Relationship with Newt Status: Newt's been "working late" at nights, so a Private Investigator has been hired to get the "money shot".Okay, so writing romantic scenes. Hmmmmm.
Okay, Okay. I digress. I approach romantic scenes in my book the exact same way. Just when the tension gets a little... palpable, my main characters always get sidetracked with the colors of rare and random vegetables. Now I am definitely not talking about the genre-type "Romancity Romance, with a side of romance", because my book is YA. But still... ummmm... they do .... like....date.
Once the scene was written, I closed that particular folder, and proceeded to ignore it for the rest of the year. When I finally read it again, it sounded less like two teenagers with mad crushes, and more like two five-year-olds in a sandbox, throwing toys at each other and eating dirt.So I decided to take a lesson from the suave oldies of Hollywood's Golden Years. You can't go wrong with Omar Sharif, right? He had it goin' on, didn't he? So I watched the video below. You only need to listen to the first 20 seconds. And then I returned to my book- the romantic scene- and just when things start to heat up, my book's romantic lead says to the main character, in the spirit of Omar, "I am man, you are woman. Let's kiss." My husband routinely disses musicals, because "Nobody just suddenly breaks out into song." But I learned quickly that some lines, like the "I am man, you are woman..." line, indeed, only sound good in song.So then I turned to the decade that ultimately shaped my entire being, the endurable 80's. I turned on the romantic ballads from that decade, like "In Your Eyes" and "Don't You Forget About Me" and "I've Had the Time of my Life."And the romantic climax of my book went through several crappy drafts, the final version sounding something like this: (I'm just going to call my main characters "Bill" and "Letty" since I don't want to spoil anything).Bill: I gave you my heart and you gave me a pen.Letty: Well, that's because you put me in the corner. Nobody puts Letty in the corner. Shut up and dance.For obvious reasons, I had to find different music. I'm not going to give any spoilers to my book, but I will share the song I finally found that totally shepherd-ed me through writing the scene, and also inspired some of the dialogue in the heartbreaking climax.
Okay, Okay. I digress. I approach romantic scenes in my book the exact same way. Just when the tension gets a little... palpable, my main characters always get sidetracked with the colors of rare and random vegetables. Now I am definitely not talking about the genre-type "Romancity Romance, with a side of romance", because my book is YA. But still... ummmm... they do .... like....date.
Once the scene was written, I closed that particular folder, and proceeded to ignore it for the rest of the year. When I finally read it again, it sounded less like two teenagers with mad crushes, and more like two five-year-olds in a sandbox, throwing toys at each other and eating dirt.So I decided to take a lesson from the suave oldies of Hollywood's Golden Years. You can't go wrong with Omar Sharif, right? He had it goin' on, didn't he? So I watched the video below. You only need to listen to the first 20 seconds. And then I returned to my book- the romantic scene- and just when things start to heat up, my book's romantic lead says to the main character, in the spirit of Omar, "I am man, you are woman. Let's kiss." My husband routinely disses musicals, because "Nobody just suddenly breaks out into song." But I learned quickly that some lines, like the "I am man, you are woman..." line, indeed, only sound good in song.So then I turned to the decade that ultimately shaped my entire being, the endurable 80's. I turned on the romantic ballads from that decade, like "In Your Eyes" and "Don't You Forget About Me" and "I've Had the Time of my Life."And the romantic climax of my book went through several crappy drafts, the final version sounding something like this: (I'm just going to call my main characters "Bill" and "Letty" since I don't want to spoil anything).Bill: I gave you my heart and you gave me a pen.Letty: Well, that's because you put me in the corner. Nobody puts Letty in the corner. Shut up and dance.For obvious reasons, I had to find different music. I'm not going to give any spoilers to my book, but I will share the song I finally found that totally shepherd-ed me through writing the scene, and also inspired some of the dialogue in the heartbreaking climax.
