I'm actually almost finished but I felt the need for one final headbang. [stunt

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Writing romance is very, very hard.

Which is why it baffles me so that I keep signing up to do it. Seriously, I don't know how to describe a kiss beyond noting that it happened. I don't know how to talk about the butterflies in the stomach without feeling like I've just chucked it in there with no context, or like it's just a sequence of events with no feeling. I don't know how to write a touch and make it sound sensual or romantic or anything. I just...don't know.Everything feels either superfluous and purple or stark and insufficient.

There really should be an advice/tips comm for this like there is for writing sex, because I'm starting to see that for all the touted horribleness of inexperienced writers writing sex writing romance is, in fact, harder.

Anyone else ever have this problem? Any advice? Anyone have a secret stash of beach novels I can raid for inspiration?

Okay. Almost done. Gonna do this now. *makes determined face*

Music:: "Time to Start" - Blue Man Group

Mood::

frustrated

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There are 6 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

I just read (well, skimmed) a book that could've been a textbook of how not to write a love story. In this book, the author:

Didn't show us the two main characters together until about halfway through.

Had the main characters think about how hopelessly they loved each other (starting at about page 10) but didn't show us any emotional intimacy between them or let us see the growth of their feelings for each other.

Gave both characters flings with other people with whom they were a lot more affectionate than they were with each other.

Never let the characters have more than a few paragraphs alone together, once they were finally in the same place, and basically put all the emotional work offscreen

Managed to make the couple's first sex scene completely lacking in emotional payoff (primarily by having written long earlier sequences in which one character hallucinated he was having mindblowing sex with the other, which hallucinations were described in much more detail than their real first time).

Basically, refused to show the characters as being vulnerable, anxious, giddy, or anything less than absolute self-controlled badasses at all times, so their great love was all tell and no show.

And introduced a stupid plot device (telepathic bonding) to guarantee that their perfect love would last forever, rather than convincing the reader that these guys loved each other at all.

It was not a fun read.

Edited Date: 2009-11-21 05:20 am (UTC)

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You know, that actually helps quite a lot, because I think I'm making a couple of those mistakes with the fic I'm writing (particularly 'never letting the characters be vulnerable'). It's a bit late-stage to do a major overhaul, but at least I can tweak and clean up the narration so the character seems less disconnected. Thank you!

(And yeah, even if I don't know what I'm doing so far as romance goes, there's always the dubious comfort that a good percentage of published fiction writers don't either. I'm in plenty of company, at least.)

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That is something of a problem. Sometimes I find that less is more when describing stuff like that. If you're good at characterization, then the reader's mind ought to be able to read the sensual romantic-ness into the touching and kissing without your having to go all purple with it. I dunno, that's my approach, anyway, because I'm shite at that kind of stuff. And I like to cheat. It also helps if you write from the POV of someone who isn't romantic, because then it's completely understandable when they have trouble describing it to us (the readers).

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I do hope that less is more, because less is what I end up doing most of the time - I'd rather be sparse than over-the-top, you know? And thanks for the advice on characterization; I suppose if the characters are vivid enough the reader can sort of fill in how things go based on how I've already drawn out the characters. Thanks!

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You might look up "Writing Romance Novels for Dummies"--I don't know how good it is, but it might give you a baseline at least.

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It'd be worth a try - thanks for pointing it out to me. Romance novels tend to get a little more florid in their descriptions than I'm comfortable writing, but maybe I need to push it a little since my writing tends towards the sparse.

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stunt_muppet

I'm actually almost finished but I felt the need for one final headbang.

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