We think romance is about him and her, right? That it\u2019s Lizzie and Darcy dancing at a ball, emotions pushing at each other. Scarlett O\u2019Hara and Rhett Butler. Anna Karenina and Alexei Vronsky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, OK, that\u2019s true. But there are two sides to romance and they both matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s romance when the two protagonists are on the page together. And the romance that happens when they\u2019re apart. They both matter \u2013 and I want to do a little bit of dissection of both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Him and her<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So here, to start with, is a chunk of early Fiona, with her at an early stage of her first important relationship. The two not-yet-lovers are both coppers. In this scene, they\u2019re sharing a moment on the office stairs. My comments in square brackets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The door at the top bangs and Brydon\u2019s tread starts to clatter down. He\u2019s both heavy and light. Heavy because he\u2019s a biggish lad, and light because he has a natural athleticism, a bounce that carries through into every movement he makes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [In any decent romance, the physical presence of the other is a note that wants to carry through into most encounters. The constant awareness plus a good splash of attraction.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Hey.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Sorry to grab you. I just had to see you. Sorry.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Brydon is on the step above me and I\u2019m talking somewhere in the region of his belly button. \u2018First things first, Fiona,\u2019 he tells me. He comes down a step, then hoists me up to where he\u2019d been standing. We\u2019re still not eyeball to eyeball, but we\u2019re a lot closer.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [This shows the man being manly \u2013 taking control, lifting his girl. She\u2019s accepting of all that \u2013 in effect playing a very traditional female role here, though she is not in general very traditional at all.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018Do I see DC Griffiths in a dress?\u2019 he says. \u2018Have all relevant authorities been notified?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s Brydon humour for you, like it or lump it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018And heels,\u2019 I say. \u2018Look.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [Here, we see both Fiona\u2019s inner and outer worlds. The inner one notes Brydon\u2019s rather ponderous joke \u2013 affectionately, yes, but without admiration. But she doesn\u2019t give Brydon that \u2018rather ponderous joke there\u2019 memo. Instead, she flirts in a tiny way, by calling attention to something prettily feminine. The fact that she chooses the soft route here, not the more abrasive one, tells you a lot about her choices, her inner emotional state.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n He smiles at me. A nice smile, but I know that half his mind is occupied by the clock. He needs to get off to London as soon as he can [\u2026]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I just wanted to tell you I might need to take things slow.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018OK.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018It\u2019s just . . . things can get a bit crazy in my head, and slow tends to be better than fast.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018OK.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018I don\u2019t want you to think that because I\u2014\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019m trying to say, so I end up not saying anything.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018You don\u2019t want me to think that, although you almost walked out into a line of cars on Cathedral Road last night, you\u2019ve got some kind of death wish.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018That\u2019s it,\u2019 I say. \u2018That\u2019s exactly what I was trying to say.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The scene closes with female, emotional awkwardness and a male rescue \u2013 a rescue notable for the simple directness of Brydon: he physically moves her to a better position, he makes dad-jokes, he says \u2018OK\u2019 when she signals emotional complexity, and so on. That simple directness isn\u2019t a limitation of Brydon: it\u2019s what Fiona seeks and needs. (And what, ultimately, will prevent their union.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I really notice about this scene, reading it back, is that Fiona adopts, for the purposes of this early romance, the posture of girlfriend. She simplifies herself and feminises herself. It\u2019s not fake, that. She\u2019s flirting. She\u2019s in love. But nor do we see the full Fiona here \u2013 the one who is quite likely to throw a bad guy off a cliff, or smoke a joint, or expose others to her abrasive humour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think that, probably, in any early romantic scene, we\u2019ll feel the presence of the physical, the jostle of traditional male \/ female roles, and self adapting to the presence of this lovely other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her without him<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now none of this is at all unexpected. But I do especially want to point out that the romance continues \u2013 and is just as intense and maybe even more so<\/em> \u2013 when one of the parties is absent. Here\u2019s how the scene above plays out once Brydon has gone:<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s off. Up the steps. Heavy and light. Thumping the door at the top open so hard that it whacks against its doorstop. The stairwell echoes with the noise of his departure\u2026 <\/em>[A big male departure in other words. Even the sound of his going carries his physical presence.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sit on the step, getting my head into shape again. My pulse rate is high, but it\u2019s steady. I count my breaths, trying to bring my breathing down to a more relaxed range \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t love and this isn\u2019t happiness<\/em>. But it\u2019s like I\u2019m in the hallway and can hear their music spilling out of the living room. Their laughter and candlelight. I\u2019m not there yet. I do know the difference. I\u2019ve had just a single date with Dave Brydon. Nothing that remotely constitutes a relationship. These are early, early days and anything could happen from here. But for once in my life, for once in my hopeless crackpot life, I\u2019m not just in the same timezone, I\u2019m actually shouting-distance close to the love-\u2019n\u2019-happiness twins.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I feel the feelings, piece by miraculous piece. Bum on a concrete step. Heart thumping. A floaty green dress and sandals with two-and-a-half-inch heels. A man who hoisted me up a step because I was talking into his belly button. This is what humans feel like when they are getting ready to fall in love.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I get up from my step and walk slowly back upstairs to my desk<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve compacted this scene quite a bit for reasons of length. (Fiona\u2019s relationships with her own feelings is odd, so it takes her awhile to figure out her own thoughts.) But what you feel here is the huge presence of Dave Brydon, even when he\u2019s not there. I almost want to say: especially<\/em> when he\u2019s not there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the two of them are together, Fiona can\u2019t get into the detail of her feelings too much: there isn\u2019t the space to do it. With him gone? The world opens up: \u201cI\u2019m in the hallway and can hear their music spilling out of the living room. Their laughter and candlelight.\u201d She can start to review those feelings in detail. Her review of the situation still includes all the elements necessary to the start of a hot (and hopeful) relationship:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Him and him, her and her<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you only felt the romance on the page when the two people were present, that romance would fail to ignite. It would be incomplete. It\u2019s the two things together \u2013 romance with, and romance without \u2013 that gives you your complete brew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve never really written a gay relationship, so I can\u2019t speak with authority there. But I think the basic principles remain the same. In the chunks we\u2019ve just read, we see Fiona self-simplify, into someone more feminine than she really is, in order to get her man. That process of self-simplification will, I think, happen in gay relationships too, just not necessarily along classic masculine \/ feminine lines. If you have insights here, do please share them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Romance with a lower case r<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve only once written something that would be classified as a real Romance novel \u2013 it was longlisted for a romance award and a German publisher wanted to publish it under the name Emma Makepeace. But all my novels have had the flutter of romance somewhere, and nearly all novels need them. There\u2019s a particular pleasure, in fact, in interweaving romance and action. Both elements shine the brighter. Just don\u2019t forget all about the romance when the action happens. If the Beloved leaves the Lover\u2019s thoughts too long and too often, it\u2019s not much of a romance at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feedback Friday: Romance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week, we relished an excursion into hist fic. This week, it\u2019s all smooochy kissing and close dancing. Or actually \u2013 the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a useful\u00a0masterclass<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0on romance in all its different manifestations \u2013 from a woman so prolific, she needs two names. Please don\u2019t ignore that video if you don\u2019t write capital-R romance. We all need to know how to write about love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The exercise this week involves scenes where your character is thinking about their beloved, when their beloved is not present<\/em>. It\u2019s your version of the \u2018her without him\u2019 bum-on-a-concrete-step scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Specifically, I want:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m going to be looking for physical awareness, strong feelings, and some sense of the way that the character is being squashed into a different shape (perhaps just temporarily) as a result of their passion. Off you go \u2013 and ah! My heart beats faster, my cheeks are a little pinker \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s it. Feedback in Townhouse as per usual. If you aren\u2019t a\u00a0Premium Member<\/strong><\/a>, you can\u2019t access the masterclass.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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