As I mentioned yesterday, in my BDSM romance novel’s second draft I have my main character, Lauri, meeting and falling for the “wrong guy”. Because this is a romance novel, she later falls for the “right guy”.
And he is blatantly-obvious as well, to anyone reading, that he is supposed to be the right guy.
I’ve written a lot of “right guys” over the years, though mostly in a spanking context. The first was Michael Shell, in Shell Game, although in that case it was more about the right girl than the right guy. At the time, I thought that’s what the perfect BDSM top partner was like. But I wrote that book almost twenty years ago (even if I didn’t publish it until 2013), and over the years my opinion of what the perfect BDSM top partner (at least on the literary side) should be.
Most recently, in the GWWA story, I gave Shannon (the MC) three different guys to have relationships with, and none of the three were the wrong guy. The one who she ends up with might not even fully be the right guy, but he’s the one who stood out to me the most and Shannon seemed to like him.
In fact, as I wrote this blog post, I realized that the BDSM romance might actually have the first instance of one of my characters falling for the wrong guy and me not having them figure it out before they get too deep. But then, that’s realistic too — people get in relationships with the wrong guy (or girl) because they seem like the right guy (or girl) at the time. Then they stay in those relationships for whatever reason — fear of change, fear of loneliness, fear of retaliation; you name it. Thankfully Lauri figures this out sooner rather than later.
As I edit, the right guy for Lauri again seems like I’m intentionally checking all the boxes — like there’s nothing that he can possibly do wrong. I’m sure I’ll make a few edits and make him imperfect, but is that what readers want? More importantly, is that what I want? Why would I have written him the way I wrote him if I didn’t like him that way?
I guess sometimes it doesn’t hurt to be obvious.
