Judith Lown is the author of A Match for Lady Constance (Avalon) and A Sensible Lady: A Traditional Regency Romance (eFrog Press). She is hard at work on a sequel but still makes time to blog.
A perennial question for readers is: Do you read for character, plot, or setting? Of course, this is an artificial choice. Most of us read for all three—or at least we don’t want a major disappointment in any of these three elements.
But, in a romance novel, plot and setting will not compensate for undifferentiated or unconvincing characters. The plot, after all, is already known: Man meets woman. Man loses woman/Woman loses man. Man and woman find each other. Even if this plot plays out in an engrossing setting, it still will fall flat if there is not something unique about this particular man and this particular woman. If the plot is satisfying, much of it will be the natural playing out of the character and motivations of this man and this woman.
Do writers create or discover their characters? I’m not sure. I do know that characters won’t be shy about telling a writer what they will or will not do. Lady Constance actually let me know that she was quite worried that I was the one who was writing her story. She wasn’t at all certain that I was up to the task.
