For me, so far, the hardest part about writing romance is
the HEA. Here your hero and heroine are, about to really be honest with
themselves and each other for possibly the first time, lay themselves wide open
to rejection (and being a category romance there are bound to be very good
reasons why that rejection will be shattering) and your emotionally-invested
reader needs to be swept away in a flood of sensual yet genuine emotion. The
worry is that, having built your book and your characters up to this climax it
is all going to be one massive let down, just as poor Anne Shirley found when she finally received her first proposal from Billy Andrews, who got his
sister, Jane, to do the deed for him.
A truly satisfying HEA bypasses all sense and irony
provoking a truly emotional response. I love Four Weddings and a Funeral I really do but when Andie McDowell
says ‘Is it raining? I hadn’t noticed?’ I cringe. Every time. Yet up to that
moment it works, the humour and romance perfectly balanced only to fall flat at
the last hurdle – thank goodness for the end credits which redeem the film
slightly. In contrast the ending of Sleepless
in Seattle which came out at the same time is picture perfect – understated
and sweetly funny much like the film itself.
 |
| *Swoon* Jordan Catalano... |
Hathaway flying out to Seattle to find a bearded Dr Ross
sitting by a lake (ER), Bill Pullman
dropping the ring into the payment slot, his whole family grinning behind him (While you were Sleeping) and yes,
despite my husband’s eye rolling, Patrick Swayze ensuring that No-One Puts Baby
in a Corner. Claire Danes walking over to Jared Leto (My So-Called Life - okay, Brian obviously really loves her and that's lovely but she's a teenager and Jared Leto has cheekbones and a guitar), the moment the camera pulls back to reveal that
yay! Joey and Pacey did get together (Dawson’s
Creek), the look on Lorelai’s face as she realises Luke has ensured Rory’s
farewell party was a success (Gilmore Girls). Each of these endings is the
perfect pay-off for the viewer who, in some cases, has spent hours watching the
characters grow and develop to reach this moment.
So how as romance writers do we achieve this perfect moment,
this pay-off? Our HEA has to feel real, has to feel natural. We need to show
that our characters have grown and moved on, are ready for this moment, deserve
this moment. It’s not enough for a stereotypical, womanising, anti-marriage
hero to just propose. We need to see what brought on this change of heart; we
need to believe in it, we need to believe it will last. If our heroine has
spent the last 120 pages professing to despise everything our hero is and does
then she needs a more convincing reason to say ‘yes’ than his billionaire
status and chiselled good looks no matter how perfect the proposal may be. Make
them real, let them grow, show them learn from their mistakes and make the
reader yearn for a HEA and then all you have to do is deliver it…
Sounds easy doesn't it??
2 comments:
It's a horrendous part of the ms, I totally agree. I know the requirement is to make it original in a way that would suit only THAT hero and heroine, but I still seem to drift into cheese factor. Every time. And then end up having to rewrite. Would love a foolproof rule on this, but then I'd love a foolproof rule on everything!
It is hard to walk that line between genuine emotion and the cheesy. I find writing the perfect ending really tricky. Most other scenes, I at least know what I think the perfect scene ought to look like, even if my first draft isn't right. The ending, sometimes I'm not even sure what I think the ideal would be.
Post a Comment