Writing Romance

You know - I'm really bad at writing romance.

I get complaints from my readers. They say they want more fluff and I'd like to give it to them, but unfortunately I suck at it. I sit down to write a kissing scene and I start staring at the ceiling. After serious pondering I write something lame like; 'He reached for her' then period - space - space. Then I'm looking at the ceiling again and I come up with another winning line like; ' Their hands met' - period - space - space. And then it seriously takes a few more minutes for me to come up with the next sentence. It's SO pathetic! Especially when the next line is; 'His skin felt warm'. And by this point, I've given up describing what's happening and instead I've moved to explain the main character's thoughts, but unfortunately - that's not much funner. I've come up with some genius line like 'And she knew that their relationship would never be the same'. So, I haven't actually described the kiss - either the emotional ramifications or the physical act of kissing. No wonder my readers are unsatisfied and complaining. I'd be annoyed if I was reading it too.

I can't help the physical aspect though. I don't know what could possibly cure me of my squeamishness. If I'm reading something and the author starts on this gory description of someone's tongue or something worse - I get ill. The book will probably meet its demise by being chucked across the room. I'll switch off the lamp on my nightstand and go to sleep instead. Yet a simple line like 'They kissed' doesn't make me happy. The author inside me screams for something with a greater impact.

Do you see how trapped I am?

The chapter I suffered the most from my limitations was a chapter called 'Sister of Night' in 'Mystic Wings'. That's a chapter that's supposed to basically a seduction scene. I agonized about how I should play it for weeks. Finally I sent it to one of my friends for their opinion. She suggested that I use the word 'sensual'. I was HORRIFIED. If I seriously wrote that word in any of my writing and I was reading it later, I would end up choking on my own tongue. In the end, I released the chapter when I was still feeling unsatisfied. The thing was, I didn't think that I was EVER going to feel totally comfy with it, so I figured I might as well just get over it. And yet, I've received comments from several people letting me know that that chapter was one of their favourites.

My dilemma is the reason why I usually revert to describing the character's emotions and thoughts instead of what's actually happening. I realize this is a cop-out and I don't like copping out.

As for fluff, which I always think of as a synonym for 'blowing sunshine' on someone. The greatest example of this would be when one character sits down and explains all the things they love about their lover. This feels really fake to me, but is seriously preferably to their physical demonstration, so - I occasionally revert to this.

But does it make anyone besides me happy? The biggest example of this is in a chapter of 'Mystic Wings'. The chapter is called 'Heart of the Dragon'. Van is pacing by the pool explaining his feelings for Hitomi. He thinks he's alone, but she's hiding and listening to every word he says. When I finished writing this chapter, I thought that I was finally giving my precious readers what they were craving in the fluff department, but I got some serious blow-back on my forums about it. Heck!

But there is one happy thing for me. Chapter 18 of 'Dragon's Moon' was originally a make-out scene, but when I was reworking it I sat there thinking 'this is tacky and it doesn't even make sense'. So, I rewrote the entire chapter so that Van and Hitomi are fighting and they don't even kiss. That chapter has the highest number of hits of ANY other chapter in the serious. Wasn't it great?

But even if that was the case once, most girl readers prefer love to war and they would rather see the characters fall and love and be in love, even if they like angry sparks from time to time. I think I'd rather write war, but if that's the case, why do I like reading romance so much! I must be the biggest hypocrite of all time.