You’re a heroine without a hero. Your matchmaker has been sued out of business for breach of contract related to her short-lived TV series. Last week, your mother added Twitter to her numerous methods of nagging you about her lack of grandchildren.
What’s a single girl to do?
Let a friend hook you up. Her true love almost certainly has attractive, interesting, and available friends, relatives, or even enemies in need of female companionship. There’s no shame in being a sequel.
Cast your net in the workplace. Illicit encounters in the copy room can add a lot of spice to a relationship with that sexy boss, partner, or underling. There’s no real danger here—fictional sexual harassment laws are notoriously lax.
Take a class. You’ll know in advance you share at least one common interest with your fellow students, and a man who can admit he doesn’t know everything is a rare and beautiful find. Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to observe firsthand whether he can be trained.
Head to the meat market—literally. Multitask, combining that necessary trip to the store with your quest for love. Pay close attention to how he handles the chicken breasts. If you like what you see, attract his attention by demonstrating your masterful grasp of that pork loin.
Give online dating a chance. It’s no longer the last bastion of hope for losers. (For proof, just look at all the attractive people in the commercials.) Even if you don’t find a suitable mate online, you might attract a sociopath who can help you…
Become the victim of a crime. With the exception of the obligatory rotund, balding, and surly partner, fictional cops are in excellent shape, civic-minded, protective, and bring their own handcuffs (if you’re into that sort of thing).
If all else fails, hit the bars. No, not to pick up alcoholic men. Ply your writer with top-shelf booze until her vision blurs enough that she mistakes you for her Muse. Give her a pen and a cocktail napkin and dictate to her precisely what you’re looking for. When she recovers from the hangover, she’ll think it an inspired idea and get to work on your happy ending right away.
LMAO!
Too, too funny,
Kerry, this is exactly what I needed
this morning.
Talking about character personal ads,
I’ve got an attractive male lawyer
readers tell me
needs a love interest.
He’s corporate law
so not as exciting as criminal
yet not as dangerous either
(father potential there).
He’s an alpha in his own ‘world’
yet is (or will be) a minor character
in at least two novels.
If anyone knows of
by Kimber Chin August 13th, 2008 at 8:43 ama minor character
with heroine potential
ideally with rule abiding (or not)
issues,
please let me know.
Hmm… lemme check my Rolodex…
Corporate law is way better than criminal law (defense, anyway). A guy who makes a living helping criminals get away with what they’ve done is a hard sell for me.
Hmm… this is interesting. I like the idea of the heroine not being squeaky clean (in the legal sense—hygiene is still a must), but she can’t be his client or on the other side without calling his ethics into question… but maybe a writer who knows law better than I (*cough* you *cough*) could actually use that effectively as a conflict.
Darn you. Like I don’t have enough of my own projects to ponder while I should be sleeping!
by Kerry Allen August 13th, 2008 at 9:45 am
My current heroine didn’t bother getting me drunk. She chucked my muse into a flaming tarpit and took over. 
Anyway, she got her man and he ain’t complainin’.
by Kimber An August 13th, 2008 at 10:03 amROTLFMBO.
My heroine recently rejected everyone I put in front of her. She’s mulling on what she wants and I suspect it’s the guy I told her she can’t have. I wish she’d just freaking -tell- me so I could finish writing it.
by Jana Stocks August 13th, 2008 at 10:37 amHadn’t thought of all of these. So far, I’ve used the victim of a crime, and ‘bar’ — sort of; she’s moonlighting as a cocktail waitress, but wasn’t out to meet guys, just needed quick cash. Trouble is, my heroines weren’t looking for guys, so I never really thought about how they’d go about meeting them. Their heroes just showed up where they least expected them–knocking on their front doors.
by Terry Odell August 13th, 2008 at 10:39 amKimber An, where did she find a flaming tarpit in the wilds of Alaska?
Jana, it’s always the one you’ve told her she can’t have. Quit fighting it.
Terry, it’s funny how showing up on the doorstep seems like a really exotic way to meet at this point. (Or maybe it only seems that way to me because all I get at my door are middle-aged women trying to convert me to their religion or political party. Except that one bounty hunter, but that is a different story…)
by Kerry Allen August 13th, 2008 at 11:21 amKerry, maybe if it had occured to me to write a book where the heroine was actively looking for her hero, I’d have been more creative. Maybe I’ll try that one next time.
I seem to have fallen into the door-knocking rut. Even the cop in the ‘victim of a crime’ book knocked. So, that’s 3 out of 5 books where my hero shows up that way, for one reason or another. And the 4th book is a sequel where h/h already know each other, so I guess that counts as the ‘victim of the crime where the cop knocked on the door’ as much as it did in the first book, which would make it techncially 4 out of 5.
by Terry Odell August 13th, 2008 at 11:50 amHey, if it works…
I seriously was going to say “don’t knock it,” but I figured that was a cut-off-my-fingers offense.
by Kerry Allen August 13th, 2008 at 11:59 amHmm…the bounty hunter who knocks on the wrong door, or is looking for the new housemate/ex-boyfriend… I see possibilities. Especially if the heroine is a civil rights attorney who’s watched too much reality TV and hates bounty hunters on principle.
by Selah March August 13th, 2008 at 12:04 pmOr… a squeaky-clean young gent comes to her door to save her soul, only to find she’s a demon sent to corrupt him…
This is too much fun. Now I’m all nostalgic for Bam’s writing prompts.
by Kerry Allen August 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pmFunny! Love that line about the handcuffs!
by Bettye Griffin August 13th, 2008 at 1:57 pmThis sounds like a challenge, actually.
There’s a thing going around the amateur writing communities to put together a prompt table with a collection of story prompts on whatever theme, and people sign up to write a story based on each prompt, filling in their table as they go. I’m usually not into these, but this sounds like it’d make a great challenge — one story per meeting-method. [grin]
Angie
by Angie August 16th, 2008 at 11:44 pm