Lady Dae Writes

             I was supposed to do a post on Romance a long time ago, but anyway, when I say romance, I don’t mean the genre. I mean romance between characters in general in all genres. Now I don’t call this area my specialty, but I have done a little romance here and there before, receiving generally good reviews on it.

            So the question becomes what is romance? I couldn’t define that if I wanted to because people have very different definitions of what love and romance is, and I’m not here to start a philosophical debate, but I do know what makes a romance work in a novel. Intimacy.

            No. I don’t mean physical intimacy although sex is a stage of intimacy. I mean intimacy in the form of small quiet moments between two characters that make a real impact on their emotional state and the emotional state of the reader. In other words if, I can get the reader to say “aww” or to squeal in excitement at the scene without saying it was too mushy gushy, I’ve done my job.

            Intimacy doesn't mean these elaborate and open declarations of love either, even though that can be included. It’s the little moments that seem insignificant that make the romance, at least to me. A lot of kissing and passion gets old and is not the basis for a healthy relationship, even if that’s where it starts, and even though it helps in a relationship.

            It’s the moments where no words are needed to explain why the girl reaches over to grasp the boy’s hand. The moments where the normally stoic character opens up to talk about something that shatters his normal stoic demeanor, the moment where one or both persons are willing to open themselves up and make themselves emotionally vulnerable.

            And that’s what really makes a romance, the willingness of the ones involved in the romance to become emotionally vulnerable. It doesn’t have to be obvious. The way a character makes themselves emotionally vulnerable depends on the character and the way the writer wants it portrayed. For instance, for a normally quiet or not really talkative character, doing more talking with one person than anyone else may be a vulnerability to them. For the normally cheerful character, being less cheerful and showing that even they get sad or angry or frustrated may be the vulnerability.

            And sometimes a peck on the lips is the only physical contact that needed to get the point across. That’s not to say that hot borderline erotic scenes (or outright) aren’t okay, but some writers aren’t comfortable writing them. I’m one of them. So there are alternatives to writing romance that don’t involve physical intimacy. So don’t be intimidated by romance if you come to a point that you want to write a romance but don’t know how. There are many ways to write romance, because in the end, romance is about the strong chemistry, emotional bond, and close companionship of two characters. Actually, it's kind of like writing a close friendship, but a little closer.

          In the end, it all falls to the style of the writer, but I just wanted to shatter the misconception that to write a romance, kisses, hugs, and sex, are needed. If it's not something you're comfortable with, they are more ways to make a romance.

            This topic came to mind from a scholarship my parents wanted me to apply for in school. It would have been fine to do if it were summer and I didn’t have anything to do, but to be honest, it had way too many requirements for me to try to pull together at the end of the semester, but the thing that really got me was that the prompt question was, “What inspired you to get into communications?” or something along those lines and so I told my parents, “Hey! I’m an English major. What I want to do has nothing to do with communications.” And they told me it’s English, it has to do with it. It’s all the same.

            Naturally, I went to ponder that and so I asked myself in majoring in English, what was my goal? That was easy. To do something related to writing, eventually becoming an editor or maybe an agent, and even though there’s a degree of communications in that, I realized my primary goal in all that was to tell a good story and find them. If their good stories, I don’t care if the reader gets a message or understands some underlying theme. That’s fine if they do, but I want them to enjoy the story.

            Ultimately, I decided not to do it. But it got me to wondering the difference between the three types of writing above. So I decided, while creative writing can be informative and have a goal of communicating a message, not all creative writing has to do that. Sure there’s usually a themes running through it, but if the theme isn’t prominent, it’s not informative. So that means my YA fantasy novel may have themes of accepting responsibilities, sacrificing for the greater good, and facing your own insecurities for the sake of the security of others, but I don’t care if you get that out of it or not. I just want you to enjoy the story. On the other hand, a story written by Charles Chestnut in the eighteen hundred called The Wife of His Youth is clearly trying to get a message across about color lines and social prejudices although you may enjoy it along the way.

            The difference between those two stories is that one is using creative writing to inform and communicate a message while the other's primary focus is purely for entertainment. So in the end, I asked myself, at any point do I care whether or not I’m getting some message or theme across in my novels? No. I don’t; therefore, I could have never written an honest 700-1200 word essay on why I’m interested in communications, because it doesn’t interest me.

            I thought it made a good post because people like to dump writers all into one category. People think because I write, I can write anything. But the truth is that I can’t. I dib and dab, but there are many forms of writing and have my strengths and weaknesses for different types, just like all fields do. I mean, Lebron James, Tiger Woods, and Michael Vick are all athletes, but you don’t see them trying to play each other’s sport. It’s the same principal in writing.

This is another one of those terms writers throw around but I don’t know if they actually know the meaning of. A writer’s style is their unique trademark. It’s the way the writer uses words, plot devices, the tone they uses and the way they speak to their audience in order to tell their story. This particularly stand true for third person writing. Every writer has a unique style because essentially style is just the voice of the writers and even though they are all unique some styles are similar to each other. It’s like people’s voice patterns. The voice patterns can sound the same, but there’s something very unique about them. The same is with writing.

For instance my writing tends to be blunt and very straightforward. I don’t waste time on trying to sugarcoat what I’m saying to fool the reader with adverbs and adjectives. I write what I mean. That’s not to say that I don’t know how to mislead the reader with word choices. My style is taken common words that people think they know the meaning of, but whose meaning has changed depending on context and connotation. I like to mislead my readers by using words exactly as the definition states knowing that my readers don’t know the exact definition. It can be something as simple as the difference between sympathy and compassion (go look it up if you want to know the difference). I also have a dry wit and sarcastic sense of humor that many of my readers find funny.

I’m also very good at describing emotions in prose without it being purple and that more than makes up for the face that I’m not comfortable with writing romance or emotions in general, so that skill comes in handy.

Those are my trademarks and even though I have to tweak them to fit whatever genre or mood I’m trying to present. That’s how my sister can find my writings if they're online. My style can’t be missed.

So I know some of you are like “Omg! I don’t know what my style is!” But that’s okay. It took me not only years to be able to pinpoint exactly what my style and tone was, but also to perfect it, and I’m still trying to perfect it! But that’s okay. You’ll find it and here are some tips.

The game is a little different when you’re writing first person, but definitely when you’re writing in third person (NTS: Write a post on POV by the end of the week). I tell my stories about my daily life the same way I would tell it when I write and I didn’t notice the correlation until a year or so ago.

2) Read the story out loud to yourself.

The way you read to yourself tells a lot about your style of writing. My writing has an eerie way of showing emotion and being calm at the same time and sometimes it’s hard to tell in my writing whether the narration is sarcastic or serious because there is some truth in what’s said. That’s that dry humor part of my writing. Others will be different.

Knowing what you meant when you wrote something and whether it comes across as what you meant or not can tell you a lot about your style.

Analyzing the style of other writers can help you pinpoint your own. It’s the same way with editing. If you edit other people’s stuff, you learn about the problems in your own work.

Willing Suspension of Disbelief
Showing Versus Telling