{"id":10335,"date":"2026-01-11T21:05:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T05:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/?p=10335"},"modified":"2026-01-11T21:05:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T05:05:45","slug":"partnership-over-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/2026\/01\/partnership-over-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Partnership over romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was in Canva today creating some social media ads for my books. In particular, I was working on Murder at an Exhibition<\/em><\/a>. In that novel, my fictional heroine Jo Harris works with the real-life historical figure Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and I was putting them together for an ad.<\/p>\n

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It got me thinking about the male\/female teams in my work.<\/p>\n

Jo Harris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti are not a romantic couple. In the first place, Jo is gay, which lady’s man Rossetti is not. But they make a great team.<\/p>\n

In Bummer at Luna Beach<\/em><\/a>, Lou has been in love with senior sleuth Rosie for a long time. It may be mutual, but their partnership is what is important. There are no romantic overtones.<\/p>\n

Even in my mystery romance, A Heart Purloined<\/em><\/a>, the collaboration of Amanda Goodwin and Jack Strawman is what keeps the plot moving. Yes, it’s a romance, and a rivals-to-lovers trope at that. But their love for each other develops slowly, and is not crucial to the action.<\/p>\n

I’m also reading Bird by Bird<\/em><\/a>, by Anne Lamott. She says in her chapter on characters:<\/p>\n

You are going to love some of your characters, because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had never thought of my characters as being some facet of me. But if they are, then it may be that I’m not a fan of love for getting things done. Certainly not for solving a murder, at any rate.<\/p>\n

Am I unromantic in general?<\/p>\n

Naw. Maybe I just think of the word “romantic” in its 19th century form, when it implied the supremacy of emotion. The emotion of love can create a bond, but it isn’t that bond itself. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton come to mind. A couple may have strong feelings toward each other, but the relationship may not be workable, or only workable for certain things.<\/p>\n

Readers know that I’m not a huge fan of the solo detective in my novels. Yes, Cuthbert Slaughter is my main detective for the Victorian mysteries, but even he doesn’t work alone. All my characters who solve murders work within a pair or, as in Murder on the Pneumatic Railway<\/em><\/a>, as part of a team that supports each other. Even Poirot, Holmes, and Marple needed their foils.<\/p>\n

Of course, I write alone. Yet alliance, relationship, and collaboration are of importance to my characters. If Lamott is right, these values are part of me. Just perhaps not when I’m trying to get something specific accomplished!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was in Canva today creating some social media ads for my books. In particular, I was working on Murder at an Exhibition. In that novel, my fictional heroine Jo Harris works with the real-life historical figure Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and I was putting them together for an ad. It got me thinking about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[84,6,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-musings","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10335"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10339,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10335\/revisions\/10339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lisahistory.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}