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| Photo credit: Boris SV |
When working on my last MS, I encountered an unexpected problem—at least, unexpected to me.
I was writing a dual-POV novel with romance-y bits, and in a scene where one character confessed having feelings for one of my POV characters, one of my critique partners wrote a note along the lines of: ok, but why does he like her?
I stared at that question for a while. She’s a POV character! I protested in my mind. Why wouldn’t he like her?
So I sat down and began writing a list of (oh-so obvious) reasons why said character likes my POV character. Or, I tried to write a list, but stared at the paper and realized, with no small amount of horror, that I had no idea.
You see, the love interest liked my POV character because that was what I’d planned. But somehow, I’d never really figured out why the love interest would like her to begin with, which, for romance purposes, is a tad bit important.
Without a legitimate reason for your love interests to have feelings for each other, you run the risk of writing the always evil insta-love. Romance without a reason for characters to be interested in each other to begin with is unbelievable, because while initial attraction is easy, a real relationship won’t get very far if the characters don’t know why they like each other.
This is something that I’m going to be paying special attention to from here on out, especially while revising, and it’s a question I recommend you ask yourselves while editing as well. Because if your characters don’t know why they like each other, I promise you your readers won’t know either.
Do you know why your love interests like each other?
Twitter-sized bites:
So your characters are falling for each other. But do you know why? (Click to tweet)
Do you know why your love interests like each other? Writer @Ava_Jae talks the importance of knowing the answer. (Click to tweet)
