As a writer, it’s obviously important to
get the facts right. But does that always happen? Take your average hero, for
example. Admiral Lord Nelson. Now there’s a man worthy of the accolade in ever
I heard of one. And yet he was only five foot six tall. Now that wasn’t
considered below average in his day and yet have you ever read a Georgian or
Regency romance with a hero that short?
Thought not.
How about an ugly hero come to that, or one
with a squint, male pattern baldness, missing limbs or bad breath. I’ve yet to read
of a hero who’s human enough to possess any such flaws. In fact I’ve seldom
encountered one who doesn’t top six feet, has a muscular physique, a full head
of thick hair and thighs that look damned good in tight pants.
Why is that, do you suppose?
Personally I reckon us girls ‘invent’ the
sort of man we wouldn’t mind bumping into in a dark alley and then just add the
features that do it for us. My heroes are always…well, tall dark and handsome.
How stereotypical is that? In my own defence, some publishers do kinda insist
upon hunky heroes, presumably because romances are predominantly read by woman
and they’re supposed to fall in love with the guy.
Which leaves the poor old heroine to take
the brunt of any physical shortcomings on offer. I mean, if every single
historical romance had a handsome hunk playing the male lead and a drop dead
gorgeous female with an hour glass figure sharing the limelight, things would
get pretty boring. I’ve read books that feature heroines who are timid, (don’t
try that one at home), plain enough to fade into the woodwork, myopic,
flat-chested and even disabled. Daphne duMaurier’s wonderful novel The King’s General is a fabulous example
of how that can work when handled with skill and sensitivity.
My novel Downsizing features a (shock,
horror) overweight heroine. It’s a contemporary and tackles the misery of
obesity, the scourge of the modern age. A lot of women, struggling with their
weight because they don’t look the way society say they should, will identify
with my heroine, but wouldn’t have dreamt of making the male lead a fattie.
See what I mean? It’s still a man’s world.
Downsizing by W. Soliman available from Musa Publishing and Amazon.com http://bit.ly/XRdnA7
Wendy
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