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  She ventured in farther, all too aware of how her own sneakers stood out among the beautiful sandals and designer pumps.

  But those feelings were quickly forgotten when she saw the gold sandals.

  "May I help you?" The same salesman who'd approached her the day before appeared by her side. His voice was curiously comforting, as if the question that he probably asked a hundred times a day was actually sincere.

  "Yes, please. I'm interested in this pair of sandals."

  His eyes flicked to her outfit of faded Levi's, black turtleneck sweater and worn tennis shoes. "In size ..."

  "Sorry. Size five, please. Narrow, if you have them."

  "Narrow, too?" As if he favored small feet, the corners of his lips turned up, stretching his thin face. "Very well, ma'am. If you'll have a seat?"

  Later the heroine finds out that the salesman's first name is Warren. Notice, however, that we know little else about him—despite the fact that his assistance is what allows the heroine to have her very successful evening at the ball.

  SHOWING YOUR CHARACTERS

  Now that you've gotten to know your character options, how can you best convey your characters to your readers? You can tell the readers about them. That's the easiest—and least effective—way. Saying to the readers, "Sally was a nice and compassionate person" really doesn't convey much information. For one thing, definitions of nice and compassionate differ from individual to individual. And for another, you're asking the readers to accept without question your judgment of Sally rather than coming to their own conclusion.

  Alternatively, if the character is an important one, you can use the character's thoughts, words, and actions to show the kind of person she is. And you can say a lot about a character through what she doesn't say or do. If, for example, she has the opportunity to make a perfectly justified sarcastic comment—the kind it's very hard to resist—but restrains herself instead of speaking, the readers suddenly know a lot about the sort of person this character is.

  The most effective ways of illustrating character allow the readers to see the evidence, then reach the conclusion for themselves. Showing your characters draws readers into the story and keeps them fully engaged in figuring out these people. Slowly sharing the pertinent information about important people—as opposed to just dumping it all in one long passage—adds a sense of realism to your story.

  Think of how you learn about the new people you meet. You usually don't exchange complete life stories on first introduction. Often, after knowing someone for years, you find yourself saying, "I never knew that! You never told me that!" Your characters should reveal themselves the same way—gradually, sometimes without even realizing what they're revealing.

  There are a number of devices through which you can reveal character traits in a way that makes the readers feel they're right there—watching, listening, and making their own judgments about the people they're getting to know. The more personally involved with the characters the readers feel, the more absorbed they will be in the story.

  And the more important the characters are to the story, the more crucial it is to show, rather than tell, the details that matter most. Each of the following techniques can be used alone or in combination with others to make your characters unforgettable. You can show a character:

  • Through the character's own thoughts. This doesn't mean the character psychoanalyzes himself or thinks, "I'm a really considerate and intelligent person." The way your mind works illustrates the kind of person you are. If a character thinks compassionately of another person, the readers get the message. In her inspirational romance Deck the Halls, Arlene James's hero thinks about himself in a slightly self-deprecating manner, leading us to believe he's better looking than he gives himself credit for, but also that he's humble:

  Vince didn't know about being "tall, dark and delish," but he didn't think he was a "bald warthog," either. He'd happily give up the single state the moment that God brought the right woman into his life.

  If Vince had said to himself, "I'm good-looking and I'm positive God's spending his time finding a woman for me," we'd have an entirely different view of him.

  • Through the character's own words. This technique isn't usually used directly—in the form of "I'm a charming and modest person"—unless it's to prove the opposite of what's being said. But what a person says about her actions, intentions, and history can be very revealing—often unintentionally so. And a person who defends another says something important about them both. In her romantic comedy Catch and Keep, Hannah Bernard uses irony to show the hero's female friend as anything but the Other Woman she's trying to sound like:

  "You know what they say," she said as she grabbed her small suitcase and they walked together to the plane. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Someday I will get back at you for rejecting me. I won't rest until I find you the love of your life and bring you to your knees."

  By showing this snippet of humor from the friend, the author also characterizes the hero, an unusual man to have a female friend close enough to talk to him like this.

  • Through the character's own actions. If the character acts in a down-to-earth, practical way, chances are she's a down-to-earth, practical person. Or if she draws back a fist to hit a child, she's painted herself as a villain. In her chick-lit novel Can You Keep a Secret?, Sophie Kinsella shows her heroine as warm and caring, despite being somewhat ditzy, when she rescues a toy for a child she's never met before:

  The guy with the laptop is still typing. Behind him is a little blond boy of maybe two, sitting with a beautiful dark girl. As I watch, the boy drops a plastic wheel on the floor. It rolls away, and immediately he starts to wail. ...

  Suddenly my eye is caught by a patch of bright color on the floor. It's the wheel. It's rolled under a row of empty seats, right over to the window. ... I unbuckle my seat belt. Somehow I force myself to my feet. Then, with everyone's eyes on me, I bend coolly down to retrieve the wheel.

  OK. Now I can't reach the bloody thing.

  Well, I'm not giving up, after I've made this big deal about it. Without looking at anyone, I lie right down on the plane floor. ... I shuffle forward, stretch as far as possible ... and at last my fingers close around the plastic wheel. As nonchalantly as I can, I get to my feet, banging my elbow on a seat tray, and hand the plastic wheel to the little boy.

  "Here," I say in my best Superman, all-in-a-day's-work voice. "I think this is yours." He clasps it tightly to his chest, and I glow with pride.

  A moment later, he hurls the wheel on the floor, and it rolls away, to almost exactly the same place. ...

  "Right," I say after a pause. "Right. Well ... enjoy your flight."

  This woman proves herself a heroine when the kid flings the toy a second time, and she doesn't lose her temper. (She also doesn't fetch it a second time, which makes it pretty clear she's not a wimp.)

  • Through another character's thoughts. This technique is easy and tempting, but the character doing the thinking should be a major character, not a minor

  one. Having the hero think about the heroine can be useful, but allowing the heroine's hairdresser to characterize her takes the focus off the main story. In Deborah Hale's Regency novella Cupid Goes to Gretna, the hero's thoughts linger over the heroine just as his gaze does:

  As he let his gaze linger over Miss Ivy, Oliver wasn't so sure. In sleep her features had taken on a soft, ingenuous caste that accorded well with her temperament. Like a child, she was full to the brim of high spirits and sunny optimism without a thought to spare for the harsh practicalities of life or the troublesome consequences of her impulsive actions.

  Elsewhere in the story, we've seen Miss Ivy's high spirits and sunny optimism for ourselves, but now we know how the hero views her, too.

  • Through another character's words. What one person says about another can't always be taken at face value, but the opinion is likely to be straightforward and reasonably honest. Whether it's true is a different matter,
because that depends on the insight of the person who's talking. In either case, however, the readers get a better picture of the person who's the subject of the conversation. In her single-title contemporary First Lady, Susan Elizabeth Phillips gives a thumbnail characterization of a character through the hero's words:

  The attorney glanced at the folder, then looked back up at Mat. "You admit your ex-wife was pregnant with the older girl when you married her."

  "... Sandy told me the kid was mine, and I believed her until ... one of her girlfriends told me the truth. ..."

  "You sent her money for a number of years."...

  "Sentiment. Sandy had a good heart; she just wasn't too discriminating about who she slept with."

  Of course, while Mat's telling us about his late ex-wife, he's saying quite a bit about himself as well.

  • Through another character's actions. If a character walks through a room and the dog cringes to get out of her way, nobody needs to say much about the kind of person that character is. Without resorting to graphic violence, Roxanne Rustand uses a daughter's reactions to her abusive father to give us a clear picture of him in her long contemporary category romance A Montana Family.

  He turned and started down the hill, one meaty hand clenched tight as a tourniquet around her arm.

  She tried to escape into that secret place where she didn't feel the pain. ... She knew all too well what awaited her in that house. ...

  She charged forward and rammed into her father's back. ... And then she ran for her life.

  This daughter's reaction—first attempting to mentally distance herself, then resorting to physical violence, and then fleeing—clearly shows what sort of man her father is.

  • Through physical description. This is probably the most-used characterization technique—especially by inexperienced authors—and one of the least effective. It's particularly useless when the description is phrased in generalities or when

  it is overly detailed. Standards of beauty vary, so merely saying, "She was beautiful" will mean very different things to different people. But listing the details that mean beauty to you may turn off readers with a different definition.

  When a point-of-view character describes another character, the readers get a picture of both of them, as shown in Arlene James's inspirational romance Deck the Halls-.

  He backed up a step ... and took in the whole of her oval face.

  It was a bit too long to be labeled classically pretty, just as her nose seemed a bit too prominent to be called pert. But those eyes and the lush contours of a generous mouth, along with high, prominent cheekbones and the sultry sweep of eyebrows a shade darker than her golden-brown hair made a very striking, very feminine picture, indeed. The hair was the finishing touch, her "crowning glory," as the Scriptures said. Thick and straight with a healthy, satiny shine, it hung well past her shoulders, almost to her elbows.

  In this passage we see the heroine, but we also get to know a lot more about the hero because of the specific details he notices and chooses to describe.

  • Through habits or individual traits. Bad habits are often more illustrative than good ones, though either can be used to characterize. A man who issues a lunch invitation and then dodges the check creates a lasting impression. In her chick-lit novel Can You Keep a Secret?, Sophie Kinsella paints a quick but effective portrait of the heroine's grandfather:

  "I never throw away cards." Grandpa gives me a long look. "When you get to my age; when the people you've known and loved all your life start to pass away ... you want to hang onto any memento. However small." ...

  I reach for the nearest card and open it. ... "Grandpa! This is from Smith's Electrical Maintenance, 1965!"

  In just a few words, Kinsella has shown us a guy who's not only got a collection of stuff but a sense of humor about it.

  • Through the props that surround the character. A character who clings to a favorite ratty sweater, her mother's teddy bear, or a scrapbook full of clippings gives the readers a view of the things she thinks are important—and thus of the kind of person she is. If the hero walks in carrying a tennis racquet or a shotgun or a Bible, the readers will know quite a bit about him before he says a word.

  Lots of women like chocolate, but in her chick-lit novel Third Time Lucky, Claire Cross shows us a heroine who's almost defined by chocolate:

  I know the fundamental right of every mortal to eat chocolate is in the Geneva Convention. ...

  Many foods have been banished from my kitchen and diet because of their betrayal of me in those dark teenage years ... but my relationship with chocolate is beyond such restrictions.

  Our love affair borders on the divine. ... I handle chocolate as a controlled substance, since prolonged exposure results in extreme lateral growth. One chocolate bar every month and not one bite more is my allotment. ...

  I buy the chocolate on the first of the month ... and ogle it in the fridge for as long as I can stand it. ...

  After that introduction, any time the heroine mentions chocolate the readers get an instant picture of the character's state of mind.

  • Through the character's name. A man named Sylvester creates a much different picture in the mind than one named Jake. A woman named Elizabeth is a whole different creature than one named Betsy. Does the name you've chosen for your character fit her personality, her time period, her job, her background? How does the name affect and reflect her personality? In her historical single title The Warrior, Claire Delacroix captures not only the personality but the time period as her hero and heroine discuss what she should call him.

  "I would not have matters so formal between us. ... You need not address me as your lord when we are alone."

  "Shall I call you Magnus? ... Or Michael?"

  "The choice is yours, lady mine."

  "Then I shall call you Hawk. ... For your repute seems to fit your nature well. Does the hawk not tear out the heart of what it kills, then leave the rest as carrion?"

  Here we also get a picture of this historical hero's willingness to compromise, unusual for a real man of his time, and also of the historical heroine's typical independence. Even when she's in his power, she can't resist tweaking him.

  • Through narrative description. Simply stating a character's type or traits, without showing examples of behavior or thoughts to illustrate the statement, requires the readers to take your word rather than drawing conclusions of their own. Writing something like, "She was efficient at her job

  and thoughtful of everyone" is among the least effective ways of showing a character. When dealing with secondary characters, however, narrative description is sometimes the fastest and most efficient way to make the point,

  as when Arlene James introduces us to the hero's small niece in her inspirational romance Deck the Halls:

  Four-year-old Elizabeth Ann, known affectionately to the family as Bets, effectively commanded the coterie of Cutler grandchildren, numbering six in all. An only child, to the growing dismay of her parents, she'd never had any trouble holding her own against her five older cousins, four of whom were boys.

  Since Elizabeth Ann isn't a main character or even a significant third, showing her in action with all those boy cousins would take up space better spent on developing the romantic relationship.

  All of these techniques for showing characters work as well in other genres as in romance, but in romance novels it's particularly important to show rather than tell whenever possible, so the readers will feel like an important part of the story as they draw conclusions of their own about what sort of people the characters are.

  WHAT'S IN A NAME?

  Naming characters can be a very important part of developing their personalities. The first question, of course, is whether the name is appropriate for the character. The character we thought was Michelle might in fact call herself Mike—and that's a whole different sort of woman.

  Most romance heroes' names are short, and they often start with one of the hard consonants, like B, D,
G, J, or K. The firm sound of the name seems to help characterize the hero as a no-nonsense man of action.

  Not only can a character's name help to show what kind of person she is, it can hint at the character's history and background. It may even help in a minor way to foreshadow story developments or to push them along. If a character named Courtney is told that her birth father was an attorney, her mother's action in choosing that name takes on significance and helps to convince Courtney that the story is true.

  But there are other important factors in choosing names for characters. Consider the look and the sound of a name, and its relationship to the names of other characters. Is the name easy to pronounce? Will it be familiar to the readers? If not, is it spelled phonetically so the readers won't be confused? Does the first name fit well with the chosen surname? Is it so much like the names of other characters that it might be confusing on the page?

  Unusual or unfamiliar names or spellings work best for main characters or significant secondary characters—not for characters who appear briefly and infrequently—because an unusual name may be more difficult for the readers to recall. If you use unusual names for both main characters, you multiply the risk of confusion. If you want to use a creative name for one main character, choose a

  simpler, easily recognized and gender-specific name for the other main character. If in doubt, retreat to basic, long-popular names.

  Make certain that the names you choose are appropriate to the time. Brooke and Dakota make fine contemporary characters, but in a Regency romance, they'd be out of place. Hazel or Mildred would be unusual choices for contemporary heroines, and the effect on the readers would be to remind them at every turn that they're reading a story.

  And think about the names in your story in respect to relationships between the characters. If you name a mother Jessica and her small daughter Thelma, your readers—who would associate the name Thelma with someone of an older generation—may have difficulty keeping them straight.