Writer to writer: From think to ink - Gail Carson Levine 2014

Love’s labor found
Character nitty-gritty

I enjoy brewing up romance, but some on the blog struggle with it. When I want people to fall in love, I think of them as jigsaw pieces that need to fit together. This bit of him has to satisfy that place in her that’s missing or has been starved, and vice versa. Maybe I see it this way because of my parents, who stayed in love for forty-nine years until my father’s death. My mom finished college (at the age of sixteen); my dad didn’t complete high school, and he loved having a brilliant wife. He was smart, too, but very modest. My mother loved his innocence and sweetness. She could be a wee bit tart. He loved her complexity. They argued sometimes, but fundamentally they filled the crevices in each other that needed filling.

In my Princess Tale Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep, I echo my parents’ relationship. Princess Sonora is the smartest person on Earth by a factor of ten. She’s eager to share her knowledge, but no one wants to listen. Prince Christopher is curious about everything, and people tire of his endless questions. They’re made for each other. In another Princess Tale, The Fairy’s Return, Robin makes up jokes, for which he is scorned by his father and brothers. Princess Lark thinks his jokes are hysterical. Everyone treats her with kid gloves, which makes her feel stifled, but Robin doesn’t. They, too, are primed for love. So one strategy is to think about what our characters may need and even crave.

Here’s another: When you approach writing romance think of . . . your pet. A dog or cat needs care and calls on us for protection. That protectiveness is part of love, and a mutual part, too. The boy isn’t always watching out for the girl; she’s got his back, too. In Ella Enchanted, for example, Char shows up in time to keep Ella from being eaten by ogres, but she saves him and his knights by making the ogres docile.

Animals can’t hide their feelings. We know when they’re happy, frightened, stubborn, or jealous. We see them at their worst and love them anyway. They’re naked literally (unless decked out in a vest or party hat!) and figuratively. Their openness makes us free. We tell our pets our secrets and let them see us cry and pound the pillow. This kind of intimacy and acceptance is part of love. In my novel Fairest, for example, Ijori is aware of Aza’s self-loathing and loves her anyway, and she forgives him and loves him even after he lets himself be convinced that she might be part ogre.

Admiration can advance love. We usually think better of a person who thinks well of us, and so can your characters. In Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland admires Henry Tilney, and her admiration sparks his love for her.

And fun moves romance along. I just looked at the romantic moments in some of my books. The heroes and heroines are having a terrific time together. Mutual appreciation ricochets back and forth, and each character feels at his or her best, wittiest, most interesting, handsomest or prettiest, most awake, most alive when they’re together.

Then there’s the physical side of romance, the chemistry. The two can simply stand near each other and feel the air shimmer between them. Their eyes can meet. Eye contact is powerful and can be romantic if the gaze is soft. In a tender moment, a character can notice his breathing become shallow; another can feel warm in a chilly room. One or both can blush. I searched online for “signs of romantic attraction” and read that hair touching, licking one’s lips, dropping the gaze and then looking back, and leaning toward the other person can be signs.

We can make up our own signs, too. Suppose Gloria has a tiny scar next to her right eye, which embarrasses her. When she’s attracted to a boy, she puts her hand on the spot to cover it. Then she thinks that may look silly, so she takes her hand away. We put her through this quick sequence a couple of times at a party to introduce it. (We don’t want to overdo.) Then, two days later, she sits next to Jeff at a school play and does it. The reader understands instantly what’s going on.

Or Jeff becomes clumsy in the presence of someone he likes. Stuart pulls his shoulders back and widens his stance. Sharyn rises on tiptoe.

Often it’s an accumulation of incidents and character traits that produces like and love. Somebody says something that expresses exactly how you feel but have never been able to put into words, and you sense a deep connection with him or her. This may be trite, but a smile that lights up a face can flip my heart. Humor, as long as it’s not at anyone’s expense, draws me in, too.

Details count in writing love as in writing everything else. The reader needs to know exactly what the heroine said that flew straight into the hero’s soul. And the reader has to be told enough about the hero to understand why he’s so touched. For example, my late and much-missed friend Nedda often told stories on herself and laughed uproariously. I adored the stories and the loud belly laugh, but someone else might have been embarrassed by one or both.

If the romance in our story is just a subplot, the love can go well. But if the main event is romance, then we need trouble. The ending has to be earned with serious or comic misery. Jeff can be too shy to approach Gloria. Sharyn’s parents can move the family to Belgium just when she and Stuart start opening up to each other. An old boyfriend or girlfriend returns. A misunderstanding occurs. Or anything else.

But the process is reversed in a tragic romance. In the beginning or the middle, we need joy, compatibility, delight in the loved one’s company, along with hints that sadness lies ahead.

When we write romance, it’s reassuring to know that the reader will do some of our work for us, because it is a truth universally acknowledged that the reader, upon encountering two unattached characters, will speculate about, and most likely wish for, romance between them.

I heart making people fall in love!

Writing time!

• Siderita is a dryad who’s out of her tree for the first time in centuries. Zack is a modern city kid who’s forest phobic. Write their romance. Try it from one POV and then switch.

• Invent a romance between Gretel, of “Hansel and Gretel” fame, and Rumpelstiltskin. She’s smart and fearless. He can spin straw and who-knows-what-else into gold.

• Hannah and Reed are at a party together. They’ve barely met, but their friends think they’re perfect for each other. Make it all go horribly wrong. If you like, continue the story and end with a valentine.

Have fun, and save what you write!