the craft. falling in love on the page.
I know we’re all not romance writers here, but if you would indulge me for the week. I would even say that if you’re not writing romance, you’re likely still writing about other relationships, so information here may still be applicable. But I want to talk about the work of writing two people falling in love on the page. Not easy, no matter what reputation romance writing gets, by the way. I’ll tell you who has it easy, film and TV.
Let me explain. As much as I read, I also watch a lot of films for inspiration. Real life is not always romantic so while I’m writing about two people falling in love, I like to get lost in the fairytale that is onscreen love stories. Recently while watching Nobody Wants This, I realized that having a visual helps tell the story in a way that’s harder to achieve in literature. There are longing glances, delicate touches, that don’t have to be explained because well, we see it. Writing this nuance is so much harder when you have to paint the whole picture for the reader.
This time around, I’ve been focused on “beefing up” the romance in my current manuscript and also ensuring that each step makes sense. The reality is, we’re often trying to showcase this enviable love in a very short period of time. That takes precision and a lot of calculation that can’t feel contrived. Is your brain already exploding because, yeah.
But here are a few things I’m focused on writing a new story.
Sensory Layering, Metaphor, and Subtext. This isn’t something that I usually focus on in a first draft by the way. But I’ve found myself wanting to start with a better grasp on these elements of storytelling and narrative. I’m reminding myself that editing and revision is indeed a thing and that’s where this should come into play. I tend to write very plainly as a starter. But as I become a better writer, I think I’m more in my head about how things show up on the page from the beginning. Which I shouldn’t but when I think about the writers that I admire the most and my own work, that’s the difference. They have this way of using all our senses in a scene that gives it a depth. They can connect what may be happening physically to an emotional experience helping to tell the story in a more poetic way. And they can use physical descriptions as indirect emotional revelations. If this all sounds like another language to you, well that’s what those three elements produce.
I want to remind myself and you, writing the first draft is telling ourselves the story and it’s not going to have all the most flowery poetic language in that stage. However, romance needs flowery language eventually! It’s that command of craft that will have us repeating lines like “you had me at hello” until the end of time.
Earning the swoon moments. While a film can give us the montage, writing novels doesn’t quite work like that. We’re in it with these characters and it has to make some kind of sense. WHY does this person fall for them? I remember my mom asking me about my debut novel. Like what was it about Carli that Tau liked so much? Why her? For me it was about the fact that Tau was used to women fawning over him and the first moment it became more than the physical attraction was when she told him the truth about the song he played in the car. We can’t shove the romance in our readers’ faces, we have to make the characters earn it.
Dialogue. Great dialogue matters no matter what you’re writing but it’s that special courting banter that comes to life in most romances. What conversations are they having that truly showcase that something deeper is happening? How are you revealing backstory in some of those exchanges? Are they speaking the way that real people talk to one another? It’s easy for me to write male characters because well, I’m a bit tapped into my masculine and feminine energy, as the kids say. I’ve also spent a lot of time around men in my life. Dad, brother, lots of male cousins. What is difficult for me right now? I decided to write a Jamaican character. Oh yeah, I love torture. I mean the reality is, he speaks English, however when interacting with Jamaican characters, he speaks patois and alas … I’m trying to piece that together. But the important part around dialogue is reading it out loud. Believe me, if it sounds weird when you are reading it, it will sound weird to your audience as well. Also for me, I’ll be having some of my Jamaican friends do reads for me. (If that’s you, let me know. LOL.)
Tension and release. Last but not least, I get so annoyed when the two people in the story don’t just get together, but there’s no story when that happens. That push and pull is what keeps us interested and yelling at the TV screen if you’re me. They take a step forward in their relationship and something knocks them a step back. Until they reach this climax point right? Will it happen or will it not? And then we decide which way it should go. I’m interested right now in stories where the two people don’t end up together and how to still make that emotionally satisfying for the reader.
Another note I’ll just add here is literally having the two characters on the page. Sometimes when we’re factoring in the other elements of the world building, we can lose those precious interactions between the two characters falling in love. I’ve given feedback to other writers where I’m like, we want more of them on the page! Those moments give us the real warmth and fuzzies and invite us as the reader to fall in love with the character just like our protagonist is.
While I’m constantly grappling with the idea of considering myself an actual romance writer, I think every story I tell will be a love story. Whether it's a romantic, platonic, or multi-generational family love story. All these things will still apply.
If you do dabble in the romance of it all in fiction, what are some of the challenges you find?
Writing Opportunities
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