Writing Romance A_Z
F
Hi Y’all. Welcome back to Writing Romance A-Z. Today’s letter is the letter F. I am also doing things a bit different than the previous posts. Instead of long, boring lists that sound like a geeky encyclopedia, I am choosing a few words that I like to see in romances and maybe a few I dislike.
First of all is friend. I like this word for obvious reasons. We all need and rely on friends. If you are reading this, i consider you a friend. Use to a friend was a person we grew up with or a neighbor or co-worker or anyone we spent one n one time with. Now with new technlogy, we can have friends in other states and even other countries. We can even see these people with apps like on Facebook or Skype. I have a dear friend in England that I miss a lot. We need to get back on skype and catch up.
As a writer, I love a good friends to lovers story, or a second chance where something went wrong with friends and the end up years later in the same town and maybe more. And of course, we have to friends wth benefits as well.
This one may not be a real word but it is widely used now. Furbabies. I have several of my own, and most of my stories include some kind of pet.
I like futile or futility. I guess since I lean to the optimistic side I liked to have something that seems futile in a story and proved wrong. Just when it all looks like things are hopeless something occurs to turn the tide. The situation no longer seems hopeless!
Then there is fertility. This makes for some good plot bunnies. It can make a story sad, happy or even unbelievable ( if you write paranormal and incorporate M/M Preg— which I like). This also ties in with Families. A story isn’t complete without family whether it ends up only the two main characters facing life alone or families that support or toss someone out creating a plot. But the family is there. Or maybe a crime family, mafia stories and motorcycle clubs have become a big thing recently.
We can’t live without food and neither can our characters. And flowers make great gifts and are so romantic. One of my characters is a big garden and surrounds herself with flowers and also flower in art.
Words I do love in a romance are fine, food, fresh, flaming, flushed, fiesty, frisky, and freaky. ]These are great to describe people or situations. I also like flaming for several reasons. Not just to describe hot but a cute little twink in a LGBT story as well. I know there is controversy over that, but I like a pretty flamer for a touch of humor at times. I am not saying every Gay character I write is anything close to that because most of them are not. I am not putting anyone down. I love the vitality and color you can get from this character.
There is one word I debated on bringing up. I am not a fan of it, but in writing adult romance, I found it’s hard to ignore. And that’s the F word. I avoided it in books for a while but then decided f I wanted a more adult audience, shouting out freak or oof or effing in heated sex scenes just didn’t cut it. So, Yes in some of my stories I do say fuck. I don’t fill the story with it but in appropriate places it works.
And I will finish with forever ( see what I did? I snuck in an extra!) I love a happy ever after and forever friends, forever lovers.
Do you require a happy ever after( forever) or is a Happy For now work? I am good with both depending on the story. If it is a series, a HFN is fine. A stand alone I prefer forever. Did I leave out an F word that you love in a romance? What are your feelings on the bad F word Mentioned ( I know I need my mouth washed with soap)
Remember…If you can dream it ~~You can do it!
4 responses to “Writing Romance A-Z”
I’m reading a submission right now for judging in a literary competition, and the author has used six offensive words in the opening two pages, including s–t, f–k, and motherf——. It is so distracting that it is coloring (pun-intended) my whole perception of the work. Personally, I don’t use the F bomb.
Btw, often the “Like this” feature on your blog gets stuck at “Loading…” or I would Like more often. 🙂
Thanks for dropping by. I am glad I am not the only one that doesn’t like the *colorful words. Most of my stories don’t have any f-bombs. The one I am working on I may have put one or two in the love scene I can’t even remember oh thank you for telling me about the Like feature I will tell my host. Anytime you have an issue please let me know.
This is a very interesting series, Cathy. I don’t know how I missed it starting (except maybe for my company this past week-lol). I love that you take on more than one word for the day, and that you raised an interesting issue about what is appropriate language, how much, and when. Maybe like dialect, a little goes a long way. I, too, find frequent uses of “bad language” (as Mom would say) distracting. But it can punctuate and add dimension to a character, distinguish the character from others, etc.
Thank You Sharon. You were actually one of the people that inspired this I kinda took from your daily challenge. I loved yours. I found that it’s hard to avoid bad language in adult books but it can be tastefully done. I am still on the fence with some words and a few are just no nos. Sometimes it sets a character apart. Thanks for your input!