Unveiling the Traits Male Heroes Embody in a Romance Novel

These days most romances are written from the point of view, also known as the POV, of both protagonists. In this post I'm referring to the traditional male and female roles. The hero is the character most female readers will yearn for, curse, admire, and want to be with. And ultimately, they'll want to be able to 'see inside his mind' and understand his motivation.

If you’re female, trying to think like a man can be like sailing in uncharted territory. Men think differently, talk differently, and behave differently. But thanks to the almost global socio-economic bias towards men, women have a better grasp at thinking like a man than men do at thinking like a woman.

The trick is to get as much of a real-life man into your hero without compromising his ultimate sense of nobility. Without dissing all the men out there, let’s take a generalist look at five key elements of a hero in a romance.  

1. Expect Sex.

The truth is that, generally, most women like soft stuff: flowers and love and kisses and so on. Most men like sex. And providing the attraction's there, they'd like to have it straightaway if the truth be known. This means that most women will find putting ideas into the hero's mouth a challenge; unless of course they're saying, "Fancy a tumble?".

Despite all these expectations of nothing but human biology, you've got to provide some inner window into his mind, no matter how full of mystique you've portrayed him to be. So he can't be going at it hammer and tongs from the first greeting. You've got to make him sound like he's got his mind on other things: business, family conflict, an illness, any kind of dilemma.

2. Repress their Feelings

In the olden days of Mills and Boon, the heroes back then were pretty taciturn, with lots of grim looks and firm lips. Until the penultimate chapter when the dam burst and all his feelings would be revealed in an outburst of passion.

There was no constant stream of consciousness to suggest whether the heroine was dealing with a hoggish boar; if he was hopelessly in love but holding out; or simply irredeemable. Of course, if the latter, he would not be the hero. Nowadays, in a sense, you have to be a mind reader: walk like a man, talk like a man. Or, it goes without saying, actually be a man.

3. Limit their Speech

Unfortunately there's a common non-scientific theory—purely apocryphal—that a man naturally has a smaller quota of words per day than a woman. And once he's used them up, that’s it until the next day. So they need to spread them very sparingly over that 24-hour period.

If you live within close sighting of an adult male, perhaps once a month you might get a sermon on the universe and its contents. Lucky you if there's more than one and they're also talkers. You have hit the mother lode. Those are the times to garnish whatever sensible data you can from them to help marinate your male character. Scrap that if they're all football fans and the footie season's just started. You'll have to find alternative sources, or simply use your imagination.

4. Look for Action

For most men action— or none at all—does tend to speak louder than words. You hero might be an arrogant puffed-up beast like Fitzwilliam Darcy, but remember, he's the one who did what was necessary to save the entire Bennett family from disrepute and social stigma. Even though it meant paying money to someone he had good cause to despise.

If you follow market dictates your hero is generally going to be a money-maker. Rich heroes are popular. If they're not rich, then they're in authority, which means a managerial post or a uniform. Think sheriff, cop, fireman, the one that people run to for help when action needs to be taken. You won't find a hero taking orders; if someone's above them you can bet your bottom dollar your hero is the maverick.

5. Work Hard

It doesn’t matter what the work is; he could be a trainee—or, as is most likely, the owner pretending to be a junior trainee. But the hero will be top of the game. Physical restrictions make no difference. Whether he's a double amputee or in a motorized scooter, people gravitate towards heroes. Heroes come out on top whatever job they do.

The bottom line is that it's important to have some essence of what a real man would be like and insert some aspect of that into your hero—but not too much for god's sake, otherwise someone may recognise that you're talking about the science teacher at number 10. Who me, do such a thing? Nuh-uh, never!