Today I bring you a fabulous guest post from contemporary romance author Kenna Shaw Reed. Desirable characters are central to a great romance story. So, how do we create them. Lucky for us, Kenna is here to give us some guidance.
Guest Post
How to Create Relatable and Desirable Characters in Sports Romance
He’s a former rugby league player—broken body and now broken dreams. She’s his best friend’s little sister—four years younger and forbidden fruit. How do you make a character relatable and desirable? Welcome to my thought process.
I’m Kenna Shaw Reed, and I’ve been publishing romance for … cough … seven years, and I’ve learned a thing or two. My new Southern Mavericks series fits the popular sports romance trope where a rich, successful sports hero falls in love with a woman who loves him for the character he is and not just the window dressing.
‘Playing the Maverick’ was only intended to be a short romantic series starter, but the more I got to know Benz, the more he demanded in his story.
Let’s start with the other tropes—the story patterns that readers will recognize instantly:
Damaged hero – Benz has suffered a career-ending injury and needs to re-evaluate his value as a man and as a teammate.
Best friend’s sister – Can you hear ‘forbidden romance’? If the romance fails, he could lose his best friend. To make it more interesting, to escape from media interest in his retirement, let’s have him stay with his best friend and her little sister.
Secret identity/job – Benz is offered the post-career job that dreams are made of, but he needs to work ‘30-hour days, 8-days a week’ and not tell anyone what he’s doing. Basically, living at the office and only communicating by text puts a strain on the relationship, and Sara’s self-doubt about whether Benz will still want her when he gets his life back together and her inability to vent with her sister about her secret romance, things begin to spiral.
Forbidden romance – Keeping the secret is sexy, but there is also the fear that once people know, the excitement will be gone and so will the love. Then, there is the moment the secret love is discovered—by Sara’s sister and Benz’s best friend.
Save the cat – What is the ‘awe, shucks’ moment that makes each character lovable despite anything they do?
So, you have the main ingredients. How do I put them together to make Benz and Sara desirable?
First, they have history. His ‘save the cat’ moment was the night of her high school prom when her date stood her up. He not only helped her create an alternative prom but ensured his famous footballer teammates turned up and turned what could have been the worst night of her life into a night to remember. Doesn’t everyone wish that someone swooped in to save them from embarrassment? Then there is another moment when he puts Sara’s needs ahead of his own desires.
Benz is desirable because, at every decision point, he puts other people first—except when he is legally obliged to hold a secret. It’s that secret that threatens to tear him and Sara apart. I want readers to be screaming at their Kindle, “Just tell her already,” even though they know he won’t because he is too honorable to break his word.
Then, we have Sara. She has always compared herself to her older, gorgeous, and outgoing sister. There’s nothing sexy about becoming an accountant, and Sara had to go away to college to become more than “Kenzie’s little sister.” She sees herself as boring, but Benz sees her as fun-sized and sassy.
For Sara, it’s more about her being relatable than desirable. She is the wallflower, the overlooked, resigned to being a hotel receptionist while working towards her dream job. I loved the way Sara has crushed on Benz since she was a teenager, but still banters with him and keeps him on his toes. Her story arc is about standing on her own two feet and accepting she is valued, desirable, and special—not because Benz loves her but because she loves herself.
Writing a book is hard and takes time to get to know the characters. I’ve had to create a table at the beginning of the draft with these tropes, the characteristics, and reminders of their personalities. For me, the physical traits are less important than their emotional intelligence and personality.
I want to ‘feel’ the characters. I want them to cry, tantrum, bleed emotions onto the page so readers will love their journey as much as I do.
In the end, it’s the emotional connection that turns a good story into a great one, and I hope you’ll fall in love with Benz and Sara as much as I have.
A big thank you to Kenna for sharing the formula for creating a character that is sexy and desirable in every way. If you would like to check out Kenna's work, click on the links below.
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