certainly should get in the way or be counter to their greatest desire.

Their greatest fear should be deep-seated and huge, something they would have to work to get over. This work is prevented by...

3. A PARALYZING Misbelief

We all have beliefs and misbeliefs about ourselves.

Misbeliefs are often characterized by something about ourselves we have had to believe in order to survive or keep ourselves safe. Even if it’s devastating or cruel to ourselves.

This misbelief is never true and keeps a character from overcoming their fear. The thing they believe is a fundamental, unchangeable flaw about themselves or their circumstances.

If this didn’t exist, they might be able to work through the fear to get the want. But the misbelief holds them back, so much so they must go through a significant personal journey to get over. This misbelief was usually born from...

4. A CONSEQUENTIAL History

Sometimes called background damage or trauma, your character’s history informs so many things about a character.

While we don’t need to psychoanalyze them or learn everything about the past, all of these psychological aspects were born from their experiences. From the history, you can determine much about a character’s mental makeup. Why they fear what they fear, why they have a deep-seated misbelief not necessarily founded in truth but in experience.

In about 75% of the manuscripts I edit, I have to confront the reality that a character is missing pieces of their character psychology. They are tethered to the romance because their true inner life hasn’t been explored.

And that doesn’t make for a compelling, cathartic romance.

So then how do you discover all these things? Through a flow chart of course.

Read more

Welcome back to The Romance Room — the place for all conversations romance, from craft to culture and everything in between.

Today, we’re talking the talk: dialogue.

Dialogue is a fundamental piece of writing. It’s important to developing the connection and relationship of the love interest while also revealing of character, while also serving as an important driving force for the narrative.

In romance, dialogue carries an enormous amount of the emotional weight of the story you’re trying to tell. Attraction, conflict, vulnerability, and intimacy often unfold in conversation.

And I’m not talking about banter. Spoiler alert: I’m over banter.

But we’re not quite there yet.

Put your dialogue to work!

There are three functions of dialogue.

1. A way to move the story forward, aka the plot function

2. A way to show characterization and personality, aka the character function

3. A way to develop and portray relationships, aka the relationship function

Let’s break it down a little further:

1. The Plot Function

Think story, instruction, revelation.

This kind of dialogue moves the story forward. It creates beats for the rising action and keeps the momentum of how the story is progressing.

Plot comes up in the form of characters discussing their future actions, relaying past actions, planning, discussing history, etc.

2. The Character Function

Think personality, tone, rhythm.

This kind of dialogue shows us who the character is rather than telling us about them. This can be shown through what they say, how they say, when they say it (all those who/what/when/where/why words). Rather than telling us traits about a character through prose, we are shown the traits and allowed to understand the character through their actions.

3. The Relationship Function

Think emotional connection, personal dynamics, banter.

This kind of dialogue develops the relationship through connection. This function is imperative in romance writing.

Relationships change through dialogue. Characters learn about one another through dialogue: how they behave, problem solve, what they value, who they are.

Dialogue is invaluable to character connection. Which is why it can’t all be banter.

Why does dialogue need a job?

It’s important to be able to identify what type of dialogue you are using at any given point in time. If it does not fall into one of these three categories, chances are you might be spinning your wheels or leading the reader astray.

You do not have time to be wasting with your dialogue.

I don’t care which publishing route you take. If you go trad, they’re going to have a range for you. If you go indie, please do not waste a reader’s patience with your characters’ loquaciousness.

It might seem like I don’t like dialogue which couldn’t be further from the truth. I love dialogue. I think it’s the emotional backbone of a story.

Like anything, however, sometimes less is more. I don’t advocate for more prose than dialogue just as I don’t advocate for more dialogue than prose.

Balance is everything when it comes to dialogue. It’s an opportunity to craft the story, move the plot, build characters, and create relationships. If your dialogue isn’t doing a job, you’ve missed an opportunity.

But…what about banter?

Banter is killing your dialogue.

I need to talk about banter.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a snappy, quippy scene ala His Girl Friday. There’s a reason banter as a concept is popular: it’s fun, it’s easy to read, and it can be a a great way to develop character and relationship through dialogue. And of course, when you hear readers gushing about the banter in a book, you want to get in on that.

Ah, the TikTokification…

I implore you to ignore the temptation, the Pandora’s Box of centralizing relationship development around banter.

The emphasis on banter has caused some writers to use it as shorthand for character connection. Sure, it’s a piece of the connection we see between characters on page but true transformation of a relationship in a romance cannot be held by only banter. There are other pieces to dialogue that need to drive the relationship like emotional connection and understanding.

Banter isn’t everything. In fact, it’s a crutch.

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Now…let’s see how good dialogue functions.

I’ve chosen a few passages from romances I love that have creme de la creme dialogue.

I have taken the liberty of removing most of the prose and inter-dialogue lines in order to let the dialogue stand on its own. This is not a comment on those words being unnecessary, rather it’s a testament to the writers and their talent for dialogue.

As you will note, I footnoted where I had explanations for why this piece of dialogue suits the defined function.

The Plot Function as seen in Ruby Dixon’s Barbarian Alien:

“But,” Vektal continues in a strong voice. “Tribe law has been broken. You were forbidden to take the woman, Leezh. You did so and knew the cost.”1

“Exile?” I parrot. “For what, borrowing me for a while?”

“For accosting you and endangering your life. For that, he is cast out of the tribe.”2

Raahosh’s expression is shuttered. “That is not right. She resonated to me.”

“And I warned you,” Vektal counters. “And you deliberately disobeyed my orders.”3

This piece from the third act of the book is clearly is meant to further the plot along and is not mincing words at showing how actions have consequences. Simultaneously, it’s revealing new information to the reader through the POV character, Liz.

The Character Function as seen in Julia Whelan’s Thank You For Listening:

“You’re special. That ‘it’ thing. You twinkle. All mischievous and shit.”4

“Mischevious,” Sewanne said in that well-trained voice of hers. 5

“Dat’s what I said. “

“No, you said, miss-Chee-vee-us. It’s MISS-chi-viss.”

“So?”

“Mis-chi-viss is a word. Miss-chee-vee-us is not.”6

This passage is a delicious representation of the FMC’s characterization. Not only does she have a love of words, but she has the zeal to correct someone on it.

While there are assumptions we can make about Sewanee this early on in the book based on her profession and background, this shows us something important: she takes words, and consequently her work, seriously.

The Relationship Function as seen in Kennedy Ryan’s Long Shot:

“Your hair is getting so long.”7

He turns his head to peer up at me. “You said you like it longer, right?”8

“I said that?”

“Yeah. That week in Baltimore.”9

“Are you saying...you’re growing your hair out because I said I liked it longer? For me?”10

In a beautiful book such as Long Shot, it’s not surprising how elegant and simply the dialogue can hint at the relationship development. This revelation for the FMC is that the MMC considers her in a deep way despite contextual disconnection.

Though subtle, it hints at a closing in of connection, a deepening. Given it’s placement at the beginning of the final third of the book, it’s effectively ushering in a new era for the characters.

You may have read these pieces of dialogue and perceived them as having different functions than the one I defined for them.

Guess what?

Dialogue Function isn’t a science.

Dialogue can have multiple functions at any given time. In fact, the more the better (usually).

When I did this exercise with an audience at a conference, they illuminated some key pieces of these passages I hadn’t even considered before. That’s what’s so brilliant about dialogue.

For instance, in the piece of IPB, someone pointed out that we learn of Liz’s character through the fact she’s choosing to speak up against the tribe leader, Vektal. A brilliant observation!

How many functions can you find in the other examples? I’d love to hear your ideas down in the comments.

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The thing about good dialogue is this: when it’s working for you, it’s often multitasking.

You are only ever a few precise and measured changes away from crafting dialogue that propels your story forward, whether it be for the plot, the characters, or the relationships.

On a final note…

Dialogue is fun. Really fun. But it also has a job and that job is making an impact on the story, not just giving the writer and reader some fluff (*cough, cough* banter) and inflating your word count.

When evaluating your own dialogue, remember to ask yourself: what is the function of this piece of dialogue? If it doesn’t have one, put it work!

That’s it for now, but don’t worry. Your seat is always saved in The Romance Room!