Yesterday I was working on a novel that I completed before I published For the Love of a Woman in November. I have never been happy enough with the novel to publish it. I have been going through the novel chapter by chapter trying to emphasize the love story more. I was working on a section of dialogue. The hero says to his love interest, “I was attracted to you because of your intelligence among other things.” She had just asked him why he would be interested in marrying her. The love interest goes on telling him that she does not want to consider marrying him because she cannot have children. She tells him that he deserves a whole family.
The line I quoted above stopped me. It is one of the things that has attracted me to the women I had more than a passing interest in. I had given the hero of the story part of my personality unconsciously. I try to avoid putting myself into a story. I had to stop and think if I should remove the sentence in question. It has stopped my work on the novel for about a day. I came to the conclusion that in this case, it makes sense for the hero to be attracted to an intelligent woman. He is trying to solve a mystery and without his intellect, he wouldn’t be able to solve it. For once it is okay that my preference for intelligent women be reflected in the hero of my novel.
