Julianna Keyes's Blog - Posts Tagged "instalove"
"UNDECIDED" RELEASE WEEK POST THREE
SHOW YOUR WORK
Remember when you were first learning to do long division and the teacher made you “show your work” so you couldn’t just cheat and write the final answer? This is a pretty apt analogy for how I feel about instalove in romance novels. I know a lot of people are willing and able to overlook it, but it drives me insane. That’s why there are zero instances of instalove in any of my books. Insta-lust? Sure. I can buy that. But instalove is a firm no.
My favourite part of reading romance is seeing the characters fall in love. Being told on page nine that they can’t live without each other feels like a cheat. I think the reason instalove is so prevalent in modern love stories is because of the pressure to “get your story started” right away. You have to “hook” a reader/agent/publisher immediately, so characters simply lock eyes and begin drowning in their desire for one another on page two.
I’d much rather come to the conclusion that a couple is meant to be 2-gether 4-ever on my own. And I like to come to this conclusion by reading about the progression of their relationship, by seeing their interactions (and not just the sexytimes), reading the dialogue, and *feeling* something.
I want to see couples be real, be funny, be foolish, be frisky. Trying to find the balance between showing these things and keeping up the pace so the reader/agent/publisher is invested is not always easy, but when a writer takes the time to do this, I give them an A+ for effort. (*ahem* I’m saying give me an A+.)
What do you think? Do you find instalove irritating or is it a non-issue?
Remember when you were first learning to do long division and the teacher made you “show your work” so you couldn’t just cheat and write the final answer? This is a pretty apt analogy for how I feel about instalove in romance novels. I know a lot of people are willing and able to overlook it, but it drives me insane. That’s why there are zero instances of instalove in any of my books. Insta-lust? Sure. I can buy that. But instalove is a firm no.
My favourite part of reading romance is seeing the characters fall in love. Being told on page nine that they can’t live without each other feels like a cheat. I think the reason instalove is so prevalent in modern love stories is because of the pressure to “get your story started” right away. You have to “hook” a reader/agent/publisher immediately, so characters simply lock eyes and begin drowning in their desire for one another on page two.
I’d much rather come to the conclusion that a couple is meant to be 2-gether 4-ever on my own. And I like to come to this conclusion by reading about the progression of their relationship, by seeing their interactions (and not just the sexytimes), reading the dialogue, and *feeling* something.
I want to see couples be real, be funny, be foolish, be frisky. Trying to find the balance between showing these things and keeping up the pace so the reader/agent/publisher is invested is not always easy, but when a writer takes the time to do this, I give them an A+ for effort. (*ahem* I’m saying give me an A+.)
What do you think? Do you find instalove irritating or is it a non-issue?
