M.B NOVELS®

The real challenge for romance scenes, as a romance author in denial, isn’t writing attraction. It’s writing specific attraction. It’s figuring out why these two particular people can’t stop thinking about each other when everyone else in the room is perfectly normal. It’s creating chemistry that feels earned instead of manufactured, intimate instead of generic. The best love scenes usually aren’t about physical attraction at all. They’re about tension. Anticipation. The tiny details people suddenly become aware of when they care too much. The way someone remembers an offhand comment from three months ago. The way a conversation becomes dangerous because neither person is saying what they actually mean.

That’s the stuff readers lose their minds over because it feels emotionally true.

I think that’s why writing romance can be surprisingly difficult. You’re not documenting a relationship. You’re creating the illusion that two fictional people belong together. By the time they finally hold hands, confess their feelings, or kiss, readers need to be so invested that they feel personally responsible for the outcome. No pressure.

Of course, this process occasionally requires a writer to spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about human behavior. How long should eye contact last before it becomes suspicious instead of romantic? What’s the difference between a friendly hug and a romance novel hug? How many chapters should two people spend pretending they’re just friends before readers start throwing books across the room? These are important artistic questions.

And yes, imagination helps. Quite a lot. Because eventually you reach the point where observation runs out and storytelling takes over. Real life is often messy, inconsistent, and anticlimactic. Fiction requires shape. It requires timing. It requires enough emotional payoff to make readers stay up until two in the morning saying, “Just one more chapter.”

So if you’ve ever wondered how writers create convincing love stories, the answer is surprisingly simple: part observation, part imagination, part emotional damage, and part staring at a document wondering whether two characters should kiss in chapter twelve or chapter thirteen. It’s a delicate science. And I am committed to advancing the field.