Aspiring Advice: A Word on Cheese . . . Er . . . Romance!

Greetings webhoppers and Laire followers! Today I'm blogging to you from the Provo Marriott, which is hosting the LDStorymakers Conference. I wish I can say that everything has run smoothly so far, but I would be lying. Stinks when you're alarm doesn't go off when it should! So, yeah. My wife woke me up instead, bless her heart, at 7:30. I was supposed to be at the conference at 7:30. By some miracle I arrived at 8, fully dressed (obviously), and somehow found a very close parking space to the conference area. Good Karma, me thinks.

Due to my tardiness, I did not get to share my portion for the bootcamp. Not to worry. I'll have my chance tomorrow. I've got a few other entries to read before then and lots of great panels to attend. There's a lot of raw talent here, and it's so much fun being a part of that awesome rawness. Rawr!

And now, a short column of advice.
Romance. I'm not exactly a romantic person, so this will be a tough topic to address. For me, having some level of romance is important, if not essential, to any story. I don't mean that people have to be fawning over each other all the time, but as people, they have emotions, and have ties to other people. Unless you are a vegetable, you will always find someone attractive. You will always have someone that you care about, even if you never have romantic interactions with them. For me, the best kind of romance are the ones that are built upon, not love at first sight. Who would have thought that Ron and Hermione would end up a couple by the time those books were done, huh? The foreshadow was there, but it was still a surprise, after reading seven of them.
Three things to consider when using romance.
1: Fools rush in; your prose may suffer for it. Slow down, big fella!
2: Conflict; complications arise that are bound to keep love-interests apart. This keeps readers interested, because they want to know who so-and-so is going to end up with.
3: Dependent Characters; good romance involves equally strong characters to share it with.

Again, romance isn't quite my thing, or, you won't find me in a romance section of a book store . . . ever. Do I have romance in my stories? You bet. But it's a part of the story, not the story. Romance to me is love. If you show love in your stories, romance will follow you. I wish to elaborate more, but the conference is now breaking for lunch, and I am without breakfast.

Thanks for clicking in, as always.
I'll write a breakdown of this conference on Monday.

I'm David, and that turkey sandwich looks really good!