How To Write a Love Story To Avoid Vanilla Cliches

Writing a love story that doesnt smack of clichà © is a lot harder than you might think. Ask any writer and theyll tell you that love stories and love scenes are in fact very challenging to narrate. Many actors also express difficulty in nailing love scenes. They fear theyre being melodramatic and not genuine. What is it about love stories that makes them so tricky to get right? The biggest factor is that love stories hinge on the intangible. Its all about emotion and emotional build-up. And the inexplicable connections that make people fall in love. How do you capture that without sounding corny? Here are some tips on how to deliver the goods the right way: Focus on the Characters Its easy to overdo the emotional narrative of a love story. But, in the end, that actually makes the reader less emotionally invested. As in any story, the characters have to have something that anchors them to this world. Who are they? What drives them? What makes the reader able to identify with them? When you develop characters who look, act and talk like real people then you have a chance at writing a good love story between them. Wheres the Tension? Whos watched a film about a love story where theres no sexual tension between the main characters? Isnt it painful to watch? Doesnt it make your skin crawl? Or make you wish you had the power to be in the room to shout â€Å"No!† when the casting director made this awful mistake? Well, reading a love story can be exactly the same. That is, if the characters havent been given the emotional build-up they deserve in order to make their story exciting. Creating tension has a few different elements. Whether this is a doomed romance or one with a happy ending, this is love were talking about and therefore it should have that feeling of jumping off a cliff. Even if the characters live in suburban Pennsylvania and drive SUVs, the vulnerability and emotional risk of falling in love should be present in the story. In fact, please do write about people who live in Suburban Pennsylvania and drive SUVs. Writing about ordinary people having an extraordinary experience by meeting each other and falling in love is a great way to build tension. Throw In Some Conflict Maybe your protagonists arent Romeo and Juliet, but it wouldnt hurt to throw in some conflict to spice things up. Maybe one of them has a jealous ex. Or a child who wont accept the new partner. Maybe theyre colleagues at work. Or shes his boss (avoid stereotyping!). Or one of them is a priest or a nun. What are the hurdles they have to get over in order to be together? Big or small, conflict makes the story tellable. Nobody rushes to call a friend to say, â€Å"I just couldnt wait to tell you how incredibly easy my day has been!† Conflict makes things interesting and makes the reader beg to discover how its going to be resolved. If your characters just fall perfectly into each others lives and every page is about how smoothly everything is going, dont be surprised if you have some angry readers on your hands by the end. Dont Go There Avoid stereotyping both the men and the women in your story. You know what I mean: the helpless woman and the manly man. Corseted damsels and sword-bearing knights, princesses and princes. Make your characters as real as you can. Avoid these cliches, unless youre doing a unique spin on a tired theme then its okay. Dare To Be Different So what should you write about? Good writing is original yet familiar. Realistic yet surprising. Woody Allens Annie Hall includes a scene where he asks a couple on the street what the secret to their happiness is. The woman replies that â€Å"Im really shallow and empty and have nothing interesting to say.† And the man adds, â€Å"Im exactly the same way.† Lets hope that your characters go beyond that. Check out this list of unusual love stories for some inspiration. Get the Language Right Avoid the romance novel cliches that involve words like moaning, groaning, rippling, aching, burning, urging, yearning etc. This is perhaps the biggest challenge in a love story to describe the characters feelings without resorting to any of these cheesy terms. If you cant think of original ways to express these things, take a different angle. Focus on the events, the conflict, the characters and tell the story from that perspective without the emotional interludes. Theres a Thin Line Between Love and Porn Okay, its a love story, so we all know that the characters love each other and want to rip each others clothes off. Thats a given. But when it comes time for them to actually do that (that is if you even choose to write the love scene at all) be careful not to be too graphic, crass or pornographic. Otherwise, its not really a love story, but more of a story for Penthouse. While writing the love scene, ask yourself: does it deepen the readers understanding of the characters? Has something changed between them after this scene? Does it help move the story forward? Does it help the reader understand more about love, sex and relationships? Keep It Real If you want to be graphic, try another tack. Take author Rachel Toors advice, â€Å"I think love scenes are better with farts or fear of farts, worries about bad breath, wondering about the state of ones underthings, concerns about parts left too long un-groomedin life getting jiggy entails the incredible and terrifying act of coming this close to another person that can be messy, smelly and often pretty darned funny.† Being ultra-realistic is certainly a way to avoid clichà ©. Author Caitlin Morans autobiography How To Be A Woman also has some hilarious chapters that deal with the physical paranoias that come with sex and dating. Check it out for more reality-driven inspiration.