A to Z Blogging Challenge - Day 11

K is for Kissing

When I first started writing fiction, I wrote pretty much exclusively fantasy and swords and sorcery. My characters fought and worked magic and found themselves trying to survive in all kinds of weird situations. But the one thing they did not do was kiss. Not even a peck on the cheek. In fact, my characters hardly ever even touched each other, unless it was a punch to the jaw or a sword through the midsection.

It took a long time before I felt comfortable allowing physical contact between my characters. After years of honing my craft, I finally allowed my characters to kiss. These days they not only kiss they . . . um . . . do a lot more than kiss. ;-)

The amount of heat in your novel is up to you, as the writer, and what your story calls for, but it all starts with that first kiss.

You can’t just have your characters going around willy nilly kissing other characters, there needs to be a reason for the kiss. Imagine if someone you’d never seen before, and to whom you were not attracted, came up and laid a big, fat kiss on you. Would it turn you on, or would it disgust you? My guess is the latter. There has to be some kind of pull between your characters. This can be a slow build up or love at first sight, but they must be attracted to each other on some level before their kiss will be believable .

There are many kinds of kisses; you need to choose the right one for both your characters and your scene. A kiss may be shy, or hesitant. It could be stolen, or confident, or demanding. Or it could very well be the height of passion. Keep this in mind and write the actions that go along with this kiss.

A kiss in a dark alleyway is completely different to a kiss on the top of a ferris wheel or a kiss in front of a fireplace. Write the scene with lots of detail so the reader can easily picture it. The setting and scene of the kiss can be as important as the kiss itself.

Engage all the senses when writing the scene. A reader is more involved when his or her senses are stimulated. Let them feel the heat of bodies pressed together, hear the quickening of the breath, smell the cologne he used or the perfume she did.

Writing a kissing scene isn’t much different than writing any other scene. It’s full of dialogue and description, people moving around, making decisions, and carrying out actions. But above all, the kissing scene will move the story forward.

30 Days of Writing Questions – Day 11

11. Who is your favorite character to write? Least favorite?

I pretty much like all my characters, even the bad guys. I guess as far as my favourite character goes, I think I’d probably have to go with Jessica, the MC for a fantasy novel I started. She’s had some bad breaks, but she doesn’t let them get her down. She also has all kinds of magical power that she doesn’t quite know what to do with and she’s a little accident prone.

Next would be Sara, the MC from the second Myste book. She’s very together and knows how to roll with the punches. She’s also one of the first female characters I’ve ever created who has short hair. I’ve had this thing about long hair ever since I was a kid – every summer my mother would take me to the hair dresser to have my hair lopped off. I hated short hair!

My least favourite character to write was probably Hannah, from the first Myste book. She was a real pain in the butt. She was wishy washy in the beginning, pretty dull and lifeless. It wasn’t until I rewrote the beginning (for the umpteenth time) in first person that she came to life. The nature of the story prevented the whole thing from being done in first person, but the experiment was enough to get her back on track.

As I said, though, I pretty much like all my characters. If I didn't, how could I write about them?

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