What mistake does a kissing couple make?
Why is all of your real-life romance exciting, while your kissing scenes read so lame?
Whenever you were the protagonist of romance in real life: Palpitations, edginess, Learjets… I mean, butterflies in your stomach. Or at least steamy windows in your eyes.
And on paper?
Shallow words, predictable actions, and empty shells of emotions.
Why is that? And how can you get to the heart of what makes a kissing scene exciting, and transfer that onto paper? How to write a kissing scene that will truly accelerate your readers’ pulse?
Not an easy task. But this post will equip you with all the tools you need. Read on to get answers to these questions:
- How can you stay far, far away from any cliché?
- What are some excellent tricks to let your readers feel the love?
- Why is awkwardness your best friend?
- How can you take advantage of your personal experiences as secret wonder weapons?
- And yes, it’s gonna get juicy and steamy too in the end…
But before we get into it, read this kissing scene and tell me what you think:
Heavy rain was pattering down on the streets.
“Wait, wait,” he suddenly shouted from behind, running after her. “You forgot something…”
Under her umbrella, she turned around surprised, with an expectant look on her face: “What is it?”
Panting he stood before her: “You forgot to give me a chance to tell you that I love you. More than I have ever imagined that I could love someone!”
“Oh, Mike!” She fell round his neck. Suddenly teardrops were mixing with the pouring rain: “I promise to love you forever, every single day of eternity,” she sighed. “Being with you is… like magic.”
They kissed passionately under the open sky, lost in a bubble of time and space, not even noticing the heavy waterfalls pouring down on them while they were getting soaking wet.
Did this scene touch you deeply? Did it get to you?
To me, it did nothing.
What you just read is a pile of clichés we have seen a thousand times before, all pressed into one single scene. I just fed you a learned code instead of serving you fresh fiction; yes, I force-fed you a learned code like traffic signals or like the bell that trained Pavlov’s dogs. The signals above are intended to get you salivating romantically… ring, ring!
Cliché setting? Check (“Heavy rain was pattering down on the streets.”)
Cliché expressions? Check (“I promise to love you forever, every single day of eternity”)
Cliché feelings? Check (“…I love you. More than I have ever imagined that I could love someone”)
Cliché comparisons and similes? Check (“Being with you is… like magic.”)
In short, the snippet above contains too many clichés and relies way too much on what the author thinks romance should look like.
Fiction needs to speak truth, it needs to be raw and bold and unconditional, it has to touch our inner beings – like love. It shouldn’t be a preformed template.
Here is the problem though: No feeling in fiction is harder to convey than love. That’s because being in love is a feeling that escapes any description – it’s too exciting; too strange; too magnetic; too rare.
Pain, joy, disappointment, anxiousness are all easier to describe than love. They are more one-dimensional, more common and in most situations not as overwhelming as love.
Because love is so difficult to describe, many writers circle around it. Instead of taking a shot at painting the feeling itself for you, they give you placeholders you recognize from movies: “Ah, they are saying they will love each other forever! That’s how it works in romance novels, so that must mean it’s a wonderful romance.”
This post aims to show you a couple of ways to craft more authentic kissing scenes, drawing from deep inside, step by step.
Answer: The two people’s hands were in the wrong position
