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Leslie Tentler | Creating Synergy Between Characters
Author Guest / February 5, 2011

I love building relationships between main characters. In writing romance in particular, it’s a lot like playing matchmaker – creating the perfect yin for another character’s yang. “Yin and yang” is a Chinese concept that describes how seemingly opposite forces are interconnected and interdependent. Sort of how you want any exciting, romantic couple to be. In MIDNIGHT CALLER, my debut romantic thriller, FBI agent Trevor Rivette was created first. Handsome and intelligent (as most leading men are), he’s also serious, intense and hiding some pretty troubling aspects of his past. I wanted to balance him by creating a female lead with more lightness – but not too light, since after all it’s a dark thriller. Rain Sommers emerged from that. She’s a witty, somewhat eccentric radio show psychologist who has developed a following among New Orleans’s Goth community due to her famous (and many years ago, murdered) mother. See? I told you, not too light. In fact, that spooky “following” is how she becomes entangled in Trevor’s serial murder investigation. This is important, since in romantic thrillers not only do your lead characters need to have a strong physical chemistry, there also has to be a darn good reason for…