Julianna Keyes's Blog - Posts Tagged "love"
"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?
Release Week Post 2 - Onions
RELEASE WEEK POST 2
ONIONS
I’ve now seen a few reviews describe “My Roommate’s Girl” as a slow burn romance, and I admit that description came as a surprise. Now that I’ve thought about it, however, I can’t disagree, even if that was never my intention.
The pacing is deliberate. The major plot points all land in the places I’d originally planned them for, but I guess the reason “slow burn” didn’t strike me as the right description is because I wasn’t *trying* to make it a slow burn. I wanted the first part of the book to be an unraveling, a peeling back of layers. The blurb for this book is not misleading, nor is the title. Aidan wants his roommate’s girl and he comes up with a not-so-honourable plan to get her. Because he enacts that plan fairly quickly, it seemed wrong to have him promptly be rewarded (sexually) for that action. First he had to pay. (heh heh)
The best part about what comes next (the slow burn, if you insist) is the character development. Aidan carries out his nefarious plan, but then his imagined next steps—get the girl, then forget about her—don’t go quite as planned. Because while Aidan looks at Aster like she’s some sort of golden trophy, the destruction of her relationship with Jerry and her subsequent friendship with Aidan forces him to see *her* layers. And seeing her hidden layers exposes his hidden layers and it’s a cycle that peels back piece after piece until they’re both in a more honest and open place—and ready to hook up.
At the start of the book, Aidan sees Aster only as a physical object. She’s hot, he wants her. Okay, she’s pretty nice. Still wants her. She’s smart, okay, that’s a bonus. Then he sees her when she’s sad, and realizes she’s not just a figurehead, she’s an actual person. And the more he begins to regard her as human, the more genuinely he wants her, in ways he’s never wanted anything. In ways that have nothing to do with sex, and ways he can’t ignore. And that increases the emotional stakes, which are so crucial in romance. (And in most genres.)
Now that I’ve said all that, I guess I’ve made a solid argument that this book *is* a slow burn. So stick with it and peel back the layers. There’s nothing special waiting for you inside an onion, but I’d like to believe there’s something special in this book. (Plus it probably won’t make you cry.)
ONIONS
I’ve now seen a few reviews describe “My Roommate’s Girl” as a slow burn romance, and I admit that description came as a surprise. Now that I’ve thought about it, however, I can’t disagree, even if that was never my intention.
The pacing is deliberate. The major plot points all land in the places I’d originally planned them for, but I guess the reason “slow burn” didn’t strike me as the right description is because I wasn’t *trying* to make it a slow burn. I wanted the first part of the book to be an unraveling, a peeling back of layers. The blurb for this book is not misleading, nor is the title. Aidan wants his roommate’s girl and he comes up with a not-so-honourable plan to get her. Because he enacts that plan fairly quickly, it seemed wrong to have him promptly be rewarded (sexually) for that action. First he had to pay. (heh heh)
The best part about what comes next (the slow burn, if you insist) is the character development. Aidan carries out his nefarious plan, but then his imagined next steps—get the girl, then forget about her—don’t go quite as planned. Because while Aidan looks at Aster like she’s some sort of golden trophy, the destruction of her relationship with Jerry and her subsequent friendship with Aidan forces him to see *her* layers. And seeing her hidden layers exposes his hidden layers and it’s a cycle that peels back piece after piece until they’re both in a more honest and open place—and ready to hook up.
At the start of the book, Aidan sees Aster only as a physical object. She’s hot, he wants her. Okay, she’s pretty nice. Still wants her. She’s smart, okay, that’s a bonus. Then he sees her when she’s sad, and realizes she’s not just a figurehead, she’s an actual person. And the more he begins to regard her as human, the more genuinely he wants her, in ways he’s never wanted anything. In ways that have nothing to do with sex, and ways he can’t ignore. And that increases the emotional stakes, which are so crucial in romance. (And in most genres.)
Now that I’ve said all that, I guess I’ve made a solid argument that this book *is* a slow burn. So stick with it and peel back the layers. There’s nothing special waiting for you inside an onion, but I’d like to believe there’s something special in this book. (Plus it probably won’t make you cry.)
