I hope I’m not reviving this episode too long after its death, but I only recently decided to put my reading addiction to good use and started listening to the writing excuses podcasts last night. I just have a little bit to add from another female perspective.

First off, I would say that M has it right, but that it works the other way around as as well.

“Either [women] are too confident or not confident enough, too pushy or not assertive enough, too clingy or not emotionally connected to the [man]…” and men can either be too cool or try to hard, be so obvious that it comes across as creepy or seem uninterested. And we really don’t want to see either creepy or uninterested.

I think a lot of women, even the more confident, really fear rejection. We may be terrifying, but we’re also afraid! Which may be why so many of us over-analyze the touch that might have just been an accidental bump but I’m really not sure it could have meant he likes me but maybe not I just don’t know! And there is much gnashing of teeth. (This is why other female friends are important – to bolster our self-confidence and give a second ‘outsider’ analysis to keep us from losing our minds.) Okay, so that’s how it was in high school. As adults we tend to at least try to act a little more mature about it, though the thoughts and insecurities don’t change. Of course I think this sort of goes for any relationship. After a job interview, you’re going to wonder about how it went, and what the boss’s reactions mean. It’s just that much harder in the beginning of a romantic relationship partly because it is so much more personal, but also because you’re trying harder to be liked for a longer period of time.

I have to stop, because my train of thought has long ago derailed and my writing will follow if I let it. These are great podcasts, guys! Not only interesting, but highly entertaining. I’m looking forward to more.

http://mbarker.livejournal.com/96426.html

I was thinking more on this and I don’t think there’s a way to not write a romance of sorts into the book. Go with me on this for a sec

I think that in every book, there are passions.. Something that your drives your character, motivates them, makes them want to be better than they ever thought they could. In a romance novel, its the love interest. In a fantasy novel, it might be a love interest or a sense of nobility. In a horror novel, the passion might be the need to kill, to possess, to inflict horror, to inflict pain..etc… (obviously, in the sense of horror, being a better person in their eyes would not be the same as being a better person in our eyes, but they don’t know that!)

The point is that what ever your character’s passion is, it has to be written well. In the case of a romantic element, it has to be done particularly well because the other character needs to be just as credible as your main character.

I wouldn’t want someone to read this whole thread and lose an element that might enhance the story they are working with. Write your character’s passion well, and you’ll have gotten what you needed to out of this whole thread