Nora Hamilton is the protagonist and first-person narrator of Nora Goes Off Script. She is 39, recently divorced, and mother to Bernadette and Arthur. Nora is a screenwriter for The Romance Channel but is described as “not much of a romantic” (24). Nora’s only significant relationship was her loveless marriage to her ex-husband, Ben. Without any real-world experience in love, she feels little emotional attachment to her work, appreciating instead the mathematical sense of “methodically placing a man and woman in the same shiny town, populated by unusually happy people with maddeningly small problems” (5), which always results in a romantic happy ending. Nevertheless, Nora enjoys her work and is grateful that writing has allowed her to support herself and her family.

This sense of independence is important to Nora. She kept her family’s life on track for 10 years despite having a husband who refused to work and constantly ran up her credit cards. They had “a life that worked as long as [Nora] kept moving” (22), and she did. Without Ben, she takes pride in her ability to do it all. Nora also takes pride in remaining grounded. Like her conventional romance movies, Nora follows a specific formula, a daily structure of routines that allows her to stay in control of her life.