May 9, 2013

The more you write, the more you learn...about yourself!

As I work on bringing the story and characters of Love Will Follow to life, something occurred to me: I have a tendency toward romance storylines where instant attraction doesn't occur. 

Well, maybe not always.  Instant awareness and attraction have been major factors in many of my books...but maybe not so much lately.  My book Man of Her Heart (2013) was a continuation of a romance that started in a previous book (Something Real) from 2012, in which the heroine had a crush on the hero, who really hadn't noticed her.  It took her giving a sexy performance on a cruise ship for him to open his eyes. But it's Isn't She Lovely? (2012) that I'm really thinking of. The heroine of that book met the hero to discuss an auto accident in which his unlicensed son sneaked out with a vehicle, and in his haste to get home before being discovered, ran over her son in a parking lot, breaking his leg...and then drove off. This is not the type of situation that is ripe for romance; if anything, my heroine wanted to break the legs of both the hero and his son...both legs. But yet...well, you'll have to read the book to see how the change comes about.

In Love Will Follow, it is equally inappropriate for the hero and heroine to have a sexual magnetism for each other due to the circumstances under which they meet. I also see shades of this in a few of the romances I have drafted for future publication. When I ask myself why I've been doing this, I realize that it gives me much more story possibilities, because conflict is a must. It won't be necessary for me to fall back on the played-out I've-been-hurt-and-I'll-never-love-again scenario that I have never used and hope I never have to.

I don't want to give away too much about the plot line of Love Will Follow because I'm hoping there will be a few surprises for readers. But if you'd like to try and guess which way the story will go, I invite you to download the free prequel to it, Lost That Lovin' Feeling, from my publisher website or from Smashwords. The prequel also includes the first two chapters of the book. 

How do you feel about storylines in which attraction is inappropriate initially? Do you prefer the more traditional, take-one-look-and-a-goner approach to romance? Why or why not?