Write the big stuff small and the small stuff big
In romance writing, as in life, it’s the small things that count: the brush of a hair away from the face, an unexpected touch of the hand, a glance across the top of a piano (thank you BBC’s Pride and Prejudice for that classic!). And while there are a million other things that your hero or heroine might encounter during their average day, it’s those little moments that engage your reader and encourage them to keep reading as your protagonists overcome their struggles to find love.
This is why it’s so important to write the big stuff small and write the small stuff big. It might be necessary for your hero to take a shower and change into something a little more comfortable before they meet their love interest, but the writing of this should be minimal – a sentence or two at most – unless they’re wearing a piece of jewellery that causes them to reminisce about their childhood and how much they miss their family, for example.
Ultimately, it’s those small, emotional moments that the reader wants to savour for half a page or more. That’s why they’re reading romance. It’s not just the touch of a hand, it’s the emotional realisation that it brings to the protagonist, the surge of feeling in the pit of the stomach, the blush on a cheek and the spark that jumps between the lovers. Readers don’t want those moments skipped over. They want to savour them and live them in just as much detail as your characters.
These moments are also the moments that develop your characters. Everyone eats, goes to work, takes a bath. But only your character can react to a moment in a specific way. Writing those moments big means that the reader can come to know and understand your character all the better, living the moment alongside them and watching them discover and explore their own feelings as we discover more about them.
So, it might take half an hour for your protagonist to get their hair cut before a date, but it’s the split second where their love interest brushes a hair away from their face that the reader is really interested in… so, write the big stuff small and the small stuff big.
If you are considering working with a Developmental Editor or Copyeditor soon or are in the market for a Manuscript Assessment, contact me to talk about your project.
