Keeping the hero sympathetic and..well...heroic?

[taylormillgirl]

According to my research thus far, there are Certain Things the hero and heroine simply may not do. I understand the need to keep them both "heroic" in the eyes of readers, and I'd love some feedback from some experienced romance writers.

From the eleventy-bazillion romances I've read, if the hero/heroine has a dark past, it's something beyond their control. And if he/she feels guilty because they've hurt someone in the past, it's typically misplaced guilt. For example, the hero's car was hit by a drunk driver and his wife killed, and the hero blames himself because he didn't swerve away in time.

Here's the deal: I need my hero to have made a horrible mistake while he was intoxicated (many years before the story opens). I need for him to have been at fault, possibly caused injury to another person, served a bit of jail time for it, and then reformed himself by the time the story opens. Is this "allowed" within the romance genre? I'm not referring to a specific category, I mean in general.

By the way, I'm not sure what the horrible mistake entails. I want to use something more original than drunk driving, but still hazardous and worthy of a criminal record.

[shameless]

Of course it's allowed! It might be, however, hard to find the right editor.

In my case, take Seth Remington -- hero from Murphy's Law. He's a sh*t in the beginning. Think spoiled Kennedy kid. And he likes being a sh*t. Every rejection I got started with..."Hate your hero." Pfft. You're supposed to. :e2smack: That's the point of the story!

Someone finally took a chance on my sh*t. When I sold it, I was not only amazed but thrilled beyond all belief. My editor's notes came. She called Seth's redemption a "work of art." I cried like a baby!!

Readers like heroes of all shapes, sizes, personalities... And they like sh*ts too because they just gave Murphy's Law the HOLT Medallion. So :hooray:for writing a REAL hero!! Go for it!!

[sunandshadow]

I think it's fairly common for a hero to make a big mistake either in the backstory or at the beginning of the story. There are stories which start out with the hero as an invader killing locals so he can steal their stuff, but those locals turn out to have been the family and friends of the woman he falls for. There are stories which start out with the hero taking the heroine prisoner with intent to force her to marry him and possibly even rape her, but then when he meets her in person he realizes he wants her good opinion. Sometimes the hero is trying to blackmail or foreclose on a friend or relative of the heroine.

Showing why the hero regrets a mistake can develop him as a good person, and if he has excessive or irrational guilt the heroine can help him get over it, it makes for a pretty good hurt/comfort dynamic.

[taylormillgirl]

See, that's my fear (that it will earn me an auto reject from some editors/agents). One the one hand, I understand writing what/how you love, but on the other hand, it's already so difficult to sell a manuscript...I don't want to create even more obstacles for myself.

Sigh. I need a valid reason for my hero to constantly try to redeem himself, and he needs to make a valid, ginormous mistake in his past in order for that to happen.

[job]

There is no 'rule' against a hero who has done something truly weak or evil in the past and then reformed.
You do not see a lot of this because it is difficult to write.

Redemption as Backstory

If you put the redemption totally in the past, it makes your backstory so weighty it becomes the tail that wags the dog. In general, you want the most exciting part of the hero's life to be inside the book -- not something he did ten years before Page One.

Backstory shouldn't hold the reader's attention. However horrific the past, you want it to be brief and self-explanatory. Something the reader understands, accepts and moves on.

There are uses for stereotype.
'I killed men in Nam' says it all.
'I was a Pirate King in the South Pacific working for Space Aliens'
is so interesting the reader thinks about that instead of the story at hand. When the S.A. do not appear in the story the reader regrets this.

Can you write . . . "I got drunk and killed somebody, but now I'm cured," and then firmly direct the readers' attention away from that accident and onto the treasure hunt in Bahrain that is the plot of your story?

Redemption as Story

If the redemption takes place on stage, it's hard to make the redemption believable. (Outside of Inspirationals.)

It's hard to establish sympathy for the character who is introduced to us as deeply flawed.

It generally just plain hard to fit deeply serious subjects into escapist literature. Very tricky to set the right mood.

It can be done. The examples that come to mind are Mary Jo Putney's excellent The Burning Point and The Rake. See the discussion at Dear Author here (http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2010/02/09/is-there-an-irredeemable-trait/) on this very topic.

I think what I am saying is that you will be attempting something hard.
Is it necessary to your story?

[taylormillgirl]

job, my situation differs from shameless. From what she described (congrats on that, by the way!!!) Seth is an a-hole who changes over the course of the plot. My hero has already changed his ways, but he continues to feel guilty because he hasn't forgiven himself yet. That guilt drives many of his actions, but I want it to be the result of something serious as opposed to the misplaced guilt I've read in so many other romances.

[job]

My hero has already changed his ways, but he continues to feel guilty because he hasn't forgiven himself yet. That guilt drives many of his actions, but I want it to be the result of something serious as opposed to the misplaced guilt I've read in so many other romances.


Deserved guilt of the 'I killed a five-year-old while driving drunk' will be difficult to deal with.

I do not think an agent or editor will reject you because you have attempted this serious topic. I think they will set very high standards for whether you handle it realistically and successfully within the bounds of a Romance genre book.

[shameless]

Deserved guilt of the 'I killed a five-year-old while driving drunk' will be difficult to deal with.

I do not think an agent or editor will reject you because you have attempted this serious topic. I think they will set very high standards for whether you handle it realistically and successfully within the bounds of a Romance genre book.


Totally agree!! Sounds a little like the phenomenon of "survivor's guilt," and if done well can makes a tremendous story arc!!

[shameless]

(congrats on that, by the way!!!)

Thanks. :Hug2:
Didn't mean for it to sounds like bragging. Just want you to write YOUR story, not what other people think you should write.

[Namatu]

Good link, job. This thread did have me thinking of Anne Stuart's heroes, who are definitely prone to doing bad things.

[taylormillgirl]

Thanks for your input, everyone! And no dead children. That's too heavy for me.

[job]

Good link, job. This thread did have me thinking of Anne Stuart's heroes, who are definitely prone to doing bad things.

The link is a good take on how readers feel about this.

For the writer it's, "What story do I need to write?"

Genuine, life-long guilt for something important is the 300-pound gorilla. The book is going to end up being 'about' this guilt, no matter what other themes are added.
Challenging story to write.

If the story is really 'about' something else, does the guilt subplot belong in it?

[taylormillgirl]

If the story is really 'about' something else, does the guilt subplot belong in it?

Have you ever read THE TROUBLE WITH VALENTINE'S DAY by Rachel Gibson? Not my favorite book of hers, but it's the only example I can pull out of my hat right now. (Spoilers follow) The hero is a former hockey player who used to be a grade A man-whore and cheated on his wife repeatedly. Then one night, he slept with a crazed stalker who later tracked down his address, broke in, and shot him. Fortunately, his wife and baby were away from home, but he realizes his selfish behavior could have gotten his whole family killed. The cheating ended his marriage, broke up his family, and the shooting ended his career.

Fast forward to the opening of the book. Hero meets heroine, but he doesn't want to get involved with her. Based on his past mistakes, he avoids one-night stands (and most women) like the plague.

My hero's situation is nothing like this, but the guilt from his past drives him to do (and avoid) certain things within the story. But as you said before, I don't want his past to overshadow the story--only to provide motivation for his actions. Does that make sense?

ETA: I think Gibson's hero was engaged, not married, but he was still a dirty, rotten cheater. :-)

[Irysangel]

There was a Kristan Higgins book (Too Good to Be True) where the hero had served time as a 'white collar criminal'. Some sort of fraud. It was handled pretty well, I thought - the heroine had reservations about being with an ex-criminal, but it wasn't the entire focus of the story and it was all told from the heroine's POV so it wasn't a story about 'guilt', but about accepting a man with flaws.

That being said, there are still plenty of people that did not like that book because it 'glamourized a convict' so there will always be some sort of backlash anytime you try something a bit out of the box. Still, if it's the story you want to write, go for it. :)

[MissMacchiato]

I agree that it's not impossible, but striking the right balance of realism while still being light reading is going to be difficult.

J.D Robb (AKA nora roberts) is an interesting one - she has the character with the bad past that marries a cop. He's stopped his criminal activities now, but bits of his past come up from time to time to make drama in their relationship. The difference being - he doesn't regret what he's done in the slightest - he dislikes the difficulties it causes his wife, which is why he's stopped.

I kind of like that about him.

[Aileen Harkwood]

Sometimes a hero who overcomes a mistake in his past where he deserves his guilt can be the most compelling and sexy kind. They're often the dark, gruff, driven types. On the lighter side, I'm thinking of Neil from the USA Series White Collar. A totally charming rogue.

As a reader, I would have a very difficult time finding a way to sympathize with a hero who drove drunk and killed a child, no matter how remorseful. Yes, it's something that can happen in real life. Someone commits a crime, turns their life around and then becomes a role model, but there are some readers who are never going to connect with a story like this. Probably for personal reasons. For example, perhaps they equate a drunk driver hero with someone in their own lives who has caused pain by doing so.

[frimble3]

Coming to this late, but does he have to have a criminal record? How about he and a buddy were driving, maybe drinking, maybe just stupid and inexperienced, (they were both teens or young adults) and went off the road into a body of water, he panicked, got out, but by the time his head cleared, his buddy had drowned? Don't know if this would be a criminal offence, might depend on whether he was driving or not, but tons of guilt, his buddy's family hates him, everybody knows the story, and the nicest thing they say is 'coward'. Maybe his buddy was drinking, and he regrets not being strong enough to stop him?

[Collectonian]

I think if it is well done, there is nothing wrong with it at all. Take a look at Stop Me from Brenda Novak (part of her Last Stand trilogy). The hero, Romain, is an ex con who was convicted of shooting his daughter's suspected murderer on the courthouse step after he gets off on a technicality. He doesn't feel any regret or guilt over killing the man, until the heroine starts to question whether the man is really the one who killed his daughter or not. Even if it means proving he murdered the wrong main, Romain helps her investigate the truth.