Reputation is a tricky thing. It’s intangible, but also vital in frequently tangible ways. So how do the stakes of reputation work in romance, and how can you test if you’ve gone far enough for the intangibility to feel pressing rather than an abstract concept?

Want to learn about the 10 other narrative stakes, and get extra recommendations for the books that absolutely nail it? We’re leading our first workshop – What’s At Stake: How Unputdownable Novels Keep You Hooked– at the end of July! RSVP now.

When reputation works

Consequences outside the self

One of the easiest ways to ensure that reputation loss has the legs to carry you through an entire, satisfying story is to externalize their consequences. It’s easy enough to tell a character to have a stiff upper lip about gossip and speculation when it’s only hurting themselves, and that hurt is primarily emotional. But what happens when the harm to your protagonist’s reputation has radiating effects on their ambitions, their family, their friends, their community at large?

A good example: Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas*

Early on in this book, the eccentric, independent Pandora is caught in a “it’s not what it looks like!!” compromising position with social powerhouse Gabriel, the heir to a title. Her reputation, and his by extension (though to a lesser extent, Because Patriarchy) is in danger if they do not marry at once and “make things right.”

We’re used to this sort of set up in historical romance- ruined into marriage is a trope in and of itself. But Pandora doesn’t really care about her own reputation for its own sake. She didn’t really have plans to get married, ever, so being a worse prospect is kind of fine? But there are two complicating factors outside of her own growing attraction to Gabriel:

1. She wants to start a board game company, and to get the credit for her creations as she’s always dreamed, she can’t be ruined. Eccentric spinster was going to be trial enough as a marketing angle
2. Her beloved twin sister Cassandra is also currently unmarried, and will weather the consequences of the reputation ruination alongside her

Pandora might not care about the loss of reputation for her own self esteem like many historical heroines before her… but there are consequences beyond her own feelings that make the stakes of her deciding whether or not to marry Gabriel far more complex and interesting. The tension of making an irreversible decision like marriage (in a world where divorce is impossible) and ceding her entire legal identity and protection to a stranger is where we get the engine for this story.

Consequences of identity

That’s not to say you have to have tangible negative results for a loss of reputation to feel powerful and motivating. Our ability to see ourselves a certain way without the nasty effects of cognitive dissonance is what allows most of us to keep getting up in the morning, and the potential of losing that has existential implications. When the character is otherwise doing good by their community or family, and we see them as a pillar of society (or they see themselves this way), reputation stakes can really turn up the temperature for the narrative. Who are we if we can’t live up to our own reputation?

A good example: The High Dive by Chelsea Fagan*

This is a second chance contemporary romance (yes, reputation stakes work outside of historical contexts!) about two college friends-turned-something-more-turned-enemies being forced to reunite on the super yacht of mutual friends ahead of a wedding. Alex, our heroine, works for a leftist political party and is a public-enough figure (even just within her office, but certainly she is a representative of her party), while Danial, our hero, is in private equity. The only two scholarship kids in their friend group, they’ve gone in very different directions post-graduation with regards to professionally and socially aligning with or against wealth.

Much of the internal conflict for Alex in joining her friends in the first place, let alone letting herself enjoy her time with them, has to do with her internal sense of ethics and wealth politics. Her reputation as an anti-capitalist is vital to her job, yes, but also to her sense of self. She’s taken her bitterness at her working class upbringing and her inability to fit in with her wealthy peers and constructed an identity in opposition to all the pain that capitalism has wrought in her life. The tension in this book has roots in how her participation in this opulent social gathering, and her growing renewed relationship with Danial (who she considers a traitor for taking the opposite path in regards to capitalism), will have irreversible implications for her reputation externally and internally. Who is she if she’s not drawing a hard line about capitalism? Who is she if she isn’t defined the way she’s been for so many years? Who wants to ask those kinds of questions just by attending a friend’s wedding??

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So what about when reputation doesn’t work… and what should you consider when resolving a reputation stakes story? That’s for our paid subscribers, so if you’re not one yet…

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Want to learn about the 10 other narrative stakes, and get extra recommendations for the books that absolutely nail it? We’re leading our first workshop – What’s At Stake: How Unputdownable Novels Keep You Hooked– July 30th! RSVP now.

*these links are affiliate links to Bookshop.org, and if you purchase the book via them, The Rogue MFA gets a small cut

When it doesn’t work and how to fix/resolve

When reputation doesn’t work

As with most stakes, reputation fails as a compelling narrative device if failure to uphold it does not feel like it matters. For instance, when it doesn’t start a chain reaction of consequences, or there isn’t any fall out aside from their own pride. If Pandora’s loss of reputation in Devil in Spring was solely about her own ability to attend ton events, a thing she doesn’t care about, we wouldn’t care about her reputation either. If Alex’s loss of reputation in The High Dive meant that her coworkers thought her trip was a little gauche but had no further implications about who she was or how she fits into the organization, then the displays of awesome opulence would be words on a page rather than a story.

Resolving Reputation

Sometimes, the resolution of reputational stakes is submitting to or accepting the consequences of the loss and finding a new way forward that’s harder, but ultimately more true to the characters and their journeys.

Other times, the resolution comes down to the fact that no one wants to be the source of pain for the people they love and/or their ambitions, or be forced to live a miserable life. So the story becomes mitigating the miserable life you chose to stave off your reputational damage. Finding common ground with an unwanted spouse, prioritizing new ambitions, or rising so far in power that nothing can ever take your reputation away from you ever again.