16. Do you write romantic relationships?
How do you do withthose, and how "far"
are you willing to go in your writing? ;)
Ah, romantic relationships - such a neccesary part of many of my stories and of stories in general, but so hard to write! I have never been in a romantic relationship in real life with anything other than a costume, so writing realistic dialouge in a love scene is really hard for me. I will say that I have gotten much better at writing love scenes over the years (which is natural since I've gotten better at writing everything), but I'm still not sure how realistic it is or how well it reads. I think I've gotten good at writing the interactions between Melantha and Ketlan - considering how bad the loves scenes in the movies were written (so terrible!) but I really know the characters now and know how they interact much better than I did 15 years ago.
One of my biggest problems with romance - especially in longer story lines like multi-volume books and TV shows is that I sometimes feel the need to pair everybody up, which is not really a good thing. Not everyone has to or should be in love. Another problem is that I sometimes pair up the wrong people. Has anyone else ever done that? When you start off writing the book/movie/TV show you go into it with one pair in mind but end up with a different pair because you realized the first pairing didn't make sense. Unfortuneatly with The Gift Bearer I paired up two people in the TV Show that ended up together (sort of) who really aren't compatible in the long run and I have fixed that with the book. So the key to a good romance in a book is clearly making sure the right characters are paired up with each other and that they are definately compatible in the long run.
I think the most important key to a successful romance in a book (besides making sure the right characters are paired) is to start the romance right. I've learned from experience, and from an anti-romance tirade my brother went on that made some good points, that you can't just throw two people together and make them fall in love. They have to have a good reason, good chemistry, and have things in common. You can't just say "they're soulmates!" or "they're fated to be together!" without the romance being unbelieveable and cheesy (and occationally annoying). I've taken the soulmate route far too many times and it never works out well.
I think the best romantic pair I've ever created is actually Cat and DeCarlo from Pandora's Box. Although Ketlan and Melantha is pretty darn good too now that I've learned how to write them. And for the record -- I don't just have heterosexual couples, I have characters that are homosexual and bisexual as well. One character in particular springs to mind, but I won't tell you who it is. ;P
Oh and the second part of the question - "how far" am I willing to go? Well, when I wrote Destiny 15 years ago I was a very naive 16-17 year old. People only kissed if they were REALLY in love (and I never made the actors kiss. The first actual on screen kiss was in Pandora's Box four years later). Now I'm 32, went to college, and live with my married sister, so there are characters who have sex - a lot - and everyone knows about it. In one case I even decided to make a character get drunk so another character could seduce him because the poor guy was having a really REALLY bad week and only gets to have sex like five times in his entire life. So I was like -- you know what dude, you're getting laid now, enjoy. I'm a lot more willing to let the characters go wherever they want to. I don't write graphic sex scenes though, not out of a prudishness anymore but because I know it would be totally bad and not at all realistic. I might write some kissing n cuddling (even a little foreplay if I'm feeling daring - GASP!) but in general I just use the good old fashioned "go as far as your comfortable with then fade to black and cut to the morning after" method.
(played by Margaret Olson and Chris Hutchens)
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