How to create chemistry between your romantic leads
BY Jenny Colgan
9th Mar 2023
Jenny Colgan is the author of numerous Sunday Times bestselling novels and has won various awards for her writing, including the Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance, the RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award and the RNA Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year Award. Here she shares three tried-and-tested methods for sparking attraction between your protagonists. These tips will help romance writers and those writing a romantic subplot within a different genre. To learn more from renowned romance writer Jenny, join our six-week online Writing a Romance Novel course.
Opposites attract
In this genre, it’s not just about having two brilliant fleshed-out characters on their own – they also have to spark off one another. Are they opposites, temperamentally? From completely different worlds, classes, traditions, galaxies? My favourite Opposites Attracts book is The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler, where bereaved, uptight Macon meets whacky dog trainer Muriel, who encourages him to open up. But Opposites Attract is a cornerstone to much romantic fiction.
Kindred spirits
Conversely, characters can be incredibly similar – damaged possibly – and they have to edge towards each other, find a way to make it through and recognise themselves in the other person and really connect before it’s too late. Think of the lovely film Once, or all those situations where the two main characters don’t want to commit and are absolutely just going to have fun (UNTIL . . .)
If only they could be together
Sometimes characters are perfectly matched and know it, but there is something in their way – whether illness, a war, a belief system, other commitments. (If you read my Mure series, you’ll recognise Lorna and Saif’s dilemma in this category straight away).
It is vital that every single scene where we see the main characters together – whether they’re discovering what they have in common, or fighting like cats and dogs – is full of energy and spark and excitement. They should never be dull. If they have to share a dishwasher emptying scene, it better be the funniest, sexiest, flirtiest dishwasher-emptying in the history of the genre.
This advice is taken from our six-week online Writing a Romance Novel course with teaching videos, notes and writing tasks presented by Jenny Colgan.