A little Help?

Here's what stands out to me as a potential problem: unless this girl isn't very close to her father and therefore not very affected, I would personally have a hard time buying into the love story unless it was done just right. I could believe her needing comfort and a guy being there to offer it (who is he and how does he relate to the story?), but I just have a feeling that personally I would have a tough time following a character in a love story when her father has just been murdered. I kind of imagine for most people, that whole dad being murdered thing would be a bit harder to deal with. Especially considering she's there in the room. I'd be traumatized by that in any case.

Which isn't to say it can't be done. I'd personally prefer it if the mystery was the number one importance, though, because otherwise it implies that the main emotional strain on the FMC is the love story--not the father's murder. Does that make sense? Again, if she wasn't close to him maybe it wouldn't matter as much. Maybe she doesn't particularly care.

As for the target, etc., I'm not entirely certain that would work. My first thought is that in order to collect his inheritance, the illegitimate son would have to try to stake a claim on it, which would mean going public as this guy's son, which means making himself a prime suspect. Money is a good motivator and one the cops would be looking for.

It's kind of hard to tell from what you have written here. Did he kill his father out of some kind of revenge because he was angry at being illegitimate? Or is it because he really wants the money? The latter probably doesn't work, IMO. Whoever tries to collect is going to be very scrutinized.

As for the witness thing, how does he become aware of that? Just because she's talking to the police? That makes sense to me so I have no problem with it. As for the legitimate heir thing, though, I'm not sure. I mean, is all this just anger at, "This should all be mine and it's not" but he's not really trying to get the money? If he really wants the money there's no way he's getting away with this. Also, he'd already know this guy had a legitimate heir. That's going to be common knowledge because she's legitimate. I'd probably be a little surprised if he didn't know who his sister was in the first place.

I have an interesting thought that might add an interesting twist (and potentially anger). Not sure if it would work for what you have in mind, but what if the guy is her step-father and not her actual father? She could still be his heir if she's written into the will. It could give it a bit more distance, especially if she was older or an adult when this guy married her mother. She might not be as close to him as she would be to her real father. It also adds to the frustration of the illegitimate son because it means the inheritance is going to someone who isn't even a blood relative, which could be seen as an even greater wrong than if she was legit. And, depending on when this guy and her mother were married, it might be that the illegitimate son doesn't know about her (or not much).

I'd have a much easier time suspending my disbelief for that, if that makes sense. This is all just my own personal opinion, of course. I'm sure others will probably disagree. I don't usually read romance at all, so I'm biased.

Also, I'm kind of curious if this girl herself isn't a suspect? Could make things interesting if she was lol.

I actually kind of like the idea of this happening at the same time as the guy's pushing her to be murdered, actually. It's more like she's falling for him in spite of the circumstances? Interesting idea.

MissMacchiato said:

Wait, have I got this right -

do you mean, you like the idea of the love interest leaning on her, trying to get her to agree to the marriage of convenience for the land - at the same time she is emotionally upset from the death of her father, and tracking down his killer? (who just happens to be her illegitimate step-brother)?

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Sounds good to me. The important thing is, do YOU like it, and can YOU write it convincingly?

Do you mean step-brother or half-brother? I think that an illegitimate step-brother is outside the bounds of etiquette, so their relationship wouldn't even have a name.

I just re-read the scenario.

You can correctly say that the killer is the girl's half-brother. Or her illegitimate brother.

"Illegitimate half-brother" is redundant, because an illegitimate sibling would only share one parent with the legitimate one.

(I tried to explain how this is true, but I got a headache. Trust me on this one.)

I'm nobody's expert on romance but it seems to me that your leading lady needs a stronger emotional problem than the death of her father -- one that will interfere with both the murder investigation and her attempts at romance, and which she must either overcome to fall in love, or which love helps her overcome.

Obviously, the murder of a parent is pretty big so whatever her deficit is, it should be bigger. Some idle examples:

• Father never loved me (and perhaps my inheritance comes with some nasty strings?);
• I shamed the family name once, and my family doesn't respect me;
• My ex-boyfriend is a stalker and I've been hiding from him for the last year;
• I've just come out of prison/back from overseas service/recovered from an operation/left a convent and am trying to get by in the Real World again.

(I told you I'm crap at romance, but you get the idea. ) Hopefully if she has a bigger romance-related problem than the murder, then that problem will dominate the story.

MissMacchiato said:

Wait, have I got this right -

do you mean, you like the idea of the love interest leaning on her, trying to get her to agree to the marriage of convenience for the land - at the same time she is emotionally upset from the death of her father, and tracking down his killer? (who just happens to be her illegitimate step-brother)?

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Yup. Basically. Well, initially when I thought romance, I was thinking nice happy lovey-dovey stuff. That doesn't go at all with my image of the murder and emotions from that. But in this situation it's more like a negative in the first place. She doesn't necessarily want to get married, she loses her father, she's got all this emotional turmoil, and then they end up finding one another as they sort through all that turmoil. I really like the sound of that. Hell, I'd read that. And considering I don't read romance, that says something.

MissMacchiato said:

I want the main basis to be their own emotional deficiencies - they don't have trust, because of the way they chose to get married, their obscure backgrounds affect the way that they react to being in a relationship etc. They argue all the time. I want to see those things resolved over the course of the book.

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It sounds like a good start, but my suggestion is to make it very specific. Why don't they trust? How do they relate in intimacy? Why did they learn to do it that way? Can you make their deficits contrasting yet build on one another?

I do have another possible theme that you actually mentioned - the ex idea - he's not a stalker, but instead, she was secretly engaged to him and he dissappeared, leaving her torn as to whether he is coming back, or if she should go through with the marriage or what.

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Does she have a fear of abandonment? After all, her ex left her, now her father's dead. Does she sometimes drive people away when she's afraid they'll leave her? Does she sometimes overcommit to people she doesn't care that much for? Is she unaware that she does this?

To get the most out of our characters we need to understand their inner contradictions -- those times when they're their own worst enemies.

For example, I wrote a story featuring a teen girl who'd been told all through her formative years that she's what my American friends call "a slut" (and which in Australia is a fairly harsh insult) -- that she's promiscuous and flirtatious and undiscerning. In fact she's very discerning but because she has low self-esteem she doesn't feel she has the right to reject attention so she plays to it to appease people. Doing this lowers her self-esteem even more, so she's her own worst enemy. This vicious cycle messed with her friendships, her family, her romantic future.

For contrast, I teamed her with an overprotective bully with massive insecurities of her own. The bully wanted to 'save' her (really to dominate her), but in the end the girl was able to save herself by betraying the bully. Normally in fiction betrayal is the act of a villain, but betrayal of power when we're powerless can be a triumph.

I want to see my characters spark - I want to see them interacting with each other, arguing, loving, I want to see them face lots of different emotions and turn to each other in crisis.

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My suggesstion: find their inner contradictions, then magnify them. If she's a slut, give her the worst reputation in town. If she has abandonment issues, make the abandonment she's suffered worse than anyone has ever read about and let her react to that.

Do this with each of your romantic leads, then put them in a crucible -- a situation they can't get out of. Turn up the heat and I expect that they'll spark like smelted ore.

MissMacchiato said:

how do you go about dropping hints, but not revealing too much of the murder? I don't understand how you do that! I'm a 'blurt it out' type of person, lol!

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Have the characters ask questions from ignorance, and only give them answers to what they ask, not what they need to know.

For example, the goal in a whodunnit is to find the murderer, but the murderer doesn't want to be caught so investigators first try and work out how and when and where the murder was committed. Then they try and work out who might have done it (i.e. people who had means and opportunity) and who wanted to do it (i.e. people who had motive).

Along the way, some information that might be irrelevant can look important, or the culprit might be lying to deflect suspicion from himself, or to incriminate an enemy, or for personal advantage or to conceal some other matter (e.g. an affair they don't want let out). These all produce "red herrings" that throw investigators off the trail.

Less common in mysteries are 'howdunnits' in which who and why are known early but you can't prove guilt because the method of murder can't be established, or 'whydunnits' where a person who should never want to kill someone clearly did, and there's usually some sort of conspiracy or psychological mystery underneath.

Hope that helps.