By: KL Ramsey
I was talking to a friend, a few days back, and she just finished reading one of my books. The first thing she wanted to know was if any of my characters are based on real life people that I know. Every time someone asks me this question, I want to tell them yes, just to see their expressions. How many hot, built, alpha males do you know? I know that my honest answer is zero. Although occasionally, I stop at a red light, look over into the car next to me and swoon at the guy driving. But, I digress.
The question of how real my characters are always makes me wonder what they think my life is truly like. Sure, we all know a guy who likes to work out and is easy on the eyes. Some of us have that gorgeous girl friend who makes guys a little tongue tied. But the characters in a romance novel are a lot to live up to, for us real life, plain old humans, that are just trying to remember to brush our hair in the morning before heading out the door. And, isn’t that the point? What hard working mom wants to sit down to read a romance novel about a new mother who hasn’t showered for three days and has baby spit-up on her shirt? We want to be swept away by the characters in a romance novel and escape from reality, for at least a few hours.
I’ve recently started listening to country music and my favorite songs are by men who sing about women being their angels, or these mythical, perfect creatures who don’t exist in real life. While my teen son sings along to the lyrics, I try to point out that what these men are looking for is a perfect woman, and they don’t exist. It’s a lot to live up to and a whole lot of pressure for us regular, non-angelic females out here, just trying to get by. Of course, the same could be said for the alpha male hero’s that romance writers love to come up with, to make our female (and male—hey guys!) readers swoon.
Maybe we have some unrealistic expectations when it comes to imagining the perfect male or female lead, to swoop in and sweep us off our feet, but why not? So, the next time one of my readers asks me if my characters are real, I’m going to tell them that they are. They are real to the readers who are looking for an escape from reality, if only for a few hours. They are manifestations of everything we think that we want in our significant other. Because, let’s be honest- a sweaty, smelly guy from the gym, is only sexy on paper.