The Books, Dreams and Prosecco festival is taking place in the Chick Lit and Prosecco facebook group this weekend! Hosted by the lovely Anita Faulkner, it’s a whole lot of book joy from authors of romantic books of all sorts. My slot is 2pm on Sunday the 12th (UK time), and I’m talking about ‘Creating and Maintaining Romantic Tension’. It’s been an interesting topic to tackle.
The stories I write are focussed on the two characters falling in love, so romantic tension is the main feature of my books, which is what inspired me to take on this topic in the festival.
When I was learning how to structure a novel with a romance at its centre, most of what I needed to grasp was around the romantic conflict, making sure there was enough stopping the characters from falling in love to keep the tension high throughout the plot. But increasingly, I think mainstream romantic books are now fairly low-conflict (that doesn’t mean it’s not important – it very much is), but readers hang onto the other side, the swoony feelings of falling in love.
Both of these sides create the romantic tension in the book – the push-pull of the conflict versus the (emotional AND physical) attraction and each writer has their own unique blend of these.
So join the group to hear all these wonderful authors sharing their experience, their thoughts and most importantly their lovely WORDS! I’ll also be sharing an exclusive snippet from the first chapter of a Match Made in Venice!
Leonie Mack 