We like romance. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We like to read romance, many of us like to write romance, and sometimes we even like to watch it on the screen. Creating a great romantic story requires us to mash up a few different elements, but one thing is consistent.
Romance is about relationships, how people relate to each other. If you’re going to have a romance, your main characters have to meet.
There are ways around this, of course. There are friends-to-lovers stories. (My book Midnight is one of those. Bad Company by K. A. Mitchell and Hawaii Five Uh-Oh by Z. A. Maxfield are others.)
There’s the enemies-to-lovers route, which is actually one of my favorite tropes. Bone to Pick, by T. A. Moore, is a fantastic example I’ve read recently. Hunter and The Dented Crown, both mine, also incorporate this trope, although in Hunter we have a second-chance romance thing going on.
And since we’re on the subject of second-chance romance… that is my favorite trope in the world. I love to read it, and I love to write it. (I’ve already mentioned Hunter. I’ve also written it into Snowed In: Ross and Ashton.) Lila Rose has some elements of it in Out Of The Blue.
Something I absolutely adore about all of these tropes is that I don’t have to come up with a reason for my characters to meet. I’m serious! I get so frustrated when I’m trying to come up with a plausible reason for two people to stick together long enough for attraction to develop. Sure, I can write about a barista with a fascinating backstory and the medical doctor that will love them, but why would they spend more than ten seconds together?
Ahem. Not that this was a cause of frustration in a recent read or anything.
I’ve seen some amazing reasons for characters to meet up and stick together. I’ve seen them come together for money, for revenge, for pranks. I’ve seen them come together for a quick hookup and never be able to stay apart. I’ve seen some amazing stories where they get together because one is helping the other one with school (Amy Aislin’s On The Ice for example.)
I’m all for suspension of disbelief. I’m just saying, if coffee shops were the hookup places they are in some fiction, I’d never buy coffee outside my home again. It’s unsanitary, I’m telling you.
What are some of your favorite character meet cutes? If you’re a writer, what are the biggest challenges you’ve had when it comes to getting your characters together on the page?