Sweet Torture
I have a confession to make. I cannot stand--CANNOT STAND--sitcoms in which two characters are CLEARLY meant to be together but spend five television seasons bickering only to get together in the last season, last show, whatever. Cut to the chase. Same with movies. I mean, I just don't want to spend two hours of my life watching two sexually charged people dance around each other before finally deciding to make it work. Or . . . they fall into bed, misunderstanding and bad communication abound, and now we must spend the last third of the movie watching them figure out they are meant to be together.
But I realize I am in the minority . . . and no offense is intended to any of my romance writer friends who follow this sort of plotline.
See . . . I'm a lay-my-cards-on-the-table gal. I might flirt and dance around the obvious . . . but in the end, preferably over a few shots of tequila, perhaps, I am going to say, "This is me, this is my baggage, take it or there's the door. I'm loyal to a fault, opinionated . . . but generous of spirit . . . and I am what I am. It is what it is. I live my life this way. It's a wild ride. Hop on or . . . part as my friend."
Which brings me to my present book, BLOOD SON for the new Nocturne paranormal line. Part of the book is that sweet torture of prolonging the two main characters from getting together. He is sexy and brooding as hell; every day is physical pain and mental torture for him, yet he's passionate of spirit. She is intellectually brilliant but emotionally lonely and fearful. And I am, as a writer, walking a fine line. Because I know the READER will like the dance of keeping them apart. But hell, I'd like to have them ripping each other's clothes off and passionately making love in chapter three. :-) I realize it's my personality--ME as author--clashing with what is best for the NOVEL.
Does that ever happen to any of you? It has to, I imagine. Writer . . . up against novel. Sweet torture.
But I realize I am in the minority . . . and no offense is intended to any of my romance writer friends who follow this sort of plotline.
See . . . I'm a lay-my-cards-on-the-table gal. I might flirt and dance around the obvious . . . but in the end, preferably over a few shots of tequila, perhaps, I am going to say, "This is me, this is my baggage, take it or there's the door. I'm loyal to a fault, opinionated . . . but generous of spirit . . . and I am what I am. It is what it is. I live my life this way. It's a wild ride. Hop on or . . . part as my friend."
Which brings me to my present book, BLOOD SON for the new Nocturne paranormal line. Part of the book is that sweet torture of prolonging the two main characters from getting together. He is sexy and brooding as hell; every day is physical pain and mental torture for him, yet he's passionate of spirit. She is intellectually brilliant but emotionally lonely and fearful. And I am, as a writer, walking a fine line. Because I know the READER will like the dance of keeping them apart. But hell, I'd like to have them ripping each other's clothes off and passionately making love in chapter three. :-) I realize it's my personality--ME as author--clashing with what is best for the NOVEL.
Does that ever happen to any of you? It has to, I imagine. Writer . . . up against novel. Sweet torture.
posted by Erica Orloff at 6:36 PM
23 Comments:
I use to be a beat around the bush sort of girl. But, now I don't blow any punches. I tell what I think when I think it.
As for my novels well I just write the story my characters tell it to me.
If you're a good lover, then you know just how much teasing is enough and how much is too much. There is an art to making love (just call me Don Juan DeHardin).
I imagine the same is true in fiction. You want to find that point, that fulcrum where arousal is at its peak but to tease any further would lead to frustration. You always give them what they need at just the right time. It's all about instinct and experience and knowing your partner/reader.
la:
Of all the people who drop by the blog, you seem very in touch with your characters--great communication between them and you.
E
Jude:
Or should I say Don Juan . . . :-)
I agree. I have reached a point where I have simply stopped watching a movie, reading a book, or have abandoned a television show I used to like. If there is that "too stupid to live" factor in thrillers . . . then I think you're right. There is some sort of frustration threshold beyond which you are just annoying the crap out of your readers.
E
I'm having the same issue right now.
I'd really like for them to just get together, but the heroine has issues to work out still.
It doesn't help that it's in first person, and I find it harder to dissociate myself from the heroine.
milady:
I know . . . sometimes our gut is right and sometimes we have to fight against the conventions of a genre. You know, if I had written Gone with the Wind, the book would have been five chapters long (she meets Rhett, they get married) and they would have lived happily ever after with Bluebell or whatever their daughter's name was. The slaves would have all been freed and given part of Tara . . . the war would have been settled with peace talks like civilized human beings.
Shows what I know about storytelling. ;-)
E
Erica wrote: I have a confession to make. I cannot stand--CANNOT STAND--sitcoms in which two characters are CLEARLY meant to be together but spend five television seasons bickering only to get together in the last season, last show, whatever.
A-fucking-men, sister! Me too! But you know what I hate more? When the writers get the two characters together mid-season or whatever and THEN fail to move the relationship forward. So they eventually break the two of them up. Or the relationship gets boring. Or the audience gets left hanging with, "Show some more Sydney and Vaughn PLEEEZE!"
I love it when Ross and Rachel eventually got together the first and second times because their relationship actually moved forward (or backward, as in the case of the 2nd get-together). But still, it was MOVING. What I hated was the last minute, down-to-the-wire get together the THIRD time during the final episode of FRIENDS. Argh! It felt so contrived.
Erica, I'm not writing a romance.
It's urban fantasy, and I never planned for this relationship.
One of the reasons why I quit reading Stephanie Plum was that it annoyed me that she hasn't yet moved on from Morelli/Ranger, and yet she won't pick one of them!
You can't spends years with someone and not know them. I just wish I could find an agent that would see it.
Karm:
That last Ross/Rachel get-together seemed like a bone to toss the fans. It didn't feel organic/real or any of it and the two of them had become cariacatures of their original sitcom selves.
To me, if you are going to keep two people apart, it had better feel real. I know in Spanish Disco (my first novel), the characters were an ocean apart geographically, and she was so utterly emotionally dysfunctional that it made perfect sense that for five years she had put off meeting him. She was terrified of falling in love while putting up a tough-girl front. But you have to work at that reality . . . otherwise it seems completely forced.
E
milady:
I don't read that series . . . not because I don't care for her writing, just it hasn't been one I followed. But I agree that if you are talking ten books down the line and no one is moving on (with a shout-out to Karmela for pointing out that's what is really infuriating--the lack of movement), you just give up.
E
That's exactly what I was trying to say.
Like Karm, I want something to Happen. Doesn't matter what it is. I might be rooting for this guy rather than that guy, but if the heroine chooses that guy instead...Well, something Happened.
I just write what the voices tell me to.
When I get bored, I throw a grenade in the room to wake them up.
I feel that no matter what the story is about, or which subplot it is, it has to move in a direction, it has to contribute something to the whole of the story. Otherwise it needs to be cut or rewritten.
Or, at least that is what the voices are telling me to to say...
I always hoped that Gilligan and Mary Ann would get together. So frustrating...
Jude:
What about Ginger and the Professor?
:-)
E
I don't know, Erica. I always thought the Professor and Mr. Howell might have had something going on...
Jude:
I never got that vibe . . .but any way you slice it, after years on that island, some of them should have been getting together! ;-)
E
Yeah. I'm starting to wonder if Gilligan screwed up all those near rescues on purpose...
Yeah, toward the final seasons of Gilligan's Island, I was just like, "Someone needs to get laid on this fucking island, dammit! And I don't care who!"
;-)
Ewoh:
I writing friend of mine from my critique group got me thinking about EVERY page. Is it moving the story FORWARD. If not, cut it. He is brutal about it, but my writing has gotten better because of it. To me, it's like the difference between dialogue and conversation. Conversation can stop a book dead in its tracks. It's the useless chit-chat of our lives. DIALOGUE serves to move the story forward and propel it. Movement.
E
Karm:
Considering what you said about Trace of Innocence . . . I'm sensing a theme. You like those sex scenes. ;-)
E
Erica: Right on about cutting everything that doesn't move the story forward.
Karmela: LOL!
'Conversation can stop a book dead in its tracks. It's the useless chit-chat of our lives. DIALOGUE serves to move the story forward and propel it.'
Thanks Erica - I needed a pearl of wisdom, and I think that may have been it, lol
I have a terrible habit of getting caught up in the conversations characters have - but Dialogue, that is what I need.
Traci
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