http:\/\/blog.schoollibraryjournal.com\/afuse8production\/2012\/01\/25\/review-of-the-day-forgive-me-i-meant-to-do-it-by-gail-carson-levine\/<\/a>.<\/p>\nIn August, M.K.B. wrote, ….I’m having some difficulty showing romance in my story. I mean, I can easily show that they like each other, but it’s kind of difficult to decide when it happens and all that. How do I decide when it\u2019s right to show it?<\/i><\/p>\n
If your story is primarily a romance, you probably want the reader to get that pretty quickly. The two lovebirds don\u2019t have to start cooing as soon as they meet, but the idea should be introduced, not necessarily by the main characters. For example, Jack can be with his friend Kath when she says, \u201cI see you as Romance Guy in a movie.\u201d Jack, astonished, blurts out, \u201cBut I have cowlicks!\u201d Kath responds, \u201cCowlicks are nothing compared to intensity. You are a laser. When you choose someone to focus on, there will be combustion. Trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then the story can return to whatever the subplots may be: Jack\u2019s difficulty mastering geography or his general lack of self-confidence (which could affect the romance later on), Kath\u2019s running argument with her older sister, anything. Maybe we glimpse our heroine Wanda alone in the school cafeteria, hunched over a volume of Shakespearean sonnets.<\/p>\n
The point is, the reader should know early on what genre he\u2019s wandered into. The book jacket will tell, but we can\u2019t rely on that. If the romantic element is delayed for forty pages the reader is likely to feel confused, maybe even cheated by the hype on the cover.<\/p>\n
Then, how quickly the romance develops will depend on your story. Everything can move along at a fast pace if big problems are on the way. The reader will see 200 more pages ahead and steel himself for trouble. Will an old love interest show up? Will Jack\u2019s family be relocated from Cincinnati to Belgium? Will Jack, because of his low self-esteem, doubt Wanda\u2019s affection? Or the romance can be beset with trouble from the start. It can be one-sided, for example, as in Pride and Prejudice<\/i>. The two can be separated by distance, as in the movie, Sleepless in Seattle<\/i>, or by misconception, as in the movie While You Were Sleeping<\/i>, or by a curse, as in You-Know-What<\/i>. There are myriad devices you can use.<\/p>\n
If your story isn\u2019t primarily a romance, you can take your time. Lots of readers like a little love enrichment to another kind of tale. Jack\u2019s problem may be his hyper self-criticism rather than his love life. The climax will center around that. Wanda, who can be introduced on page 112, helps him see himself more positively, and she may provide relief for the reader who is suffering because of his self-negativity. But the primary problem is his to solve.<\/p>\n
Or Jack is Prince Jack setting out to reconquer a rogue province overrun by the mole people, and coincidentally his regent\u2019s daughter is being held hostage by the mole folks. There may be merely the slightest hint of romantic possibilities between the dashing Jack and the pulchritudinous Wanda. Nothing has to flower ever.<\/p>\n
In a related question, Alex wrote on January 5, 2012, So I have a question about cliches. I know some of them are inevitable, but I want to stay away from them as much as possible.<\/p>\n
In my book, I guess you could say the romantic plot starts off as cliche (he’s the new boy in town). But it ends in a way that I don’t think is cliche at all – it’s complicated, but it ends sadly. My question is this – how should I make it so that the beginning, even if it is cliched, keeps readers hooked and not groaning at yet another cliched book? Or is there a way to introduce a male character as someone the MC has never known before in a non-cliched way?<\/i><\/p>\n
Later, Alex added, ….The thing is, it doesn’t start off as a romance, not really. The romance starts around 27k in. And the romance is just a subplot. I’m just worried that people will think it’s like all the other Insta-love YA romances there are today, when it’s not.<\/i>
\n
\nI mention the reader a lot on the blog. I\u2019ve even brought him up a few times in this post, but I think we tend to worry about him too much sometimes, and we don\u2019t give him enough credit. If he\u2019s reading Alex\u2019s book and he\u2019s 27k in (not sure how far in this is, but I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s beyond the first chapter), he should know by now that the story isn\u2019t cliched. <\/p>\n
People travel. Boys and girls arrive in towns, are treated well or badly, fall in love or not, stay for years or leave quickly. There\u2019s drama in a new personality acting on the old cast of characters, either from the POV of a long-time resident or of the newcomer. If we avoid writing about this for fear of introducing a cliche, we\u2019re cutting ourselves off from an important subject.<\/p>\n
An old post is about cliches. You can reread it at http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.blogspot.com\/search\/label\/cliches<\/a>. But that post is about cliched language not cliched ideas. What\u2019s important about ideas is how they\u2019re expressed: what the writing is like, how the idea is developed. One might make a case that romance itself is cliched, but zillions of books, poems, movies, operas, plays have been written on the subject and people keep finding something fresh to say.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t work that\u2019s unoriginal. We\u2019ve all started books or movies and known what\u2019s coming next. The problem in these imitations may be a failure of invention or timidity, but I doubt it\u2019s simply the new guy in town.<\/p>\n
Of course, you can change the newness. Sean can be new because he\u2019s returning after an absence. Maybe he suffered a long illness or an alien abduction or two years at a school for acrobats. He\u2019s old but he\u2019s new. Or he can be old but changed. He\u2019s had an epiphany. He\u2019s out of pig wrestling and into Edwardian novels. Or he had a quick, overnight alien abduction. Or his mother died. So he\u2019s different. Or Amy is changed; she perceives Sean in a new way because she\u2019s given up pig wrestling or been abducted by aliens or her mother died.<\/p>\n
Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2219 Challenge yourself. Think of unusual ways to separate your lovers. Write a list of ten possibilities. Pick one or more and write a story.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Here\u2019s what I think may be an unusual pairing: She\u2019s a dryad who\u2019s been in her tree since ancient times. He\u2019s modern, a techie, forest phobic. Write their romance. Try it from one POV and then switch.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write a scene between Jack and Wanda if the story is about his lack of self-confidence. Allow the romance to develop but don\u2019t let it solve his problem.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Amy returns to school after a weekend in a spaceship with aliens from Alpha Centauri who impress her with their civilized ways. She finds herself viewing her own classmates as savages, except for Sean, whom she now sees in a new light. Write a lunch scene.<\/p>\n
Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back from vacation in sunny Tucson. Thanks for keeping the blog going last week! Before the post starts, here\u2019s a great, over the top review of my upcoming book, Forgive Me, I Meant to Do It: http:\/\/blog.schoollibraryjournal.com\/afuse8production\/2012\/01\/25\/review-of-the-day-forgive-me-i-meant-to-do-it-by-gail-carson-levine\/. In August, M.K.B. wrote, ….I’m having some difficulty showing romance in my story. I mean, I can easily […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[143,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}