Digging Down in Romantic Suspense

by M. L. Buchman

Ages ago (okay, last month, but it seems ages ago--been a busy month), I wrote a post about contemporary romance. In it, I described romantic suspense...briefly! This is a topic I could write about at (perhaps nauseating) length. I'll try to restrain myself here.

First that paragraph:

Romantic suspense, especially military romantic suspense has it own challenges. The danger, the military, and the relationship all have to feed off each other synergistically. And they have to do that so tightly that to remove any one of the three elements causes the entire story to collapse. It's like a magnificent jigsaw puzzle--something I've loved doing since I was a kid. 

Here's the whole post:

https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2018/06/suspense-to-contemporary.html

As fun as it is to write contemporary romance where the only thing the story has going for it is character (see the old post for more on this), there is the jigsaw puzzler in me who loves the romantic suspense, especially the military romantic suspense as well.

I've read too many titles where the soldier (or ex-soldier turned gold-hearted mercenary [beneath his awesome rough exterior]), fights battles, has sex, and falls in love. Some have been very well written--well rounded characters, clear setting, believable conflict, etc. And they almost invariably make me want to throw the book across the room when I reached the end.

Why? Because the hero could just as easily have been a car mechanic, a drag racer, or a deep sea diver. She (what can I say, I love my female military folk) must be a part of the military in more ways than having a rank and a gun. Even if you aren't writing military romantic suspense, but romantic suspense, it isn't enough that she's a detective in a case that gets all out of hand and she meets the pleasant bystander who unknowingly holds the key to the case and to her heart. (By the way, Sandra Brown did this masterfully to create the romantic suspense genre--sorry, I don't recall the title.)

What she did that so stood out for me, is that they are wholly interdependent on each other. The romance is pushed by the suspense. The tension of the danger is heightened by the growing passion between our leading characters.

If he's in danger and she rescues him, we get the Florence Nightingale effect. But if he's in danger and she places herself (or even both of them) in even more danger to rescue him, then we start to get some real tension. If she's military, she has skills. But what if those skills aren't enough on her own? What if those skills are also what she's built her self-respect and her confidence on? Now we can see bravery, when (with his help of course), she faces the disaster that is beyond her skills. And, even better, comes out the other side with a new frame of reference for herself. And what if she only makes it out the other side because she lets down those hard-earned walls to let herself trust that the man also has skills in this moment of crisis?

It is this level of interplay and interconnection that brings a story solidly into romantic suspense [and keeps me from wanting to heave the book at the wall].

But unless you're an intense plotter, do not try to do this with your conscious brain; it will just tie you up in knots until you can't remember if a Glock 17 carries a 10-round magazine or a 17-round mag. (It can carry either one.)

So, how do you do it?

Don't take the first answer. The first idea you have as the writer on how to solve the hero's crisis will almost always be the simplest one. It's easy, it's the first thing that every reader will think of as well. (There's a moment to use those, when you need to let the reader feel smart for a moment--but that's a whole different post.) To build tension (romantic suspense, remember) we want to keep surprising the reader.

How do we do that?

Find the unexpected solution.

Every time I get really stuck, it's typically because I just typed the obvious solution and instantly get a little bored. Well, this is a romance, where is the unexpected solution? It's in the romance. It's in the relationship dynamics (both the good and the bad.) So if you avoid the obvious solutions to the suspense and instead look into the character for the solution, it should rock!

I've been tinkering with this a lot lately. My Night Stalkers and Delta Force series tend strongly toward the action. You thought they figured something out about yourself? You foolish little character. Surprise! Action slams in.

My latest romantic suspense series has far less action, but man I'm loving the interaction between these characters as they drag each other down and eventually lift each other back up to save the day. My latest experiment releases July 31. Check it out, I think it's one of the best examples of this I've done yet.

http://www.mlbuchman.com/books/in-the-weeds/

-White House Protection Force Romance #3-

Colby Thompson likes nothing better than his Secret Service patrol of the White House South Lawn with his trusty German Shepherd, Rex. The role fits them both down to the ground.

But when his childhood nemesis Marine Corps Major Ivy Hanson steps off the Marine One helicopter, his comfortable existence flies apart.

Assigned together, they end up in the battle of their lives to protect the President. But can they step forward to find love, and leave their childhood feud back In the Weeds.

M.L. Buchman started the first of over 50 novels and even more short stories while flying from South Korea to ride across the Australian Outback. All part of a solo around-the-world bicycle trip (a mid-life crisis on wheels) that ultimately launched his writing career.

Booklist has selected his military and firefighter series(es) as 3-time “Top 10 Romance of the Year.” NPR and Barnes & Noble have named other titles “Top 5 Romance of the Year.” In 2016 he was a finalist for RWA's RITA award.

He has flown and jumped out of airplanes, can single-hand a fifty-foot sailboat, and has designed and built two houses. In between writing, he also quilts. M.L. is constantly amazed at what can be done with a degree in geophysics. He also writes: contemporary romance, thrillers, and SF. More info at: www.mlbuchman.com.