I Write Crappy Romance

Okay, so I’d much rather torture, maim, and dismember my characters, make them fight amongst themselves, even kill them off. You want a story with severed body parts flying around, characters sacrificing themselves to save a realm, acidic demon blood that eats through clothing and flesh? I’m your writer! (Not like my books are filled with carnage from cover to cover, but they have their exciting moments.)

I don’t write sappy romance. I couldn’t if I wanted to. When I’m experimenting with a love scene, or even partially mushy dialogue, I blush and squirm and giggle while bemoaning the fact that the scene is, like, soo totally corny.

But like most females, I do appreciate a good kiss scene–especially if it’s between pirates, star-crossed lovers (think Edward Scissorhands rather than Edward Cullen), or a skeleton and a rag doll. Even better if I’ve had to wait through tons of action, while the tension builds, until finally somebody gets kissed and it’s epic. And there are body parts and blood flying around in the background.

Don’t get me wrong, I want romance in my stories, but the romantic element needs to be a side plot off the main action story. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the romance genre, I’m just more into action and adventure.

So I’m coming up on this scene where my two main characters finally come to terms with their feelings for each other. There will be kissing. There will be mushy dialogue. There will be much giggling and blushing from me, and probably a lot of deleting. I think I liked it better when these two particular characters were trying to kill each other.

At least there are some romantic scenes coming up in Harry Potter that I can draw on for examples. I’m on Order of the Phoenix, and I do know there are some kissing scenes between Harry and his first crush, Cho (awkward first-love kissing scenes at that), and, later, Harry and Ginny.

I think I’m going to have to alter my to-read list and include books with more kissing. Ugh. *squirm, blush*