Vulnerability

To create characters in a novel that readers will fall in love with, it is important that the characters have an element of vulnerability about them. This applies to both male and female characters, and especially to the hero and heroine of a romance novel. (You can avoid showing any elements of vulnerability in your villains, if you’d like readers to really hate them, of course, unless you wish to transform a particular villain in a future novel into the hero of his own book. In this case, you could show the villain-transformed-into-a hero’s vulnerability in some way, and this usually will suffice in being the first step to converting him into a character that readers will root for).

Why is vulnerability so important in a character? I’d say it is because human beings have a funny quirk – we dislike people who appear too perfect. If a character is beautiful, intelligent, charming, popular and never, ever has a bad moment, let alone a bad day, we’ll probably find ourselves not identifying with that character, and even disliking him or her. That’s because human beings are fallible. We aren’t perfect, so if someone appears to have no weaknesses at all, we start to wonder about them, and question whether they really are all that they seem.

It is important to show that a character is multi-faceted. Of course, you can have your heroine walking regally into the ballroom, looking like a queen to all who behold her. But what would make her appear more vulnerable (and therefore more likeable) is if you also describe how her heart beats rapidly as she walks into the room, as she hopes and prays that she doesn’t trip over the hem of her gown in full view of everyone present…

Insecurities of one sort or another haunt all people, so it is important to delve beneath the surface of a personality and tweak out those insecurities so that you can show the character in a light that people will find appealing and even endearing… so that he or she becomes “one of us”.

We admire people for their strengths, but we love them for their vulnerabilities.

Read The Dashing Debutante, Lord Fenmore’s Wager and Send and Receive