Keeping Close Quarters
It’s a fact that in life and in romance fiction of any kind, for two people to fall in love they must be thrown into circumstances that require them to spend a great deal of time together. Usually forcing some sort of intimacy which results in the H/H sharing a small space for personal activities. Hot alpha male in a towel with wet hair anyone?
If you haven’t learned this in life, you are more than likely single. I remember hearing a statistic years ago that a majority of married couples meet in college. It’s no wonder when most college campuses are small remote communities where young people live in very close quarters.
In many writing discussions, the conflict is the focus. Finding the conflict that is going to keep your H/H from being together. But I think an author also must find a way to keep the H/H together. Will they work together, live next door, attend the same country house-party, or go on the run from a serial killer who wants the heroine dead for reasons that she and the hunky, buff FBI agent with the over-riding urge to protect her cannot figure out? Come on, you know we’ve all read that one. And we live for that moment when he gives into the chemistry and sexual tension that has been building for ten chapters to get up off that couch and climb into her bed.
Suspense novels are very good at doing this. Something about a situation being a matter of life or death causes people to bond and bond quick. (Yes, Captain, the movie Speed comes to mind here.) The couple always fights the attraction, the all important inner conflict, but the author forces them to come to terms with what they are feeling. Not many characters can hold onto their stubbornness in the face of seeing the person they love bleeding to death.
So what device or circumstance will you throw your H/H into? How will you get them together and then make sure they stay in each other’s faces (and personal space) until they eliminate that pesky little conflict and find love? For the readers out there, what situations like these do you most enjoy and which turn you off?
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36 comments:
Since I write romantic suspense, I'll cop to the heroine being chased by the serial killer with the hunky, over-protective FBI agent. Or in my case, private body-guard. :)
I absolutely agree that while there's got to be something holding them apart, there also needs to be something forcing them together. Push and pull at the same time. I think you're right that suspense authors have it easier, as the danger automatically pulls them together and forces them to stay that way. At the same time, the romance has to be believable enough that once the danger is over, the readers know they'll still be able to make it work. That it wasn't just the adrenaline holding them together, but actual happily-ever-after love.
I can't think of what situation turns me off, as a reader, but I know my absolute favorite way of holding them together is a forced/arranged marriage.
Great blog Ter! (and thanks :))
Oh, and you're welcome. :)
Hal - Cop out! LOL! J/K. Because of the high adrenaline, RS usually also has some of the best sexual tension. Love me some sexual tension. LOL!
But with non-suspense novels, it's harder to come up with something to throw them together. In an Historical I would think it's even harder with the societal restrictions and the chaperones et al.
I also worry about using a situation that feels contrived. That's the worst. If I'm reading and thinking, these two don't really need to be in this situation, then it ruins the story for me.
BTW - I should probably mention that this is sort of a rehashed blog I created for totally different site quite some time ago. So if a few of you are experiencing deja vu, it's not your imagination. LOL!
I like a good adrenaline rush too. My current favorite adrenaline rushes come from Transporter movies. *LOL* Car chases, possible death at every turn, and intimacy from being trapped in a car together for the ultimate road trip.
I don't really have a whole lot keeping my H/H in close quarters. Currently the H/H, a divorced couple, have to share a one-bedroom apartment...so that's about as intimate as it gets. The urgency is they have to find new spouses--and if they don't they're stuck with each other in even closer quarters--but presumably they hate each other, so they're really working hard to find the new spouses. That's about it. Maybe I should write a romantic suspense instead. *LOL* Something with a car chase.
I'm sure Lucy would LOVE to be part of a car chase. LOL! You need to work that in somewhere.
I had to find a way to keep throwing my H/H together in my latest MS, too. I knew he was going to be a FBI agent undercover as a Catholic priest, and she was going to be a parishioner, but then my writing partner and I were like "Well, why wouldn't she just avoid him?"
We gave her the job as parish secretary, so for 40 hours a week, she's ten steps away. And what good hero could resist dropping by?
I'm going to sound like a sadist, but I do so love tormenting my characters like this.
Jordan - Don't you hate when there's a simple answer for them NOT being together? LOL! I'm finding that if I find a reason for them to *need* each other, it helps make the situation more believable. My H/H are new neighbors who start off on a very bad note, then learn they have to work together. Though one or the other could decide not to work with the other, I created a reason for them both to need the other. And that wasn't easy with no one shooting or chasing them. LOL!
Have you ever read LaVyrle Spencer's Then Came Heaven? The heroine is a nun in that one and I'm guessing there would be some similar dynamics with yours even if the hero is only pretending to be a priest.
Lucy would love a car chase. I'd have to give him a cool car though. I currently have a thing for 1999 black BMW 735s...but whatever. Something classic and badass would work too.
A reason for the H/H to be together. That is hard to do. *LOL* I have a problem doing that successfully. I keep trying to use gravity, but that doesn't work.
I sometimes think I'm the only romantic aboard this ship!
The lovers don't have to be forced into close proximity.
The hint of a smile across a crowded room. The laughter and joy that radiates from the heroine when the hero is in the same room. The chivalrous way in which the hero opens the bedroom door. All provide a fatal attraction which the lovers spend much of the novel trying to resist.You simply can't fight chemistry! *grin*
In my opinion love in both fiction and reality involves a great deal of 'pull' and very little 'push'.
Course I don't claim to be an expert! :lol:
Q, I wouldn't be surprised if you were. Of me and my honey, HE'S the romantic, not me. It's alarming the stuff he finds romantic.
Chemistry is hard to avoid. Impossible really.
I love boys in SWAT gear. *shiver*
Let's see.
In DV, Sadie is put under house arrest by the FBI after a situation goes sour. The wonderfully hot Ruiz will be playing her guard dog. He's not happy about it. She's not happy about it. But there is a deliciously hot PI who's been hired by the bad guy to sniff out Sadie. It's a lot of fun. Ruiz makes pancakes. I love a man who can cook and looks damn sexy after a shower.
In AFT, Cin fights what she is, gets away from her captor and ends up shadowing what she thinks is a human male who may just have ancestory within her kind. It turns out that he's just really good at hiding who he truly is and is keeping Cin close to make sure she's not out to cause WWIII.
Q - You give too much credit to chemistry, though I agree it's a powerful thing, and not enough to how stubborn the typical human can be. It's often a case of girl meets boy, attraction sparks, they never see each other and spark gets smothered. In order to sustain a believable romance story, there has to be a reason for the H/H to be in each others' company.
And I have no doubt you're the only true romantic around these parts. LOL! The rest of us are too jaded and cynical to retain our romantic cards.
Hellie - I'm still running on your case being the exception that proves the rule. :)
Sin - Does he make these pancakes while still wet and wearing the towel from the shower? I'm getting a very good image here.....
Where was I?
Terri, the spark that fades is just lust.
True love is like a forest fire. The pair being consumed manufacture reasons to be together.
Ask Helli...she knows! :wink:
I love a plot where the H/H have a past, and they find themselves thrown together once again. I want there to be something that binds them together, in a way that the circumstances can't be ignored.
I love me some hot alpha male action. I also like sex scenes in out of the way places. I'm a voyeur, in my imagination:) I know this subject wasn't mentioned in the questions, but I thought I'd throw it out there. It must be the glittery hooha coming out in me.
I have to agree with Q, I love a heated glance across a crowded ballroom. If it leads to a naughty meeting in the garden, or an alcove, even better.
Is it warm in here?
That's okay, I'm still sorta waiting for my honey to be the exception and not the rule too. *LOL* So far though... I guess it's just a matter of how long it's supposed to last in theory. *LOL* If it's to last until one of us dies, well, we'll see. *LOL* But I won't be the one holding my breath.
Lisa - I'm pretty sure sex is implied in every question around here. LOL! How about the parking garage scene in Smooth Talking Stranger? THAT was interesting.
Q - You've proven my point, they have to manufacture reasons to be together which in turn means we as authors have to manufacture a way for them to be together. Now, how do you do that? :)
Hellie - If you do hold your breath, that til death do you part thing will come quicker. LOL! Less fun that way though...
Hmmmmm... How do ya throw together the H/H so they cannot jus' avoid each other? Well, I put me two on a ship. I made 'er need sex...I made 'im like that part a' things...
I have more problems wit' why they don't stay tagether! But as the sex growns inta something deeper and the magic begins ta come through...but that be the inner conflict.
Sailin' ta save the world, amidst the danger is enough in the beginnin'. I think I'm playin' wit' a different deck... As I argued wit' me critique partner, they don't start out makin' love. They start out havin' sex. Intimacy grows after that...
Q—I think this post addresses a slightly different situation. It's not the moth-to-a-flame attraction here, it's the question of "How do we get two people who are initially opposed to liking (or falling in love with) one another in the same place over and over again so they can grow on one another (or wear down their objections)?"
I personally like any forced arrangement. In mine, the hero kidnaps her (sorta) so that the demons won't kidnap her first.
Honestly, I love the arranged marriage/forced marriages of historicals as well.
And I like how Jordan puts this. Putting them together repeatedly so they can grow on one another. :) Perfect. :)
Thank goodness someone got it! LOL! I never seem to get my actual point across in these things. Jordan, I think I love you. ;)
Marn - I think the arranged marriage works in Historicals because there is the implied understanding (even if sometimes wrong) that divorce is not an option. So it's deal with each other or don't, but no one's leaving. Then again, in reality married couples would have had little trouble living apart in different eras of history (I do not claim to be an expert on which eras but I know it happened) so even then you have to figure out how to keep them from going their separate ways.
Chance - So basically, you cheat. LOL! Pirate!
I'm a big proponent that couples often start out having sex and then move into making love. And the scene where the transition happens is one of my favorites. As they say, sex complicates everything, even when you're not having it. LOL! So you picked the greatest complication of all and made it mandatory. That takes cajones, girly.
Terr—I feel so loved. :D
Come to think of it, this is also a question of external vs. internal conflicts. If the H/H flat out love each other, you're going to need external conflict to keep them apart long enough to wring a novel out of their story. If the H/H don't initially love each other, you heighten the internal conflict by throwing them together until they do.
Lisa, its wonderful to find someone agreeing with me! 8)
Terri, You're as bad as my wife! When she tries to prove me wrong, her strategy always convinces me that she is agreeing with me. And anyway that smile always wins in the end!
Jordan, I hope I'm not totally off track. I think that the spark of love is competing with other more superficial reasons to stay apart. Logical reasoning keeps them apart but the more powerful inner intuitive forces find excuses to ignore the rationality. So rather than manufacturing reasons to be together they find excuses for their paths to cross. At each crossing the forest fire spreads. So we're both right? *grin*
*smooches*
This is a great point. Once you get them in the same room/cabin/car together and they start to fall, you have to drive a wrench into the situation from the outside. I think this is where real consequences come in and characters have to make choices. I admire that those Alpha boys always think they aren't good enough for the girl, but I have to tell you that conflict alone drives me bonkers! LOL!
For my WIP, if the heroine pursues the hero for good, she loses her job. A job she's worked long and hard to get and is the security she's desperately longed for. Then again, if she lets him go, it would tear her apart. Now, to make this believable and powerful enough to stand up to readers is another issue.
Q—Yes, I totally agree. And of course, the particulars depend on the particular story.
I'll always agree with you Q, you know that, love. *g*
Q - And I thought my wife chops were all rusty. *grins*
This talk is strictly about those excuses and reasons for the H/H to physically be in the same space. For instance, I can't keep sending my heroine across the hall for a cup of milk and I can't keep sending my hero across the hall to return some magazine he thinks was put in his mailbox that must be hers. That would last for about a page. LOL!
It would be all well and good for me to experience a lingering look with one of my neighbors and we could make googly eyes at each other everytime we happen to cross paths, but if I don't have a reason to engage him in conversation or something, those looks will never grow into anything more. (For the record, I DO NOT have a crush on any of my neighbors. This is just an example. LOL!)
T, You just had to mention the parking garage scene in STS... I heart Jack. Not as much as I heart Hardy, but he's in a league all his own.
Lisa - I feel the exact same way. LOL!
Terrio - Course I cheat! Never thought a' how I made it mandatory... Ain't like she'll wither and die if she don't *ahem*. But it helps ta keep the ship safe if'n she be fully charged. ;) Helps Jack, too!
I gots ta think about when, exactly the sex turns inta more. I know it gradually dawns on both a' them this be more than a satisfactory dalliance... I know when it happens in book two... But I gots ta give more ta it in book one.
A proposal...how the *ahem* do I write a series proposal? Aye, reality is leakin' in and threatenin' ta sink me happy boat.
Serve yourself some extra Glitter and check out the links here > http://www.manuscriptediting.com/proposals.htm
You'll be just fine. :)
And thanks!
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!
You're welcome. Can't wait to see what you put together.
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