On the other hand, sometimes stories come from a place much closer to home. Each of us has our own stories throughout our lives, moments that have shaped us into the person that we are today. Although not every author is interested in writing a memoir or autobiography, examining the important moments in our own lives and the ways that they’ve formed us is a great way to help create that connection between events and character in your own novel.

For example, take a particularly embarrassing moment that you had in middle school where you spilled milk all over the front of your pants in the middle of the cafeteria. How did that moment, and the feelings that it elicited, change your behavior, how you acted, and your perception of yourself and the world as a whole?

There are also the good important moments, like when you got your first job out of school or met your partner or when you and a family member had a really heartfelt moment together. How did those moments change or shape your life? How did your perspective or character change based on that moment?

Writing Prompt: Make a list of the most important character-shaping moments throughout your own life and why those instances changed you. Choose one and write a scene from that moment. As you’re writing the scene, make sure both you and your readers can see the connection between the event and character development.

Make sure that your readers can see a difference in the character (you) before and after this important event or moment. And, if you want to keep it more anonymous, feel free to change up the character names or even embellish the event if there are portions you can’t completely remember. Being good at embellishing is another important writing skill, right?

The post Writing Prompt: Based on a True Story appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

Meet Cute

Every romance needs a good old fashioned ‘meet-cute’, right? For those unfamiliar with the term, this refers to the way in which people who are destined to be romantic interests meet one another. It also happens to be one way to show or indicate to your readers that a romance is about to blossom. Because we’ve seen so many of these over the course of our book and movie consumption, even if we didn’t know the terminology, we’re already primed to notice one when it happens and to know immediately that the two characters participating in the meet-cute will find love.

Writers who struggle with showing rather than telling will make the mistake of making the meet-cute too big, cliche, and cheesy. These are the writers that have the characters lock eyes from across the room and tell us that ‘the planet shifted on its axis and they could see the entire universe in their eyes.’ Not only is this super cheesy eye-roll-worthy writing, but that just isn’t what happens in real life. Even for people who claim to experience love at first sight, it really just means they were attracted to or drawn to that person at first sight in a way that they didn’t understand. Planets weren’t moving in the sky.

When you’re writing your meet-cute, try to make it both memorable and realistic. Maybe they’re going for the same book at the library or (if you’re going for the hate-to-love angle) maybe she buys the last donut right out from under him at his favorite donut shop. We shouldn’t be hearing about how your protagonist’s whole world has been altered by this interaction, but rather we should just witness a memorable interaction between these two characters- that’s more enough to go on.

Meaningful Interactions

Any great romance can’t be immediate, it needs to be built up. If you start off your characters already having all of these feelings for each other then it makes them both appear shallow and basic- their love needs to have substance if you want it to be something readers will root for. So, rather than directly telling your reader that your character is starting to feel a certain way, show us scenes between them playing out.

Perhaps, after their initial meet-cute, one character walks into their next class and recognizes the first from their initial interaction- realizing they go to school together. And, oh no, the only seat left is the one right next to them, whatever will your character do? Boom, you’ve created another setting for them to interact. And, of course, they get paired up for a group project and are forced to work with one another in closer proximity.

Once you’ve created a space for them to interact, you’ll need to create meaningful conversations between them. How do people get to know one another? Don’t jump straight to deep dark conversations, maybe start by having them talk about what’s going on in class, maybe they stumble upon a mutual interest they share. Instead of directly telling the reader ‘I feel this way about this character’, focus on how things that the love interest says makes your protagonist feel.

Physical Response

Going along with the previous step, instead of showing the protagonist’s feelings through telling you should be showing it through physical responses. Perhaps one thing he says makes her roll her eyes, or maybe another thing he says makes her smile or laugh- showing the beats of their conversation through body language and mannerisms works just as well as telling the reader how your character feels each step of the way.

Pursing lips, raising brows, widening eyes, scrunching brows, biting lip, crinkling nose, stretching, nail-biting, sitting upright, crossing legs, grunting, coughing to cover a laugh, cracking knuckles, tapping foot, scratching chin, smoothing hair- these are just a few mannerisms that can express various degrees of attraction, annoyance, confusion, or boredom. Brush up on your physical language, figure out what types of mannerisms fit each character in each state or mood they’d express, and then use these to show their feelings throughout their interactions.

Perceptions Changing

As your story progresses, there should be beats in your scenes where your characters’ perceptions of one another either change or grow. The learn unexpected things about one another, perhaps your biker cool-guy love interest secretly plays the piano or your lawyer workaholic woman has a rough family life. We should see certain moments where eyes widen or they get big smiles on their faces and one of them asks “What?” and the other says something along the lines of “Nothing, I just… wouldn’t have guessed…” while staring at them intently. These bigger moments, we know, are the moments where they’re slowly falling in love. But you don’t need to say this to us; if you focus on their mannerisms and the dialogue and substance behind these moments, your reader will fill in the blanks.

The Trigger & The Epiphany

All of these little interactions and moments that you create between your two love interests should culminate in a single moment- THE moment. That’s right, it’s the moment that your protagonist realizes they’re either in like or love with the love interest. We, of course, have known for quite some time, we’ve just been waiting for our protagonist to catch on. This moment could be big or heroic like the love interest comforting the protagonist after they opened up to them. Or it could be small and sweet like in the sitcom The Office when Pam says she knew she liked Jim when he told her that her yogurt was about to expire. Either way, the realization should come from a meaningful moment, not just from your protagonist sitting around ruminating.

The post Show Don’t Tell: Romance appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.