Come in and meet Ben, the husband in my latest story “Marriage at Risk”.

I realised something immediately I decided the role Ben would play in this story. He was going to appear less than heroic. After all, we know in a romance our heroes have to be the biggest and the best of all things. And here I was planning on writing a story with the hero about to ditch his wife and kids on the first page.

I couldn’t allow Ben’s apparent negative traits to taint him and have a reader decide his story wasn’t going to jell with them. It was relatively easy to show Ben in his true light. He was a little confused not uncaring. I enjoyed having Ben discover things he never knew about his wife, his children, and their home.

Ben feels like a man from another era. An era where a man’s contribution to the family was financial. I didn’t think it was necessary to use backstory to suggest where his thinking originated. Because there are many loving, supportive husbands and fathers who take little part in the everyday lives of their families. They believe their careers/work is their priority. This is Ben.

I trust when you meet Ben you will understand him. He’s lost. Not emotionally. He knows what he needs to do to correct his emotional standing with his wife. He is lost within his household. Finding himself in charge of children and a house confounds him. He has no clue what it takes to make everything run smoothly. His office runs perfectly with him in charge. His business has achieved success beyond all expectations. He’s baffled how the rest of his life has turned into such a mess.