Growing attraction between characters

I love romances—I write them and read them—and so I tend to be picky about how romance develops between characters.

I got two tips from a workshop given by Jennifer Crusie:

Trigger pleasant childhood sensory memories.

Early in childhood, we develop sensory memories tied to pleasant events. The cottony smell of Mama’s sewing room, or the buzzing sound of Dad running the saw in his workshop. Happy times linked to smell, sound, touch, taste, or specific visual cues.

When two people start to fall in love, one person will trigger one of those pleasant sensory memories in the other.

For example, Jenny Crusie gave a scene from her book where the heroine fried eggs in butter for the hero for breakfast. The smell of the butter brought back happy memories of the hero’s mother cooking for him.

Another example was when the heroine first glimpses the hero, and he reminds her of the one person she trusts in the world, an old mobster named Joey—the visual cue triggered pleasant memories for her because she loves Joey.

In your romance, think about how you can start to develop the romance by triggering sensory memories.

The hero and heroine start to mirror each other’s actions.

Jenny Crusie mentioned this was something a college anthropology or sociology class discovered. In a bar, couples who were successful in “hooking up” started to mirror each other’s actions. If she leaned on the bar, he did too. If he crossed his legs, she did too.

Have your characters start to mirror each other in subtle ways to indicate the advancement of their relationship. It doesn’t have to be obvious and in the reader’s face, but little things will help the reader start to track the progression of the romance.

Comments

Writing Fight Scenes

I love martial arts movies and action flicks. So naturally I'd write action scenes. I discovered that it takes a slightly different writing style. These are some of the things I learned, although this list isn't exhaustive by any means. Action-Reaction A fight scene is always Action-Reaction. He punches, she staggers back. She kicks, he blocks and swings a fist at her. Watch out for putting your reaction before your action: She staggered back when he slammed his fist into her shoulder. The rule of thumb is to have each action-reaction have its own paragraph, although that’s not always possible. Sometimes the sentences are too short for their own paragraphs and can be combined. It’s up to the writer how to format it: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. versus: He swung a roundhouse punch. She bent backward and felt his knuckles swish past her nose. Short sentences = fast reading flow Use short sentences and phrases to make re...

How to write a kiss

There was a question on the writer’s Discord server that I’m on where someone asked how to write a kiss. They weren’t specifically asking me, but I was able to give a short answer for how I write kisses. I write and read traditional romances, so my kiss scenes tend to be heavily influenced by the genre and by how my editors critiqued my manuscripts. You basically want to focus on the emotion of the kiss and how the kiss makes the point of view character feel, as opposed to going deep into physical detail. Ideally, the description will show that the kiss is something special and not just them macking. For example the kiss made her feel ___. Or the kiss was ___ which made it seem that he felt ___ for her. “The kiss made her feel as if she were incredibly precious to him.” “His lips were gentle and almost tentative, as if he were afraid of frightening her.” “The kiss surprised her and yet felt as familiar as if they’d kissed a thousand times before. The kiss felt like home.” I...

The 50-word elevator pitch

The 50-word elevator pitch: Basic story elements and a two-sentence novel summary Writing a 50-word summary is good to help you condense your thoughts and themes for your novel. This summary can be used when you pitch to editors or agents, and it can also be used in a query letter to an editor or agent. Swain gives this excellent method to come up with a 2-sentence (or 50-word) summary of your novel. This can be done before you write it or afterward, whichever works best for your writing style. This is similar to steps 1 and 2 of Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake method : https://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/ Each novel typically has five basic story elements: Character --Your protagonist or focal character. You can sometimes have two protagonists, but even then, often the story of one character is slightly more dominant than the other. Situation --The troubling situation your character is stuck in that forces him to act. Objective --What y...

Story Sensei

Search This Blog