I found myself thinking back on one of those great romance stories, specifically the one that plays out really well in Romancing the Stone, with Kathleen Turner. In this movie, Turner plays a romance writer who stumbles while realizing she doesn’t know what her romantic hero would look like, but has a basic idea of his characterizations only, and then goes on her whirlwind romance where she finds the “hero” to become her shining knight (as that kind of story generally requires). Well, recently, while working on my novel in progress, I’m come to a similar situation.
Okay, not exactly like the movie, in that I’m some romantic novelist looking for my knight in shining armor, or even my knightess in shining armor. But as I put together the basic framework of the novel and built the edges of what would need to be filled in, I’ve come to a horrible conclusion that is making this novel very difficult to write. You see, romance has never really been a part of my life.
Adventure? Yes, there’s been a lot of that. Intrigue, conspiracies, espionage, and action? Yes, those have all been a part of my life at one time or another. And I’ve written extensively about those sorts of subjects. I’ve even used the elements of adventure and crafted science fiction and fantasy tales of great imagination.
But romance? Well, that’s really never been a part of my life.
Sure, I’ve been involved in relationships, but to be honest, most of my relationships have been a lot more Woody Allen-ish than Jame Bond-ish. To be even more honest, the kinds of romances I’ve lived in my life would fill a bunch of comedy novels and screenplays, and that’s fine, but that isn’t what I set out to write this time around. I was trying to write what would end up being a powerful romance of a completely tragic nature. There’s very little comedy in that area of what I’ve been trying to capture.
Which leaves me with the dilemma that hits a lot of writers, in that it is often very difficult to write about what one wants to write rather than what one knows. People who know a little bit about writing (and quite often those who know very little bit about it) constantly harangue writers about “write what you know”. And that can be very good advice for when you’re starting out. The usual journey of a writer goes like this:
Novel 1: Write out that unique idea you’ve been thinking about for ages.
Novel 2: Write about killing off your family/parents/friends (either physically or metaphorically).
Novel 3: Rehash an idea that’s been bothering you for awhile (and complete the requirements of Novel 2 if not already done so in Novel 1 or 2).
Novel 4: Reinvent Yourself as a Writer
And every novel after that serves as a reawakening as a writer, in which you learn new techniques to try to build upon the skills you already have, so that each new novel becomes the reinvention of you as a writer, writing something you could never have achieved in a previous novel because you just weren’t ready.
Working on my 13th or 14th novel (one of them is always hard to quantify), I’m way past the stage of killing off one’s parents. In each new novel, I find myself trying to reinvent the very idea of writing, tackling new techniques I never would have attempted before but now feel ready to attempt.
This one has been no different, in that the chronology of the novel serves as a mechanism for revelation and storytelling, to the point where it’s not a gimmick, but a necessity. However, with that in place, I now find myself in the earlier period of the courting stage of two of the main characters, and I realize how little experience I have in this area. Sadly enough, I even had to delete a few chapters because I found myself mimmicking old movies that had dating scenes in them because it was easier to fall back on past remembrances that weren’t mine than to orchestrate them myself from a fabrication that is completely unfamiliar to me.
It would be different if I had participated in dating rituals when I was younger, but I never did. Going to a club or something like that was never my thing, and my first experiences along this line didn’t happen until I got to the Academy. But that was so different an experience from what an average person would experience, as young cadets dating in a club environment does not equal what happens when college students meet each other in that same kind of environment that occurs around a university setting (not an Academy setting). The rituals of dating were never really something I participated in either as I tended to date very unique women over the years who definitely did not fall into the “normal” categories of dating. To explain the quandary further, let’s just say that when I find myself trying to describe a dating ritual for my main characters, I find those types of encounters somewhat simple and almost cliche, in that nothing I ever went through fell into such normal parameters. But to try to integrate the kinds of relationships I’ve had over the years into a story that requires a solid, normal foundation is somewhat bewildering.
But I did go into this project hoping to stretch myself as a writer. I guess it’s doing just that.
Now, there’s somewhere I can help you ! Heaven knows that’s a thing I have experience with.