Heroes In Pajamas

Last night I met with two of my local Critique Partners (CPs) for one of our regularly scheduled meetings. The three of us prepare a line-by-line critique of the other two’s work (usually a chapter each) and we meet to eat pizza and go over the critiques.

So my two CPs were going over my chapter when we came to the scene where my h/h are waking up in bed together. The hero gets out of bed wearing only flannel pajama bottoms and one of my CPs said, “Please DO NOT tell me those are plaid flannel pajamas!”And when I said yes they were she groaned, “Romance heroes do NOT wear plaid flannel pajamas!”

Of course I disagreed. After all, I’d already shown that he was a pretty conservative guy who wears blue pin-striped boxers, and they were in a chilly climate. Then I went into TMI (too much information) territory and added that my DH wears plaid flannel pajamas AND he even has a pair with green smiling monkeys (that I bought for him). Clearly this was waaay more than my CP wanted to know and forever ruined my DH’s chances of being a Romance Hero in her book.

Still, I was left wondering if what a hero WEARS makes him any more or less a hero? If so, then some of those historical costumes look pretty silly to me, and I’m personally not fond of cowboy hats (or most other hats) on ANYONE. And while I’m thinking about it my LC (lovely child) is a lot closer to my hero’s age than my DH and LC wears ratty old sweatpants to bed (at least when he visits me). I definitely can’t picture a Romance Hero in THOSE!