Young Writers Society

Right o, i'm stuck, how do you write a love scene without making it sound corny, funny or depressing? I've come to a point where a main character needs a love life, but i cant think how.

Any advice??

Think about only your story, and stay away from other love stories. Also, just stay true to your character and who s/he is. Carefully placed humour always helps, too.

The Empire Strikes back is a perfect example. The scene where Han gets put into Carbon freezing had so much potential to be corny. In the origibal script, Leia says "I love you," the way she does in the movie, but Han also said "I love you," which is simply not who Han is. They tried the scene as written many many times, but it wasn't working. So the director told him to just say whatever comes to him, which is the take where he said, "I know." And there we have a very memorable scene, and something they were able to reference in Return of the Jedi.

Absolutely NO cliches. Erlack. *shudders*

Cheers for the advice, i'll have to go write that scene now, i've been putting it off to long.

Another question, related to this.

How do you introduce a "love at first sight" scene? I'm having a couple of difficulties, mostly because... well... the characters act slightly different than usual, since they're so surprised with each other.

Any suggestions?

It depends on how old they are. If you have younger people, like in my story, it's going to be a bit more awkward and 'like, wow'.

Take this, for example:

The girl sighs.

The same food as every night, the same dining room as always, the same peop-

Ohmygod.

She spies the boy. All the boys Mary had preciously thought were 'cute' looked to the girl like cows. But this one...she drops her fork and gazes at him across the table.

He suddenly notices her, cocks his head to one side, and stares at her with the same fascination.

If they're older, it's probably going to be a bit less 'Holy crap!' (they can be thinking that, but their actions won't show it.) I know I'm being vague now, but I can only lay out vague guidlines if I don't really know the character.

Girl = 20
Guy = 35

I'm doomed.

No, you're not. Just think about who these characters are, what they look like, and how they will feel about each other once they start the relationship.

Supposedly my grandfather fell in love at first sight. Ironically, they ended up together because of a mix up in arranging a blind date. But then ended up getting married less than a year after that date.

Okay! I figured it out!

A Clueless Novelist's Guide to Writing Romance
aka, write a love scene without making it incredibly soppy

A Musician's Tip to Writers

Playing music harder than it looks. The fast paced music, strangely enough, is not the hardest thing there is to play. The hardest songs are the slow songs which are bare. When an amateur group plays one of these lyrical music, two things almost always happen. Either a) the percussion and bass line play sloppily, or b) the melody overplays the whole band. Now, you may see why 'a' would be a problem, but you would probably wonder why 'b' would even be considered a problem. After all, isn't the melody the main part of the song?

But it isn't. A song is not just one part. A beautiful melody may be fine, but if the tubas were making obvious mistakes and not supporting the group, the song would become a sappy bowl of mush where the melody drones on and on, very lyrical, but at the same time, horrible.

In fact, the background noise is the most important part of the band during the songs. It creates an undercurrent, a direction, so that when finally the melody gets boring, there is always something to go back to.

Now you may be wondering, "Okay... nice music lesson, but it doesn't tell me how to write romances!" And the I would smile. You see, writing is the same way.

Now, sometimes we novelists realize that our characters need to get a love life. Fine. But too often, we decide to stop the entire story to put this love life in. Just like the amateur bands, we play out the melody and ignore the parts underneath it, just when we should be concentrating on those parts the most.

Never forget what your story is about. Keep it running. A romance scene, even in a romance novel, is not the main part of the story. Scenes will come and go, but the story will remain there for the whole time.


Let 'em go crazy!

Yes. For the past couple of years, I have been telling you to know your characters and to never ever go away from who they really are. Now forget all of that.

"But why?" you ask desperately. "Didn't you say...?"

Yes! But for love scenes, this doesn't quite work.

You see, when people fall in love, they go crazy. I don't mean they start laugh maniacally and need a strait jacket, but they do things out of character. For example, one of my characters, who is a goody-two-shoes and never does anything wrong, yada yada, tells a lie that ends up hurting more than helping. But, that shows just how much she's going to put on the line. No longer does anything about her matter; it's only about him.

You get the point. Of course, you still have to know your character. Otherwise, how do you know how far would they go? If I make a six-year old girl fall in love with someone, I'm not going to have her do a strip tease.


Keep it somewhat short...

At first, the romance scene should be relatively short. (Note that, by romance scene, I mean when they are paying attention to each other instead of the plot. This doesn't mean they cannot be together)The next one should be progressively longer, and so on. Finally, at the climax, they should have a huge scene together. Just remember, at the beginning, make it short.


"I love you babe."

Oh great... the dialogue. If you have a dozen "I love yous" without any meaning to the plot, then it is bad. Try to make the dialogue interesting and true to the character's style of speaking.


Last Words

I've only finally figured out my love scene. Some of the tips here seem rather strange and they may not be suited to you. Some of you may actually hate this advice. If you do, it's okay. I'm just a beginner in writing. ^___^

Oh My God! I understand every single word of that and the why! Yay!
Whohoo! music lesson!

Let 'em go crazy!

Yes. For the past couple of years, I have been telling you to know your characters and to never ever go away from who they really are. Now forget all of that.

*Starts laughing hysterically when she thinks about her life*

don't write one. You don't need a love scene to keep the story flowing. If anything, they disrupt the order of the story. They don't add anything.

I think love scenes help a lot of stories out... I often times lose interest in stories pretty quickly if there's no romantic pull or even a hint of it. That's probably just because that's how I am, but it also usually prevents me from writing anything decent without some sort of love or romance.

Writing love scenes in turn is also something that comes relativly easy for me... My favorite technique is subtlties. I think it's the little motions and looks that make the romance... This is a sort-of romantic scene, and it's a piece of a chapter that's not quite finished, so bear with me =P

When Fay was about twenty yards from the shed, it started to pour. She cursed and sprinted the rest of the way. When she got to the door, she found that it was locked and jiggled the handle for a moment, then she thrust her weight against it. She stumbled inside as it opened and then realized someone had opened it for her.

“Thanks.” She said, rubbing her arms for warmth, wishing she’d brought a hoodie. She turned and looked around the dark shed.

“Hey, could you flip the lights?” She asked as she squinted, her eyes trying to soak up all of the available light. She heard the lock click on the door and she whipped around. Standing there, was Kaleb. She relaxed and then turned to ignore him properly.

“Fay.” He said, moving towards her. She found the goalie bag and put the bag of balls inside it. She started to drag it to the door and Kaleb stood there, unmoving. She shrugged and moved to the garage door-like entryway that was next to the door. It could be pulled up and down so that the gator and golf carts that were also kept in the equipment shed could get in and out easily. She went to pull it up and Kaleb stood on it. She pretended he didn’t exist for a bit longer but then dropped the goalie bag and sat on it, staring at the wall with her back to Kaleb.

“Fay. I just want to talk.” She glanced at him, then back at the wall.

“As a mature adult or otherwise?” She said finally.

“As myself.” He said firmly, sitting down next to her. She turned to face away from him with crossed arms. The strap on her stick bag then fell down around her waist.

“S***.” She cursed under her breath, simply annoyed at the inconvenience. She pulled the bag over her head and threw it down next to the goalie bag and sat there, still not looking at Kaleb.

“I don’t really want to hear it if you’re going to be immature Kaleb.”

“I thought a lot last night… Seriously thought, I'm not just saying that either. And… I don’t know Fay, I just… I’m jealous because you seem to like Damian better and I… I guess I want you to like me better. I want you to get excited to talk to me or see me…” He said, looking down. Fay turned to him, arms still crossed.

“Why?” she asked flatly. He seemed to search for the words but then looked defeated.

“I don’t know—”

“Yes you do. You have to know Kaleb. You practically admitted it last night.” He started to speak again but she found herself growing angrier.

“I don’t know what’s going on in my life right now, there is some f***ed up stuff going on. And all we do is fight. I can’t deal with the constant fighting; it is too much to deal with. I’m ninety-eight percent sure I’m going clinically insane, and now on top of facing insanity and asylums, I’m falling for my best friend? No. I can’t do this. And I’m not saying I’m falling for you, I’m just saying it could be looming. And I just—”

She turned to look at Kaleb for the first time and uncrossed her arms. His face was inches from her and she opened her mouth just slightly. She could feel his breath on her lips and it sent a thrill through her entire body. She started to reach up to touch his face, but pulled away. She turned her back to him, the enchantment broken.

“No Kaleb. You said it yourself. It’s not happening. This is done now.” She said, getting up. Then without another word, she picked up her bag and the goalie bang and struggled to get the garage door open.

It's actually a favorite scene of mine, but as you can see, it's still a little rough around the edges.

Anyways, for love at first sight, again, it's the subtle things that count for me. Describing the one whom the character has fallen in love with in great detail from the way that they move or speak to what they're wearing shows that the character who has fallen cares for this person already. Sorry if that came out sort of mixed up =P

The characters in my scene are [obviously] in high school, and they're the same age so it's a lo easier. It can be done with drastic age differences though!

If the girl in question is 20, she still wants to have fun and is still looking for that love of her life; she's probably a lot more easy going than the 35 year old who is probably more concerned with more real aspects of life; money, family, etc. In that moment, she would look at him and probably stop paying attention to what else is going on. She'd probably have some sort of realization and be elated; she may not say anything about it though, depending on the character. The 35 year old male is more than likely not going to say anything to anyone around him about seeing her, but he may make his way over to talk to her...

Hope I helped, I've never really written anything about people that much older than me so that's about all I can say. =]

really, I always felt that the stopped all foreward progress. but that's just my opinion.

I think it helps if there's sadness going on. Death, or the ominousness of death, or doubt, or something unique to the character. I usually like to make it something personal, not known to everyone else. Something inside them that bothers them, makes them see things differently. Something that troubles them both, possibly leads to them wanting reassurance even if they don't believe it.

But you can't have sadness all the time. It would be depressing.

~Sunny