My Hero

It's Sunday, it's Edith, and I have a question for you.

Now, I've heard people say that readers and writers of Romance fiction are really readers and writers of Science Fiction/Fantasy, because of Happy Endings, Perfect Love, the whole "Ever After" concept, and….
those heroes of ours. Strong. Handsome, (or if not conventionally so, then wildly attractive anyway.) Smart. Rich, or about to be so. And Perceptive. Able to know what a woman feels, and wants. (and able to deliver it.)

We all have our favorites, going back to Sir Lancelot (though I always thought he was a bit too good for his own good) Romeo (So young! So impulsive! Oh, grow up!) Mr. Darcy (Sure, he falls for Our Heroine, but catch him at a PTA meeting? I don't think so.) Mr. Rochester (Wonderful in fiction, but all that sulking?) and on and on and etcetera.

But pray let us get real. We have our heroes in Fiction, whether they be novelistic or cinematic. Here's the poser: Did you ever meet anyone in real life who reminded you of someone you secretly adored in fictional life? Not only the heroic guys, but even someone you knew was unsuitable for the long term? A Captain Sparrow? An Indy Jones? The gorgeous dolt in "Cold Comfort Farm"?

Confession: Once, in my impetuous youth, I went out with a ringer for young Brando in "Streetcar." A real-life Stanley Kowalski. Thrilling. Until I realized he wasn't kidding. He wasn't amusing us both by putting me on. He really was that dumb. Ah me.

So: Did you go out with a Hero? Did you eventually decide to ditch him? Or did you marry one? Mind, not a fella who acted like a hero after you knew him, but one that immediately reminded you of one. In short, were your romantic choices ever influenced by what you read and saw in the movies?

Really? What happened? Do tell!

Comments

[Maggie Robinson]

First date: Tall, dark and handsome.He sold blood so he could pay for dinner and a movie (he was a poor college student). Walked 40 blocks from Port Authority to E.88th Street so he'd have enough $ for a bottle of Andre and flowers. Reader, I married him. How could I not?

[maryjoputney]

Oh, Maggie, what a story! Now that's Romance with a capital R!

I certainly can't match that--I tend to go for the smart oddball guys in the corners, and very satisfactory they are, too :)--but once in the later of my six years of college I stopped in the local corner grocer to pick up some milk.

And in walked this totally gorgeous guy in what I think was an air force uniform. 6'2' or so, dress blues including the hat and a blue overcoat, and so magnetic that I literally followed him around the store. (Luckily, I don't think he noticed, or maybe he was used to women following him around. :)) Now and then, when I'm trying to write someone with that kind of impact, I remember that moment....

Mary Jo

[sleeky]

He gave me his coat when it was cold, so I married him too. :-) We've been together 21 years. He would still give me his coat.

[RevMelinda]

In college and grad school I was always attracted to tall dark guys who were ethnic, edgy and a little mysterious--all basically unrequited yearnings, much heartbreak, etc.

In the fall of 1988 I saw the movie "Crossing Delancey." It's a quirky little movie in which the upwardly mobile, literary-minded, 30-something Amy Irving has a crush on a sexy, foreign, mysterious poet (Jeroen Crabbe)--at about the same time she's set up by a Jewish matchmaker with the Nice Guy from the Old Neighborhood who sells Pickles on the corner (Peter Riegert). (Guess who ends up being the Hero and the Happy Ending?)

About a week after I saw this movie, a man came to my office and said, "Hi, people are telling me I ought to meet you. Want to go out for pizza?" He was slight, blond and blue-eyed, suit and tie-wearing, altogether wholesome.

"Crossing Delancey" and the Pickle Guy were in my mind as I said yes to pizza--and, ultimately, yes to a whole lot more. We've been married almost 18 years now.

I credit "Crossing Delancey" and the Pickle Guy with putting me in the right, receptive, open mood to receive love when it walked in the door--even when it didn't look like what I'd always pictured in my imagination.

[Jo Beverley]

Jo here.

Interesting, isn't it?

I've known handsome guys who were completely boring, and sometimes, of course, they're vai. The nice this is our individual ideas of handsome do vary quite a bit. George Clooney? Blah. Pierce Brosnan. Yum.Johnny Depp is strange but appealing; Alan Rickman is strange but... not.

I've been instantly attracted, if only temporarily, to seemingly ordinary passing strangers. Must be pheromones.

And I've known a couple with great charisma, which is sort of scary.

If all three come together... run away. But if you can bottle them and make them the hero of a romance novel, you'll probably make a fortune.

Jo :)

[Edith]

What lovely true love stories!!

And how nice Maggie, and Sleeky, that a gesture - and as with Rev Melinda - a film or story can open the eyes to love,
And Mary Jo - just as well. He could never have lived up to that perception.

But Jo! Oh my! Alan Rickman doesn't shake or stir you? That voice? That sneer?
(I just adore a good sneer)

[LorettaChase]

George Clooney reminds me sometimes of Cary Grant. I love them both. Alan Rickman--oh, my! That voice. That nose. That talent. The guy I married reminded me of Fred Astaire. Yes, I usually went for guys who reminded me of actors I loved but life is so unfair: the personalities never match those star qualities on the screen--well, of course not. Someone wrote those scripts, didn't they? We write guys to be romantic. They don't all come that way. Some do. Some need training. Some need scripting. And some will never learn.

[Sherrie Holmes]

From Sherrie:
Edith, I once saw a young man walking through Ace Hardware (he was an employee), and nearly gave myself a whiplash turning to gawk at him as he passed. He was absolutely and utterly beyond beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful.

His skin was flawless, the face so smooth and perfect I wondered if he even grew whiskers. His lips were chiseled and pouty, with just the hint of an Elvis sneer. His eyes were the epitome of bedroom eyes--sleepy and seductive and hooded and dark.

While I admired his beauty--in fact, I was fascinated by it--I have to admit there was no physical attraction on my part. Anger or unhappiness radiated off him in powerful waves. He had a don't-touch-me sense about him that was palpable and dangerous.

While he didn't remind me of any movie star or hero from a book, he would have made an irrisistible villain or a terribly sexy hero (once the heroine slapped him upside the head and got rid of his anger). That young man has been my mental checklist when I'm going for dangerous and sexy in my writing.

[Susan Sarah]

Oh this is a fun topic!

A few years ago we had some work done in the house, and I was told to expect the drywall guy the next morning. I happened to mention this to my neighbor, who had had the same crew in her house a few months earlier. Oh, she said, I might have to drop by tomorrow. Huh? OK...next morning, doorbell rang, I opened it--and stared. Just stared. Duh. He was beyond gorgeous--beautiful face, long dark waving hair, well-muscled in a sleeveless shirt, an impish grin. He had a sort of otherworldly glow about him--I mean, how many people actually LOOK like that? It was as if he'd just stepped off the cover of historical romance. He was probably used to being stared at, since he just grinned, told me his name, and came in. He spent several days drywalling--turned out he was a really intelligent guy, very nice, fun to talk to. And he was raising his baby daughter by himself after a breakup. *thud*

Later my neighbor told me that whenever he's working in the development, other ladies in the neighborhood find excuses to come by to see the work. Oh yeah. The work.

Anyway, it's excellent research for a historical romance author to have one of these guys climbing ladders and humming to himself all day long in the house....

~Susan Sarah

[Jane George]

Just the mention of Alan Rickman has me headed for toe-curling puddledom.

*pulls self together*

Yes, I've encountered some stunners. The nice weather has brought out the spandex warrior bicyclists in full force. Some of whom are downright road hazards.

But it's always been the anti-heros who speed my pulse. My career is doomed! ;-j

[Susan Sarah]

OK, I should also mention that the first time I met my husband, I had the same *thud* sort of reaction--I was sitting in the student lounge, and he strolled by--tall, lean, handsome, long blond hair to his waist, and this sort of slightly dangerous and charismatic air. I was fascinated. Turned out he was earning $ on the side tutoring in math, and boy did I need a math tutor....

The next year, I transferred to another university (having actually gotten a good grade in math *g*), and he was helping me move into the dorm. My new roommate walked in, said hello, walked out. She grabbed me in the hallway: "WHO is that HUNK in there?" Today she's one of my closest friends, and we still laugh about that day--when she had that THUD reaction too.

BTW, he's shown up in a lot of my books, in several incarnations. :)
~Susan Sarah

[Janga]

The first time I fell in love I was fifteen with a head and a heart filled with fairy tales, Jane Austen and the Brontes, Emilie Loring heroes, and James Dean images. Charley was eighteen with sun-kissed locks, summer-blue eyes, a cleft chin, and an overabundance of charm--and my parents hated him. What more could I have hoped for at that age? It took me three years to accept that he was a charming jerk, but every woman should have at least one bad boy in her past. Right?

On a less personal note, a friend was trying to write a romance when we were in grad school, and she had created a sigh-worthy hero that she and I (her critique partner) were wild about. It became the custom in our group to compare every male we saw on campus, in bars, on the street to Cat. Someone would look at a candidate, raise an eyebrow, and we would all cry in unison "Not Cat." One evening six or seven of us were entering a restaurant when a man walked out--not classically handsome but so compelling that in a room full of more handsome men, he would be the one women buzzed around. Liz, the writer, was at the front of our group. She stopped dead still and just looked for a minue, and then she whispered "Cat!" "Cat," the rest of us sighed in agreement. The man nodded politely, said "Evenin', ladies" in a husky drawl and walked away with a very ordinary-looking young woman on his arm, totally unaware that we had just seen a dream come to life. :)

Liz never finished her book, but when we gather for our rare reunions, we still smile at our shared recollection of Cat, the perfect man.

[Susan Wilbanks]

"I've been instantly attracted, if only temporarily, to seemingly ordinary passing strangers."

I still remember a guy I saw nearly two years ago at a 4th of July celebration featuring Revolutionary War reenactors. He was one of the redcoats, and he wasn't my usual type, but he had these wonderful gray eyes and a confident but mellow air about him. And he completely changed my mind about redcoats. I've tended to make my military heroes riflemen, cavalry, navy--anything to keep them out of red coats, which had always seemed to garishly bright to be sexy to my eyes. But Hottie McRedcoat changed my mind without us ever so much as exchanging a word.

So, assuming I ever get published, if you see a hero of mine with wheat-blond hair and keen gray eyes who serves in a redcoated regiment, you'll know where I got the inspiration!

[Diane N]

I had my very own Top Gun experience with a dashing Navy pilot who was in my opinion much better looking than Tom Cruise. I only saw him in his whites once, but WOW... We had a passionate affair for maybe a month, and then he flew away!

No, actually, he didn't, but I knew going in that he wasn't interested in a commitment since he had a girlfriend living overseas who he eventually married. I did manage to fall a bit harder for him than I should have, but I would defy any of you to keep your head under those circumstances!!

[Diane N]

Oh, and then there was a semi-famous actor who I met and was friends with for a few years. The man is gorgeous (tall, dark and ethnic, as RevMelinda said!) and I always planned to use him as a hero when I finally got around to writing down the stories that lived in my head, but then something unforseen happened--he turned from hero to jerk in a big way. He's never going to be my hero now; more likely he'll show up as a villain!

I seem to require actual visual stimulation when I'm writing, especially when it comes to the hero. I don't know if it's a failure of my imagination or if it's just that I'm a media junkie and am always falling for some actor I've seen in the movies or on television and thinking "yes, that's my next hero!"

The hero of my WIP also looks very much like a specific actor. I haven't met him myself but I do know people who know him and I've been assured that he's one of the good guys--not drop dead gorgeous like Actor #1, but charming and funny and nice. Since that's my hero to a T, why not borrow his face??

[Elaine McCarthy]

My goodness, what interesting-in-a-nice-way experiences you all have had! I am positively writhing with envy. I don't believe I've ever encountered a hero. How is this possible? Maybe I was just too busy falling for the Lost Boys to notice them. I suppose one could make a fictional romantic hero out of a Lost Boy, but in real life... fuhgeddaboudit.

The great thing about writing is that you can filter out all but the fixable flaws in your hero and end up with the man of your dreams; but I tend to agree with Loretta that there's a certain air of unreality about the whole genre. Which, let me add, doesn't not interfere with my enjoyment one bit!

[Elaine McCarthy]

My goodness, what interesting-in-a-nice-way experiences you all have had! I am positively writhing with envy. I don't believe I've ever encountered a hero. How is this possible? Maybe I was just too busy falling for the Lost Boys to notice them. I suppose one could make a fictional romantic hero out of a Lost Boy, but in real life... fuhgeddaboudit.

The great thing about writing is that you can filter out all but the fixable flaws in your hero and end up with the man of your dreams; but I tend to agree with Loretta that there's a certain air of unreality about the whole genre. Which, let me add, doesn't not interfere with my enjoyment one bit!

[Edith]

"I seem to require actual visual stimulation when I'm writing, especially when it comes to the hero. "
Yes, yes! Me too. I get glimpses of a new hero on TV or in the flix, or even in the streets. Of course, my daughter Susie says I do a whole lot of mental plastic surgery on them before they appear in print... but why not? We're talking fiction here.