30 Days of Writing: Romance

16. Do you write romantic relationships? How do you do with those, and how “far” are you willing to go in your writing?

Do I ever.

I'm kind of tempted to leave it at that, but that would seem to violate the point this exercise, so. ;) Yes, I write romantic relationships; I'd say a solid half of my fic is poking at a 'ship, one way or another. Paine and Nooj by far the most often, especially in my first few years of writing, largely because I find their dynamic fascinating. I have discussed this before, often and at length, so I won't go into all the details here, but it's safe to say that I'm not done turning over the rocks of this pairing yet, even if I don't spend as much time writing them these days.

I write plenty of other pairings, too, some based on requests, others because I see interesting possibilities to explore. I rarely write romance for the sake of romance; I write romance because I want to see how romantic involvement or UST affects the interaction of the characters. I have a hard time writing romance or UST between characters if I don't see a basis for it, either in canon or in their general personalities. Even when writing to prompts, I have to come up with a "hook" for a pairing, some reason that they would be talking, interacting, interested in each other, making out...

Which takes to the last part of the question: the porn. I do write sex scenes, but not usually very explicit ones. A lot of soft focus and fade to black. Partly it's circular: I don't write explicit sex often, so I don't have a lot of practice, so I don't feel super-comfortable in my ability to write them well, so I don't write them very often... I sometimes feel like I ought to get more comfortable, but most of the time, I feel that I can tell the stories I want to tell without them. My sex scenes are as character-driven as anything else I write, so unless I feel like the explicit details help show something about the characters or their relationship, I don't bother with them. There's definitely a place in my life for porn without plot, but I have no interest in porn without characterization, as either a reader or a writer, in original fiction as well as fanworks.

30 Days of Writing: Complete list of questions