330. A Marriage of Convenience with Christine Hill Suntz

The marriage of convenience trope is discussed, dissected, and broken down by author Christine Hill Suntz as this week's episode dives into why this trope is so beloved.

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Visit Christine's website:
https://www.christinehillsuntz.com/

Check out her books:
https://www.christinehillsuntz.com/writing
https://www.tyndale.com/p/every-deadly-suspicion/9781496487933

Follow Christine's Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/christinehillsuntz/

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Romance is filled with popular tropes and today we're going to talk about one of my favorites: the marriage of convenience. Leading the discussion is author Christine Hill Suntz.

Jennia: Well, thank you so much for being here today, Christine!

Christine Hill Suntz: Thank you so much for having me. I am delighted!

Jennia: And congratulations on your release! Would you like to get us started by telling us about The Lawyer and the Laundress?

Christine Hill Suntz: Sure! The Lawyer and the Laundress is a—shocker—romance, historical romance (laughs). It's set in colonial Canada, so in 1837 in the city of Toronto. In this story, a widower, James Kinney, bands together with a laundress, Sarah, and they work together to save the life of his lonely little girl. And sure enough, there is a marriage of convenience there too (both laugh).

Jennia: When did you first decide that James and Sarah's story would have this marriage of convenience? And was that always the plan or did you go through a few other ideas first?

Christine Hill Suntz: It was always the plan. So I also love marriage of convenience, like one of my favorite tropes. And of course it works particularly well in historical. Right? It's kind of hard to make it work in contemporary—although, people have done it very well. And yeah, it was instantly—when I imagined these characters and this story, the marriage of convenience was always part of it. And, actually, though, in the—as I wrote the story, the marriage of convenience kind of became later and later in the story. Initially it was sort of the beginning of them getting together. So that was an interesting kind of development that happened as I wrote.

Jennia: Mhm! So just to see why you enjoy it, what are some of the things that you love about marriage of convenience?

Christine Hill Suntz: The forced proximity is fantastic because, I mean, as romance authors, we're always looking for, like, how can I get these people together on page?

Jennia: Yes!

Christine Hill Suntz: And sometimes it's a challenge in a way that's believable to readers —why these people need to spend a lot of time together. And so marriage of convenience is just, like, automatically a great way to make that happen. There's so much opportunity for tension. And not just, you know, romantic tension or physical chemistry, which is definitely a part of it. Right? But also just like they—there's obviously—if they had to get married for some reason, this is automatically gonna set up a whole bunch of expectations and conflict and the opportunity for so many things to go wrong. And that's exactly what we want to happen, of course, in a romance novel, right?

Jennia: Exactly. That is so true. And I was thinking, too, about when you suddenly move in with someone—and obviously my experience wasn't like this, I'm thinking more like college roommates. Where you don't really know that person, but you're suddenly expected to be very familiar with them and their inner workings and how they go about their daily life. And then adapting so that you both fit each other's expectations for what life together will look like in some capacity. And yeah, like you said, that just adds all this other tension and conflict because even those small little daily things that we take for granted or don't think of as a big deal, they suddenly can be a big deal. But also, you're navigating this whole person that you don't really know in trying to figure out how to compromise with them, what their style of conflict is like, how they react when they don't get their way.

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, totally! I didn't really think about that before, but yeah, so true. And, like, understood, I guess, in marriage of convenience is that these are probably people who are strangers or near strangers. I guess it doesn't have to be like that. But a lot of them are set up as—and this one is too, this story, they're sort of strangers. They really don't know each other very well and all of a sudden they're married and sharing a life. So.

Jennia: Yes. Well, why do you think that readers find it appealing, if you think those reasons might be different from why you yourself find it appealing?

Christine Hill Suntz: That's a great question. For me, I love the marriage of convenience, especially in a historical.

Jennia: Mhm

Christine Hill Suntz: And I'm thinking other readers might enjoy this as well because we all know that, historically, men and women didn't have a lot of opportunities to spend time alone together, right?

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: It just wasn't the way society was structured, especially for unmarried people. Right? There were a lot of chaperones. And that makes a very, like, stilted kind of romance if there's always someone else in the room listening to a conversation or observing what's going on. You want to see these people that you're getting to know. You want to see what happens when they're alone together. And this just—the marriage of convenience just sets up unlimited opportunities for that to happen. So I'm thinking that might be something that readers like in it. I think readers also, myself included as a reader, they like the romantic tension and—this is a closed-door romance, right? There are no open-door scenes! But my goal was, though to create that tension, which is so much a part of falling in love.

Jennia: What are some of the ways you did create that tension? And do you also have tips for other authors who are trying to do the same?

Christine Hill Suntz: I kind of, like, imagined sort of when . . . almost when I first met my husband. It's someone you're not dating yet. You're just kind of interested in them and how aware you are of where they are in the room and what they're doing.

Jennia: Mmm.

Christine Hill Suntz: And the simplest thing, like their arm brushes yours. Right? Or you notice—like, those little moments like that, though, are real! Right? They are what—little things like that create the tension, even though they're very small. But I think in real life we are hyper aware of that person that we're interested in romantically, even if we don't want to be interested in them. Even if there's lots of reasons why it's a bad idea. Yeah.

Jennia: Did you work in any of those bad ideas into this manuscript?

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah! So, like, you can kind of tell even from the title, right? These are people—

Jennia: (laughs) Yes!

Christine Hill Suntz: —from very different social backgrounds. So that social conflict was built in from the beginning. From the beginning, James, our lawyer, is like—doesn't even imagine being interested romantically in anyone, which, of course, we find out later why. But especially in a laundress. He doesn't even want his daughter to have anything to do with the laundress. I mean, they were sort of at the bottom of the pecking order for servants, I would say. Right?

Jennia: Right.

Christine Hill Suntz: Like, one of the—kind of like a scullery maid sort of situation, right?

Jennia: And that does come across even in her very first chapter with how people are treating her and how they speak to her.

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, exact—Oh good! I'm glad that comes across. That's what I was going for (both laugh). Yeah! And, of course, we don't know why, but we can see Sarah, from the very beginning, is not interested in upper-middle class or upper-class society. She doesn't trust it. And so there were a lot of, like, instant reasons why they would not trust each other or be open to a relationship with each other, even just socially.

Jennia: Yeah, I'd like to talk about that, too, the difference that they have in their social standing and even what part that might have played in the tension, both romantic and not, and how you use that to further the story.

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, I really enjoy it when characters have misconceptions about each other and the story proves those misconceptions wrong. And I think a lot of that tension is built from surprise. So when they meet each other, they instantly kind of assume a lot about each other.

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: And then as the story unfolds, it's a series of surprises. "Oh, I thought a laundress would be like this. I thought she would talk like this. I thought she wouldn't be able to understand literature or know this." And the surprises—Every time James encounters one of his misconceptions proven wrong, that creates another level of questions, another level of closeness between them. And also, though, tension, because, like, both of them are trying to figure out what is going on. Why is this person not the person I thought they were? And it's kind of like peeling back layers to understand the true person underneath. And for Sarah, a lot of it is she had a lot of misconceptions about what a lawyer was.

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: Like, he was obviously gonna be a rule follower, probably not a very good father, probably someone who was totally absorbed in his career and just cared about advancement and political power. And James has to prove all of those misconceptions wrong little by little.

Jennia: Yeah. And I think the social standing one, again, it obviously works because it's a historical romance. But it works so well because even people who maybe aren't that familiar with each time period in history, we know that that played an important part and that there really wasn't a lot of mixing between the different socioeconomic classes. But did you do anything to really make it clear that this was how it was at that time? Again, apart from, like, that very beginning chapter, even with how people spoke to her? I mean, did that even create conflict within how people view the marriage? And how did you work that in?

Christine Hill Suntz: I did a fair bit of research because, like, upper Canada is just an interesting place at that time. It's not—like, most of us who read sort of, like, regency historicals are thinking we're in London. Right? And we understand how that hierarchy, the nobility, and all that works—at least how it works in romance. Right?

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: And then you've got the other kind—You could have Gilded Age, or you could have Western. Where upper Canada is really a blend of that sort of American, egalitarian values that were starting to take hold. And a lot of immigrants from the UK that wanted to transplant all of the old social order that they knew at home. They just wanted to bring it to Canada and recreate it. And so a lot of the writers that I was reading who were new immigrants, new settlers to Canada, were kind of really grappling with that sense of, like, "Wait, we came here and we got land, so we thought we were going to be a landholder. And sort of be minor nobility"—

Jennia: Ahh.

Christine Hill Suntz: —"but that's not how it works here," right? "And my education that I came with doesn't really mean a whole lot here because what's valuable here is, like, can I work really hard? And that's kind of how I'm going to gain wealth and status."

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: "My education or my connections are only gonna be part of it." So sorry, I kind of went off on a—

Jennia: Oh no! I think that's—

Christine Hill Suntz: —research detour there—

Jennia: —important because, yeah, you have to understand all that just to know how the characters feel about their situations and their social standing and how they view each other also. Because, again, if it is going to be more egalitarian, they're probably not going to uphold those same ideas about, "This person is here and I'm here." And even within the marriage, it's going to shift that power dynamic.

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, exactly. James sort of slowly realizes that Sarah might be just as educated as he is. Right? She might know more than he does because, actually, like, I don't want to give away any spoilers here. Right? But she has a very interesting past. And it's almost like they're standing on shifting ground and everything that was certain to them is slowly shifting. And those are often the stories I like. Right? When my protagonists are thrown off balance. And that kind of, like, instantly creates conflict—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: —between them because both of them know that they're hiding something. There's secrets there that kind of prevent you from fully falling in love with someone too. Because another tricky part about romance is they can't fall in love in chapter five. Right?

Jennia: (laughs) Right!

Christine Hill Suntz: —It has to take a whole book. But there has to be reasons, logical reasons, for the reader why they can't give in to this attraction that they feel.

Jennia: Yeah. I'd like to talk, too, about how this differs from a lot of other romance tropes and how you approach this. Because with a marriage of convenience, the characters both know that they need each other in some way. It is not just about "I want to be with this person" or "I'm interested in pursuing this person." So how do you go about writing that kind of couple versus a couple where it is based solely on want and not also that underlying need that they each have?

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, you bring up a great point in that a reader wants to read a marriage of convenience and, like, be convinced there's no other choice. These people have to get married. And it's really challenging for a writer to try to make it believable. These people need to get married. There's no other option. And so that's—like, I found in my writing process, the first draft of the story . . . Only after I wrote the first draft did it really become clear all of the different motivations that came together—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: —that made this marriage necessary. And then I had to go back and sort of plant the seeds early on. Like, so for James, a lot of the reasons why he thinks he wants this marriage, what he rationalizes to himself is, "It's for my daughter. She needs a mother." And they have this beautiful connection. This is something that's really missing from her life. And when I looked back at my first draft, I'm, like, "Wow, that's not really how I wrote that little girl, though," right? I didn't really write her as needing a mother—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: —from the get-go. Or I didn't really plant enough seeds where the reader's gonna follow me and be like, "Yep, 100 percent, he's got to get married. She needs a mother." So it was really going back and figuring out how to, like, layer that in and put in all those little hints. Every time there's a scene with her, there's sort of a hint of why she needs more in her life. And by her, I mean the little girl. Putting in those layers were really important to me. And then one thing that didn't happen in the first draft that I had to go back and do was, Sarah, why does she need this marriage? Now, obviously she's poor, so she could need to get married for, like, financial security. But that's not what we want to read, right? We don't want to read about someone who's just getting married for mercenary reasons. Like, that's not—

Jennia: (laughs) True.

Christine Hill Suntz: —satisfying in a romance. So—and I kind of knew why I wanted her, but I don't think it came up to the reader. And so I had to really work on her backstory, giving her this character of Granny, who is a secondary character but became more and more important with each revision.

Jennia: Mmm.

Christine Hill Suntz: Because that was her, you know, really providing for Granny, who had given up everything for her. Of course, Granny was sick. That was another way to kind of, like, really strengthen that part of the story so that there were just multitude of reasons why—not just her love for this little girl, not just her, like, attraction for James that she was trying to ignore, but so many reasons why she had no choice but to enter this marriage.

Jennia: Well, drifting away from your particular story a little bit, what obstacles do you think an author might encounter if they did write a character who was doing this for mercenary or fairly selfish reasons, where they were, for instance, marrying only for financial gain?

Christine Hill Suntz: I feel like you're touching on such a huge question, which is always like, does my main character have to be likable?

Jennia: Yes! (laughs)

Christine Hill Suntz: Right? And, like, there's so much debate about this. Right? And, like, for me, as a reader and writer, they do have to be admirable. Like, I guess not likable. They could be maybe someone I might meet out in public and not really think, "Oh my goodness, what a nice person!" But I have to be able to kind of get on board with their reasoning. And for me, just wanting money isn't gonna cut it. There would have to be a reason why that money was important. I'd have to really understand their motivations, as a reader.

Jennia: Yes.

Christine Hill Suntz: And it's the same with a—If we want to be super stereotypical and think she wants money and—it's the same for the guy. If he is—why is he interested in her? It has to be for more than her social position or her money or her looks. There always has to be some kind of deeper need in my character. And it's often what authors spend a lot of time working on. Right? That underlying wound in their character. And that helps us get on board because we're all kind of wounded. Right? We want to see that in the character, that they're a real person. Yeah.

Jennia: And that's a—That's such a central part of romance anyway, because we want to see them overcome that wound so they do embrace love and accept it. But thinking about likable characters, I thought—I feel like there are different tropes where that might work better within romance, but maybe this isn't one of them, because we have to wholeheartedly believe their motivation. But to just go all in on a character's motivation, we almost have to like that character and already be rooting for them. Not, "what an interesting scenario" or "what an interesting person, even if they aren't completely likable." Because, again, we already have to feel like, "I want to see this character succeed in this very unusual situation."

Christine Hill Suntz: For sure. Because, you know, romance writers were in the business of happily ever after. So we have to want this person to be happy at the end (laughs). 

Jennia: Yes! (laughs)

Christine Hill Suntz: We have to think they deserve happiness. I mean, everyone does. Right? But we have to, like, really root for them. And so, yeah, just showing them vulnerable really helps. I tried to do that, like, in my first scene. Writers, we spend so much time on that first scene. Every word and sentence is so carefully chosen. Right? Because I was like—I wanted her to be strong and independent. Those were really important to me. But she had to also be vulnerable so that we could get on board with her journey. That's what kind of made me think of her being hungry. Instantly, if someone is hungry and longing for a meal, like, I feel bad for them because (laughs)—

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: —I love food (Jennia laughs). And I thought of that as a really easy, simple way. She starts off hungry. So instantly we know, like, "Oh, that sucks for her. Why is she hungry? Why doesn't she have enough to eat?" And that was just kind of a way for me to hopefully get readers to come along right from the first paragraph.

Jennia: Yeah. That actually leads into another question I was thinking about, and that is, do you think there are certain personality traits that work better with this trope? And maybe some that would be harder for a reader to buy? Like, for instance, even this character making that decision at all? So if they were very meek, for instance, do you think that would be harder to sell to the reader?

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, that's a really good point, Jennia! Like, a heroine that's too—or hero—that's too meek, it's hard for us to believe they would take this super challenging path in life. Like, marrying someone you don't know is gonna be hard no matter what. Right? That cannot be easy, and takes a certain strength of character to take that step, I think. But that's the kind of character we all want to write. We all hope that our characters have some kind of, like, strength or determination. I think about all of the heroes that I love in literature, and they're all strong women. So I do think it would be hard to write a meek hero. I think it would be a challenge.

Jennia: Yeah. Is that something you thought about at all as you were creating each of these characters? Or did that just come across naturally once you built in their motivation?

Christine Hill Suntz: I remember my first—Often my first drafts, my characters are not quite nice enough. So they're a little bit too strong willed and they're a little bit, like, argumentative with each other. And I have to go back and really carefully think about, wait, is there a real need for my character to stand up here and speak their mind and assert themselves, or am I just doing it because I think it's fun and it's what a spunky character would do? You know, I have critique partners and editors have pointed that out in early drafts. Like, "It's hard to get on board with this character because they're really opinionated, and maybe you need to dial that down a little bit." So that's kind of interesting, yeah.

Jennia: Yeah, I can see that too. Especially because I'm thinking even—and maybe not so much for your historical setting and the period you chose. But how do we make these people also seem believable for where they're at at that point in history? And is that something that they would even have felt comfortable arguing about? Or would they have felt like they were in a place where they could raise that argument or have that discussion?

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, I think about this a lot. "What are we doing in historical romance?" I sometimes think (Jennia laughs). Right? What's our purpose here? We're not exactly historical fiction. Right?

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: Historical fiction, I feel like is really telling us the history in a way that is gonna grab us and get us into the story, which I absolutely love and kind of aspire to. Right? Like, I really hope I can write historical romance that have that research rigor of historical fiction. But often romance, even historical romance, it's really telling us more about our time than that time. I mean, we're not interested in reading men and women in those restrictive gender roles that they had in 1837. That's not going to be a satisfying story. It's probably an important story that we need to research and know about. We need to know our past. Right? But in a historical romance, we want to fall in love. We want to really experience that journey with our main characters. And it's hard to do that if we were being exactly strict and trying to really put ourselves in that early 19th century mindset. There's lots of things that my characters say that I bet nobody at that time actually said (Jennia laughs)—would have said, right?

Jennia: Well, how would we really know? No, I'm kidding.

Christine Hill Suntz: Right! Yeah, you never know. But I think that, as historical romance readers, that's the journey we want to go on. We understand those parameters. Right? We know that, like, our characters are gonna be a fascinating blend of past and present.

Jennia: Mhm.

Christine Hill Suntz: So I think that's kind of like the unwritten contract when we pick up historical romance.

Jennia: Even thinking back to an earlier comment you made, in a lot of ways it puts them on more equal footing than what you would see in a lot of other historical romances, because, like you said, they're unchaperoned now. They're living alone.

Christine Hill Suntz: Mhm.

Jennia: And it does kind of turn some of those societal conventions on their head because you could be seeing someone courting them for months and you're never allowed to be alone in a carriage together. But here we're taking two people who haven't even met before their wedding day, and here you are in this home now together all alone, and it's completely fine. So it does bring up some really interesting questions and starts making you think about, so this is okay, but that's not okay. Again, because they each have something that they need from this relationship. And I think that, too, puts them on that more equal footing, also, because they're each aware of this. They're aware that this person's benefiting as much as I'm benefiting. I need them as much as they need me. And we don't always see that in historical romances.

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, that's a great point! Yep. Perhaps that marriage of convenience can create maybe that—a little bit more of an equitable relationship for them.

Jennia: It's a little more of like a echo of independence that we see in contemporary fiction or where each person is allowed to ask for the same things or have the same things.

Christine Hill Suntz: Mhm.

Jennia: Because they're already automatically, "We are sharing a home, we are sharing this, we are sharing that." It isn't as if one is having something withheld from them, or they'll only gain it upon marriage after they've, I don't know, courted for so long and entered into a ceremony and all those other things. They know they're going to have it because they have it right away.

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah, that's a good point. It's almost like with a marriage of convenience, they can cut to the chase. "This is what I need." And the other person, "This is what I need."

Jennia: Well, and for our last question, I'm going to do something a little bit different (laughs) and ask what are your favorite romance tropes to both read and write? And are there any that you would like to write about in the future but haven't yet?

Christine Hill Suntz: Oh, that's a great question. So besides marriage of convenience, which is my favorite trope, enemies to lovers is a classic and I think almost every romance has a little hint of that. Except the friends to lovers, which I always have a harder time getting on board. There's a few that I really like, but that takes me a little bit longer to get on board with friend to lovers. So some people hate this, but I love the single parent. I love having a kid in the story. I think it really, like, adds a interesting dimension. And I also have an older person in my story because I love the multi-generational perspective that I just think it's so important in life and I love bringing that in. I really like "snowed in" as a trope. It's one of my favorites, you know. So I'd love to write that.

Jennia: Part of that forced proximity (laughs).

Christine Hill Suntz: Yeah! I love road trip—

Jennia: Ahh, yes.

Christine Hill Suntz: —also, which is, again, just another forced—

Jennia: Oh, right! I'm sensing a theme here! (laughs)

Christine Hill Suntz: —Forced proximity, we're trapped in a—And, I mean, road trip, of course, we think of as contemporary, which I do love it in contemporaries. But I think you can do—I've read some great historical road trip ones, too, where they're trapped in a carriage, going up to wherever. I really like the guy who—And now this is totally not in real life, only in romance. I like the guy who really has difficulty expressing himself. He's got huge feelings and it's really hard for him to get them into words. That's kind of why I love writing the dual POV—

Jennia: Ohh, yes!

Christine Hill Suntz: —and third person. Right? Because I like to be in that guy's head. And we know, as readers, what's going on behind the scenes and all the big feelings he has. Right? But I love that tension of him not knowing how to communicate that. I don't know what that says about me that I love that (Jennia laughs), but I love it! Yeah.

Jennia: No, there are definitely some things where I read it in romance—Well, even, like marriage of convenience, I love reading about it. Could I ever picture myself doing it? No (laughs).

Christine Hill Suntz: Absolutely not! Right? (laughs)

Jennia: Right (laughs). Well, thank you again. This has been very fun!

Christine Hill Suntz: Oh, thank you so much, Jennia! I really appreciate the opportunity.

Jennia: And thank you for listening. And be sure to check out the show notes for additional information and for all of Christine's links. And then please join me next week when author Harrison Stockeland will be returning to talk about road trips and research. And we just ended with road trips, and now we talk about road trips again! Look at that serendipitous moment (laughs).

Christine Hill Suntz: Oh perfect!

Jennia: Yes! Thank you for that.

Jennia: Thanks again!