Sarah Eden and Robison Wells join Dan and Howard at LTUE to talk about writing romance. Sarah writes in the romance genre, but we’re not focusing on the genre — we’re talking about writing romance within the context of whatever else we might happen to be putting on the page.

We lead with how to do it wrong, because nothing is as much fun to talk about as bad romance. It’s also educational.

More importantly (and more usefully) we talk about formulas for doing romance correctly. One of the most practical is to pair characters up by finding emotional needs that these characters can meet for each other. We look at examples from each of our work: Sarah’s The Kiss of a Stranger, Dan’s I Don’t Want To Kill You, Howard’s The Sharp End of the Stick, and Rob’s Variant.

Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: I Don’t Want To Kill You, by Dan Wells, narrated by Kirby Heyborne. It’s true, this book has some great romance in it. Also, murder.

Writing Prompt: Create a character, and then create a complementary character who both meets a need and provides unwelcome challenge.

Everybody’s Lisp: Brought to you by the noise reduction software we used. Sorry about that. It won’t happen again.

The Bonus Game: Bad Romance! Enjoy!

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Transcript

As transcribed by Mike Barker

Key points: How to write romance? Write it well. Bad romance scenes are thrown in, filler — good romance scenes have a build up and an emotional payoff. The reader needs to like the romantic interest as much as the character does. The reader needs to understand the reason that the character is falling in love. Fulfilling relationships need characters that meet a need in each other. They need to complete each other.

[Dan] This is Writing Excuses Season Five Episode 31, Writing Romance.
[Howard] 15 minutes long because you’re in a hurry.
[Dan] And I love you.
[Howard] That was kind of creepy. We are here, Dan and I, Howard, are here at Life, the Universe, and Everything with special guests from the Appendix podcast…
[Sarah] I’m Sarah Eden. I write Regency era romance, which I think is why I’m here.
[Rob] And I am Robison Wells. I write YA dystopia that has romance in it.

[Dan] Yes it does. That’s what we want to emphasize right off the bat here, is we are not talking about writing a romance novel. But romance as a concept can and probably should be in most things that you write to some degree. So we’re going to talk about how that gets included. Even Larry’s book, Monster Hunter International, which was basically an ode to how fun it is to shoot things in the face, had a love story in it.
[Rob] Also punch things in the neck.
[Dan] Also punching things in the neck. So, let’s talk about romance. We’re going to just shoot this straight over at Sarah. You are our romance expert. Tell us how to write romance.
[Sarah] You need to write it well.
[Dan] Okay, then.
[Howard] You’re out of excuses…

[Dan] By the way, we should also mention that we are at Life, the Universe, and Everything at Brigham Young University, a writing conference, and we have a wonderful studio audience here. Say hello.
[Noise]
[Howard] They’re actually… the studio audience is awesome. They follow instructions really well. Everybody, make sounds like monkeys.
[Monkey sounds]
[Dan] All right.
[Howard] That was so romantic.

[Dan] OK. Let’s give Sarah a slightly more focused question that will be easier to answer.
[Sarah] Yes, thank you.
[Dan] What makes a romance scene bad? What makes a horrible romance scene in a book? Or just the romance overall in a book. What do you hate to see, when you read a book and go, “Oh, really?”
[Sarah] Romance, to me, is all about emotion. When someone reads a romance or comes across a romance scene, they want it to be an emotional experience. Too often, it’s just kind of thrown in. There’s no build up to it, and if there’s no build up, there can’t be any emotional payoff. So for me, I want to see it coming. I want it to be a payoff, not a filler. Too often that’s how it’s written.
[Applause]
[Dan] We are having applause. Because that was excellent.

[Dan] Rob, how about you? What do you hate to see in a romance?
[Rob] What do I hate to see? Well, I have a good thing rather than a hate thing.
[Dan] OK. What do you love to see in a romance?
[Rob] Whoo…  um… skin.
[Laughter]
[Howard] Especially in the printed work. I mean, the pages of human skin…
[Rob] Those are the kind of books Dan writes.
[Dan] The Necronomicon is not a romance novel.

[Rob] No. I would say what makes the romance work really well is, I think that the reader has to have… to some extent, has to be falling in love with whoever it is. If the character is falling in love with somebody, but the reader doesn’t like that romantic interest at all, then your reader is not going to have the emotional connection and is also going to be kind of pissed off. They’re going to be rooting against that relationship working. Your reader has to like that character as much as your character likes the romantic character.
[Howard] Correct me if I’m wrong here, Sarah. I never write romance, so I don’t know what the heck I’m talking about. But if the person that they’re falling in love with that the reader hates is the shaky leg of the love triangle, it’s the person that the reader is supposed to not want them to fall in love with, but they’re falling in love with them anyway, then you’re actually doing it right? Right?
[Rob] It depends, because if… I mean, she’s the expert, but what I was going to say is, if you are going to make it plausible for a character to fall in love with somebody else, even if… I mean, you as the reader knows that they’re not going to eventually end up with that person. I think that there has to be some initial attraction. You have to understand why the character would like them. I mean, they can’t be all horrible. The character who is falling in love has to have a reason that they’re falling in love, and the reader has to understand that reason.
[Sarah] Yet, they don’t have to be entirely lovable. You don’t have to, like be rooting for them from the very beginning, but there has to be something at least intriguing about that character.

[Dan] The classic example of this is Pride and Prejudice.
[Sarah] Absolutely.
[Dan] Which is in my opinion, one of the best love stories ever. Those are two people who initially hate each other because they are both initially kind of jerks. The whole purpose of the story is to show slowly not only that they are falling in love but why. She does not fall in love with Darcy, just because the plot requires it to, but because he does good things and he shows himself to be worthy of her love. By the end, you believe it, and it works.
[Rob] To Howard’s point, I mean, you’ve got Wickham in there, in Pride and Prejudice, who is, of course, the guy that you don’t want her to end up with. But, in the beginning, I mean, he has qualities that you can see why the girls like him.
[Sarah] I just want to say the fact that the Wells brothers know enough about Pride and Prejudice to discuss it on an intellectual level has significantly increased my respect for them. Well done.
[Rob] And I loved the zombies.
[Howard] Regency headshot.
[Rob] Let’s bring Larry back up.

[Dan] All right. I want to talk specifically now about love triangles. What is it that makes that such an iconic kind of plot device, Sarah?
[Sarah] Well, it’s a great way to create romantic tension in a book. As a reader, we want the character we’re rooting for, our main character generally, to have their Happily Ever After, but we’re not sure how they’re going to obtain it. We spend a great deal of the book trying to decide which side we’re rooting for. As an author, if you can pull a reader between the two sides, you’ve created a tension that’s going to carry them through to the end.
[Dan] Excellent.
[Howard] So, regardless of how you feel about other elements, the whole Team Edward, Team Jacob thing was very successful.
[Dan] Oh, absolutely.
[Sarah] It was exceptionally well-done. Yeah. As a love triangle. Absolutely.

[Dan] We’re going to pause just a moment for our book of the week.
[Howard] Our book of the week this week is I Don’t Want to Kill You, the third book in Dan Wells’ John Cleaver series. This is the sequel to I Am Not a Serial Killer and Mr. Monster. I’ve got to tell you, having read all three of these books now, they are amazing. This book, Dan just knocks it absolutely out of the park. I’m not saying this because I have to sit next to him when we record or because of all those fun times we’ve shared at Life, the Universe, and Everything and other conventions. I’m saying this because this is really one of the very, very best books I’ve read in recent memory. I think you should read it… or you should have it read to you by Kirby Heyborne, who narrates the book on audible. Go out to audiblepodcast.com/excuse, kick off a free trial membership, and you can get I Don’t Want to Kill You  read to you for free.

[Dan] And now…
[Hiccups, glitter — strange noises]
[Dan] I thought we had this audience better trained.
[Howard] Monkey noises!
[Whooping]
[Dan] No, this is a romance panel. I want kissy noises.
[More strange noises]
[Dan] Oh, I feel so… OK.
[Howard] That sounded like skittering bugs. OK.

[Dan] I think we have our writing prompt. Anyway. Let’s go back and now let’s… we talked… I asked Sarah what she hates to see in a romance. What do you like to see? How do you make… when you are writing your own novels, how do you make the audience fall in love with your characters?
[Sarah] Well, again, it goes a great deal back to emotion. I want them from the very beginning to have at least one side of the romantic connection that they’re really cheering for. That you have enough empathy for them, or enough… you can relate to them enough that you want to see them achieve the Happily Ever After. In an actual romance, that is the point of the book. In a romantic subplot, that’s more or less the point. You want to see it come to a fulfilling, happy ending. In order for that ending to be fulfilling, the relationship needs to be fulfilling, so I want to see the two characters meet a need in each other. I want them to create a relationship that has emotional resonance. I want them to be something for each other that no one else could be. When you do that, they become an essential unit. They become one. You want to see that in a romance.
[Dan] I think that that is fantastic advice. I hope that everybody wrote that down. The two characters falling in love should meet a need in each other. They should complete each other, as cheesy as that sounds, in some way or another. Because that is really what makes a relationship work, is that they are filling that need. Can you give us an example from your own work, Sarah?
[Sarah] Absolutely. My most recent title that came out is entitled The Kiss of a Stranger. In this book, we begin by meeting this man who, because of various disappointments in his life, has become something of a cynic, and doesn’t really believe that people are genuine. But in order for him to really, truly be happy, he needs to recognize that there is goodness in the world. He meets this young woman who is that way. She’s had a very, very difficult life, but has come out of it with a much more optimistic view of the world. By coming to know her, he begins to shed some of that armor that he’s been hiding behind. So they really are a good fit for each other, even though they have their issues. They meet this need… she needs to meet someone who’s kind underneath it, but he also needs to meet someone who has that optimism that he’s lacking.

[Dan] Very good. I like to tell people that the third book in my series… it’s called I Don’t Want to Kill You. I love telling people that that’s a romance novel, because it does have a strong love story in it. That was my goal as I went through, was here’s John Cleaver, the teenage sociopath who is obsessed with death and serial killers. I really want to get him into social situations. I’ve already seen him kill monsters. I want to get him into social situations, because that’s new and scary. So what girl can I find that meet a need that he has? A nonviolent need that he has. So it was loads of fun to write that book. I hope that you guys like that character is much as I do, of this girl who kind of comes into his life. I won’t tell you exactly what happens… because it’s a horror novel. But it… has that kind of… she had to come in… she had to… I was about to say she had to open him up, but that kind of gives the wrong impression. She had to get him to let go, to cut loose a little bit, and kind of become more active. Howard’s over here, just dying of laughter.
[Howard] Oh, man. And then he’s going to open her up. I don’t…
[Dan] Have you read it? That’s not fair. No spoilers.

[Howard] So, you talk about meeting a need. I get e-mail fairly regularly from people who tell me that Captain Tagon in Schlock Mercenary really, really needs a girlfriend. What is it about him that has him, single at age 49, leading around a group of essentially sociopathic man-children? He needs to find some sort of fulfillment. Rest assured, I know this. I know that this character is broken. At some point, I may choose to put romance in there, now that Sarah has explained to me that I need to find somebody who completes the other side of the equation. Who has a need that somehow a 6’2″ svelte blond sociopath can fill. Maybe I’m getting my advice from Dan, I don’t know. Now I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of how the formula is going to work. Since it’s all formula and no heart in comics…

[Dan] Well, and now, Howard, you said earlier you don’t write romance, but you do. Because Kevyn and Elf got together. I thought that that was a very good story. Now, how did you go about putting them together?
[Howard] I started with what I felt was the most unlikely matchup anywhere in the group. Because Elf had already said, in a different timeline… different Elf, but the same core personality… had already said of Kevyn, “He’s too thinky.” Kevyn is not enamored of the grunts. I say enamored of, he doesn’t really appreciate the whole shoot’em thing. He wants somebody he can talk to on an intellectual level. Then, the two of them sit down… are forced to work together because the company needs new armor. She knows how to wear it. He is supposed to know how to design it. She sits down with the help file for the fabbing equipment and discovers that she has a real gift for making this equipment work. As frustrating as that is for him, he recognizes that, “That’s neat.” She’s actually pretty smart. She’s not educated. Hasn’t studied anything. She opened up the help file, for crying out loud. But look at what she made. Look at what she made. That connection grew into something that was just kind of fun. Those characters are still fairly dissimilar. But she loves him now for his brain, because he appreciated the fact that… I mean, besides the fact that he’s tall and sexy… he appreciated the fact that she’s really smart. Not educated, but really smart.

[Dan] Rob, I want to hear an example from Variant. Because you’ve got… I consider there to be two pretty good little love stories going on in there. How did you go about building those up?
[Rob] Oh. The book’s not even out yet.
[Dan] Well, OK. Just don’t… no spoilers.
[Rob] Um. No spoilers? OK. One of the relationships… the book is essentially about a kid who is locked in a high school which is essentially a prison. There are no adults there. He… there is no contact with the outside world. They don’t know who is watching them, and who is controlling them, but they… but somebody is. The main character is a kid from the slums of Pittsburgh, who has always… he’s been in foster care all his life, bumped around. He has never had a relationship with anyone. Pretty much, that’s how everyone in the school is, is that the school is taking people who no one else will miss. He has no friends, he has no strong ties anywhere. So he gets to the school that he is been looking forward to as kind of a solution to his problem, and finds out that it is much worse than where he was before. The girl that he meets, she’s been there for years in this situation. She is essentially saying to him that things can be good. That this situation, for all of the bad things that it has, you can still have relationships. This can be what he wants. That they can make things work. So she very much fills the need that he has, those desires that he had in coming to this place. That is really what makes their relationship work.

[Dan] Now, the thing that I find interesting here is that all the examples that everyone has just given follow that advice from Sarah, that the characters need to find something that completes the other person, that the other person needs, and that that’s what draws them together initially. Also, the other key thing to remember here is that you need to have that emotional connection. Not only between the characters, but with the reader. If you don’t care about a person, you’re not going to care whether they fall in love or not. So. We are out of time, so we have a writing prompt from Sarah.
[Sarah] Awesome. OK, here’s our prompt. I want you to create a character, and then come up with a complementary character that will fulfill a need in that character. So you’re creating a couple based on the need they can fulfill in each other.
[Dan] OK. They will have complementary things, but I think they will also have… you should also put in opposing things.
[Sarah] Absolutely.
[Dan] You’re braiding two roses together, and the thorns are going to hurt.
[Rob] How poetic.
[Dan] That’s from Dave Wolverton, actually. So. You’re out of excuses. Now go write.

[Howard] You guys want us to play a game?
[Yeah]
[Dan] We have like three minutes left. So this is going to be a fast game.
[Howard] We have like three minutes. Jordo, go ahead and keep the tape running or fire the tape up again or whatever, because this is A-1 bonus plus bonus material for the CD set… thingy.
[Rob] All right. Are we playing Bad Romance?
[Howard] Robison, you’ve got to use this mike.
[Rob] Oh, sorry.
[Dan] Yeah, this is gonna be a romance novel. Bad Romance.
[Rob] OK. The three of you are playing. All right.
[Howard] Take 10 seconds and introduce the game.
[Rob] Bad Romance. This is a game that we play on the Appendix podcast. We take the plot description from a Harlequin Romance novel. Then we create a story by changing the genre of that romance novel, and then adding a new character, and then a new plot element. So the romance novel that we’re going to be taking right now is called Champagne with a Celebrity by Kate Hardy. Beautiful socialite Amber Win is constantly featured in the press, usually for her spectacularly bad love-life. But when Amber meets gorgeous Frenchman Guy LeFevre at a wedding, she begins to wonder if her very public persona could be stopping her from finding love. Blah, blah-blah-blah, blah. He’s a darkly mesmeric parfumier. Just so you know.
[Howard] Darkly mesmeric parfumier. There’s three words that began with an adverb.
[Rob] So, beautiful socialite, spectacularly bad love-life, he is a gorgeous Frenchman.
[Sarah] Who makes perfume.
[Rob] Yeah, there you go.
[Howard] Darkly.
[Rob] Oh, she has a secret that could shatter his world. And Sarah has to start by changing this to a… sorry… oh. Fan fiction.
[Dan] Nice.
[Rob] I’m going to say fan fiction of the Love Boat.
[Howard] No. No-no-no-no. We’re already in a love story. Don’t do that. Say like Battle Star Galactica or something.
[Rob] Let’s just go with Star Wars. Make it easy.
[Sarah] OK. Amber or Autumn, what was her first name?
[Rob] Her name is Amber. Amber Win.

[Sarah] Amber. OK. Amber Win has always had a deep desire to be a storm trooper. She’s a little short. In fact, when she first came to apply for the job, she was asked, “Aren’t you a little short for a storm trooper?”
[Dan] Yeah, there we go.
[Sarah] So she’s always wanted to do that, but it has been prevented because of her shortness. So instead, she has become a socialite. She just dates the storm troopers, but has spectacularly bad relationships with them. When she visits the planet of Tatooine, she runs into Guy, who makes perfume specifically for…
[Howard] Tauntauns.
[Sarah] Awesome. Of course, the perfume is quite dark. And…
[Dan] And mesmeric.
[Sarah] Mesmeric.
[Howard] [inaudible muttering. Hostages from Hoth, aren’t they? Maybe]
[Sarah] Her secret is that she secretly wants to be a sand person, as well. There you go. I’m tossing that off.
[Dan] That will shatter his world.

[Howard] Am I adding a character?
[Rob] You are adding a character. The character who you are adding is… oh, these work… the world’s strongest man.
[Sarah] Nice.
[Dan] Which world’s strongest man?
[Rob] The galaxy’s strongest man…
[Howard] Well, obviously if they’re on… no, no-no-no-no. They’re on Tatooine, we’ve already established that. The only person on Tatooine I know of who’s capable of moving thousands of pounds around, is moving thousands of pounds of his own bulk around, our very own Jabba the Hutt. And I think we have our love triangle.

[Rob] Are we going to Dan?
[Dan] Yes, we are.
[Rob] Buried treasure.
[Dan] Buried treasure. OK. So we have Amber Win, the fallen out storm trooper, washed out storm trooper, and we have Guy LeFevre, the darkly mesmeric tauntaun parfumier, and we are all on Tatooine in a mixed up love triangle with Jabba the Hutt, who of course was supplying the vital ingredients that Guy LeFevre needs for his… I just like to say that word… needs for his perfume…
[Howard] Well, he’s got to supply tauntauns, because [garbled] from Hoth.
[Dan] It’s hard to get. There’s no bases on Hoth, as we know. Right? OK. The thing is that one of the key ingredients gets lost and buried in the folds of the Jabba’s corpulent flesh. And must be pulled out. And thus…
[Rob] She’s got to woo him.
[Dan] She has to woo him and seduce him to get close enough. Which is very dangerous, because she knows that if she does a wrong, she’ll become rancor food. Thus we have the end of our story. Because she does it wrong and becomes rancor food.

[Dan] You’re out of excuses. If you sat through all two hours of this, we apologize. But thank you very much for coming.