Top 13 non-cliched romantic moments

25 Tuesday Aug 2015

Posted by Jessica Wood in Common Criticism, film, musings, romance, story, writing, writing advice

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relationship, romance, romance cliches, romance fiction, romantic moments, writing, writing advice, writing cliche, writing relationships, writing romance, writing tips

My fiance and I showing great trust in each other.

My fiancee and I showing great trust in each other.

It can be difficult writing romantic moments to show a couple’s developing relationship as many of these moments have become so clichéd and overdone that they have lost all of their impact. Not all of them are necessarily bad. It’s still sweet to read about your favourite fictional couple sheltering from the rain together or raising a baby bird like it’s their own child. But modern fiction still needs more original and more realistic moments to show that a couple are in love. Here are some to get you started:

Looking out for each other in dangerous situations. This doesn’t mean the guy saving the girl (yes, it is still usually that way around) all the time. The couple can trust each other’s fighting abilities but still glance at each other occasionally to check that the other is ok.

Use instead of: Girl falls for guy after he rescues her. When this happens in a story, it’s seen almost as a crime if the girl doesn’t fall madly in love with him as thanks for saving her.

Respecting each other’s privacy. While quality time together is important in a relationship, it’s equally important to know when the other needs personal time. Often, especially after an argument, it’s best to back off rather than make a situation worse.

Use instead of: Being forced into every situation together. Stuck in a broken lift? Forced to do a report together? It probably won’t turn hatred into love as years of romantic movies have told us. It’ll probably just make them hate each other even more.

Talking things out after an argument. It’s inevitable that even the most stable of couples will fight sometimes, even do awful things to each other without meaning to. The way they deal with their arguments and issues often says more about their relationship than anything else.

Use instead of: Make up sex. Seriously, does anyone actually do this? An emotional argument is probably the least sexy thing ever. Aren’t you just using sex to ignore your issues?

Making a partner’s favourite dinner after they’ve had a terrible day. Double points if the partner doesn’t actually say they’ve had a terrible day, they just know and want to cheer them up.

Use instead of: Cooking dinner together. My parents said that they would end up getting divorced if they ever tried cooking together. It’s not quite as romantic and cute as sit-coms will have you think.

Leading someone with a fear of heights down to safety. Good relationships are about looking after each other’s needs and making each other feel safe, calm, and secure. Not every romantic rescue needs to be about beating up an attacker, often it can be something as simple as this.

Use instead of: ‘I have a fear of heights that is instantly cured so that I can go on the ferris wheel with you.’ Sorry to tell you this but true love isn’t an insta-cure for all phobias. It’s not going to be very romantic if one person is secretly terrified.

Ordering food for a shy person. Similar to the above example, helping out someone with social anxiety instead of condemning them for it is the nicest thing you can do for them.

Use instead of: Forcing a shy person to ‘come out of their shell’. Forcing someone into a situation that they’re uncomfortable with is going to do them much more harm than good and drive them away from the person you’re trying to hook them up with. If they really must open up more then it must be done gradually with gentle encouragement.

Finding each other irresistibly cute.

Have you ever heard of cuteness aggression? It’s when you see a baby animal that is so unbearably cute that you quite literally want to hug it to death. I often feel this way towards my fiancé, which is a little disturbing if you think about it…

Use instead of: Finding each other irresistibly sexy. Couples do need to find something physically attractive about the other, but you don’t want to imply that sexual attraction is the only reason they like each other.

Giving each other good advice.

I’ve never really thought before how often my fiancé and I give each other advice about careers, family, or life in general, but it helps us both through a lot of tough situations.

Use instead of: Asking friends for ill-informed relationship advice. It will inevitably lead to misunderstandings that will almost doom the relationship but it will all be fixed at the last moment and the idiot friend will receive no repercussions for almost breaking up a loving couple.

Sharing each other’s food. My fiancé and I have this weird running gag that when we’re having chips, we always steal some from the other’s place, even if we’re both having chips.

Use instead of: The ‘s/he stole food from my plate’ relationship dilemma. Did the fact that you’re going on dates not tip you off that you’re in a relationship? And does it really matter if someone you’re dating takes food from your plate?

Watching silly movies together. Similar to cooking their favourite dinner when they’re feeling sad, doing things like watching light hearted fun films, particularly ones they can riff on together, can make each other feel better.

Use instead of: Watching sappy romance movies together (and the guy hating it). It’s not treated as ‘sitting through a film I hate for my partner’ so much as ‘my wife is forcing me to watch a film I hate’. I also despise the guy making a girl watch a scary film she can’t stand just so she can cling onto him when she’s scared cliché. It borders on emotional manipulation.

Talking like best friends. Doesn’t matter if it’s normal everyday banter or confiding secrets that they can’t tell anybody else. Preferably there should be moments of both.

Use instead of: Can’t form coherent sentences around a crush. How can characters form relationships if they can’t even communicate with each other coherently? It makes it hard to get to know anything about each other.

Towling each other off after a rain storm. It’s sweet, caring, and even a little sexy. How can you go wrong?

Use instead of: Kissing in the rain. Why is this such a big thing? Has anybody ever had a decent kiss while being drenched with rain? Potentially catching pneumonia doesn’t seem that romantic to me.

Driving a partner to the airport at 5am.

If this isn’t the ultimate act of true love then I don’t know what is.

Use instead of: Chasing someone through the airport. ‘Being with me will make you so much happier than moving on with your life and pursuing your dream career! Whoops, is that airport security behind me?’

What other supposedly romantic moments do you think have become clichéd? What do you think make better alternatives?

How to Write Love at First Sight

04 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by Jessica Wood in Common Criticism, culture, fairy tale, fantasy, film, musings, romance, story, writing, writing advice

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fairy tale, fantasy, fiction, historical fiction, love at first sight, romance fiction, story, storytelling, writing, writing advice, writing fairy tales, writing fiction, writing tips

Can you guess how this is going to work out?

People seem to be in one of two camps when it comes to love at first sight. Either it’s the ultimate epitome of romance and true love or it’s a creepy, unhealthy fixation that will never work out. This is why the fairy tale image of love at first sight leading to an instant happy ever after is going through a deconstruction in recent years and most modern readers are turned off by it.

There is a reason why it emerged as a literary trope and even why it still appears in some stories today. First meetings are emphasised in fiction because they are important in real life as well. Our first meeting and first impressions of someone will determine what our future relationship with them will be like. As much as we’d like to think we’re completely objective, scientists do say that it takes as little of one tenth of a second to decide if we like someone upon first seeing their face.

From a historical standpoint, it’s easy to see why this used to be a more acceptable form of storytelling. People used to die sooner and were expected to marry young so they had to latch onto the first piece of marriage material they came across and not let go. Divorce was also frowned upon so they were expected to be happy with their chosen partner for their whole lives, or at least pretend to be.

As society has changed, the idea of love at first sight has changed with it. Just as we aren’t expected to settle down with someone we’ve just met, so we don’t expect fictional characters to either.

Even so, there are still people who believe in love at first sight and it apparently does happen to some people. Some of these relationships do work out but others end horribly. So can it ever be pulled off in fiction? I’ve found that there are some cases when it can:

When to write love at first sight.

Short time frame. This is why love at first sight is so often associated with Disney films. The writers only have an hour and a half to make you buy into a relationship and love at first sight saves them a lot of time on development. This is why it rarely if ever works in a novel or long running television series because there is plenty of time to develop a relationship naturally.

A legitimate reason. To use Disney as an example again, Frozen did a very good job of establishing why Anna would fall instantly in love with Prince Hans – she’s spent most of her life isolated from her sister and only has one day to find a husband to keep her company throughout the rest of her lonely days. Of course it doesn’t work out but her reasons for falling instantly in love still make a lot more sense than the classic Disney Princesses.

Magical power. Maybe a character can predict what their true love’s first words to them will be or they were star crossed lovers in a previous life and have been sub-consciously drawn to each other. There is some room for creativity here. Magical powers can be a satisfactory explanation but if done badly they can come across as lazy writing, obvious plot devices and an excuse to skip out on the development of the relationship. In the worst cases they can also be downright creepy. Remember how appalled everyone was by the ‘imprinting’ scene in Twilight?

It’s not supposed to work out. Maybe the reasons why people are against this trope are the very things you are going for. It could be a villain with an unhealthy fixation on someone or a clueless romantic with no idea how true love really works. Even Romeo and Juliet, the most famous and glorified example of love at first sight was actually supposed to be a warning against hasty marriages.

Lust at first sight. This is a legitimate excuse because it does happen and lust is different than love. A crush at first sight is also understandable. I think all of us can say we’ve gotten a crush on someone just by looking at them, even if we later found out that their personalities weren’t as great as their looks.

Historical fiction. As I said, people’s attitudes to love at first sight have changed so you might be able to explain it in a historical context. But keep in mind that aside from different attitudes, people in the past were still the same as us in every other way and their hasty marriages didn’t always lead to happily ever after.

So there are some instances when you can write a character falling in love at first sight, but these are just starting points to the development of a relationship. In stories, build up is everything so you have to make your readers believe why somebody is worth going through a whole book’s worth of trials for.

I mentioned in a previous article that love triangles only work if they are written well. This is perhaps even truer for love at first sight. It’s not that writers can’t use it but it needs to be handled in a precise way to work effectively. Sometimes it can be done successfully but it is very rare and attempts to do so more often fail. If your character does fall in love at first sight and you want the readers to support their relationship then at least spend time developing it and the characters properly and have the characters decide if they want to make the relationship work in the long term.

8 creatures that fantasy needs more of.

12 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by Jessica Wood in Dungeons and Dragons, fantasy, musings, story, writing

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beholder, dames blanches, dragon, dryad, dungeons and dragons, fantasy, fantasy archetypes, fantasy creature, fantasy creatures, fantasy story, fantasy world, fantasy writing, gelatinous cube, golem, griffin, kelpie, mermaid, monster, monsters, pegasus, tsukumogami, unicorn, will-o-wisp, writing advice, writing tips

I love dragons. And griffins and pegasi and unicorns and mermaids. That’s why I populate my fantasy worlds with them, as do many authors. But these standard fantasy creatures have been done to death so much they have become boring and unoriginal. Writers don’t need to restrict themselves to fantasy archetypes. There are numerous creatures in mythology and monster manuals that are just as interesting, weird and terrifying and serve the purpose just as well. These are just some of the creatures I’d like to see more of in fantasy:

1. Kelpie

From Scottish folklore, they look like those weird water ponies from My Little Pony except that they can take on human form outside of water, except for their hooves. They lure people to ride on their backs and then drag them under water and drown them. An interesting and twisted alternative to mermaids.

Dames Blanches

Or ‘white women’ are like the bridge keepers that show up in fantasy and won’t let you pass unless you answer a riddle, except instead of a riddle they’ll throw you into a thistle patch if you refuse to dance with them.

Tsukumogami

A Japanese myth of objects gaining life and sentience after 100 years. My favourites are the ittan-momen, bolts of cotton that wrap around people’s necks to choke them and the kasa-obake, living umbrellas that hop around on one leg. There is a whole list on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami. This sounds like the sort of overblown whimsy you see in Ghibli films, but there’s no reason a fantasy novel can’t have a similar concept.

4. Beholder.

Possibly one of Dungeons and Dragon’s most famous creatures, they look like big floating heads with scary huge teeth and single eyes. From their eye stalks they fires rays that can cause damage, put you to sleep, restrain, levitate, confuse, induce fear, or disintegrate.

As they are registered property of Wizards of the Coast, you probably can’t use the word ‘beholder’ but you can use them as the base for your own monster.

5. Dryad

Tree nymphs from Greek mythology, with similar creatures in many other countries’ myths as well. They usually appear as human women and their lives are tied to their trees. They must replant their trees whenever they move somewhere new and if the tree dies then they die with it.

Gelatinous cube.

Anyone who’s ever played Dungeons and Dragons has just groaned. These things are horrible and nearly impossible to defeat. They are literally just ten foot cubes of ooze which cause paralysis when touched and absorb anything they come into contact with. You’d better have a good magic user in your party because they can’t be hurt with physical force or weapons.

Will-o-wisp.

There are many stories of lights that float over swamps or bogs, seemingly to lure unsuspecting travelers away from safe paths to their deaths, but there are many variations. Scandinavian folklore says they point the way to treasure, especially on Midsummer’s day. The German version likes to make fun of couples making out. There are numerous possibilities that your wisps can have.

8. Golem

Also known as a construct, guardian, homunculus, and many other names, these are inanimate beings made of metal, stone, wood, mud, or sometimes even human flesh brought to life by magic, spells or some kind of energy. I don’t know why but I’m fascinated by things like these. Maybe it’s because mythology had the concept of a robot long before science fiction ever did.

Some tips for filling your fantasy world with monsters:

Use mythology books or RPG monster manuals for inspiration. But if the creatures are under copyright, such as the ones invented for the Dungeons and Dragons games, use them as a base instead of directly copying them.
If you still want to include dragons or griffins or any other standard fantasy creature into your book, that’s still fine, as long as you find an original angle for it and don’t rely on decades old stereotypes that have long since become old. For instance, Futurama had a beholder working an office job!
‘Please don’t tell my supervisor I was sleeping!’
Avoid the ‘calling a rabbit a smeerp’ trope. This is where authors are trying to be clever by using a made up word for something that doesn’t need it, which only confuses the reader. It would make sense if the dragons in your fantasy world are called ‘wryms’ or ‘drakes’ but not if they are called ‘Qiznars’.
Use real life animals for inspiration. How about a dire hyena or a ten foot tall swan? All mythology has a basis in reality, after all.
Combining two animals into one is another popular option. Just off the top of my head I have penguin-monkey, owl-toad, and horse-bear. Ok, those need work but you get what I mean.
Mix and match your mythological creatures to create original combinations. One of the best short stories I ever read was a dryad who fell in love with a dwarf.