In Character - The First Kiss

 

Welcome to our first official In Character chat! We got together with a few ROSA members and their characters to find out about that all important romantic moment – their first kiss!

Our thanks to Tanya Wilde, Marianne Lomberg, and Peter Barker for letting us get a glimpse of their characters’ lives!

Tanya Wilde writes fun, sassy historical romances inspired to ignite your inner heroine. As we all know, every heroine deserves an adventure! You can find more characters like Ophelia at www.authortanyawilde.com

Marianne Lomberg published her debut novel, Through Your Eyes, in 2021 and hasn’t stopped smiling since. She writes stories about strong, imperfect women with exciting careers and deep longings who find the love we all deserve. You can find Marianne on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MarianneLombergAuthor

Peter Barker has been a member of ROSA for the past five years. He has served on the Executive committee as treasurer. His publications include Cupid Mislaid, a full-length romance novel, and has contributed three short stories to Flambé, A Silk Tie murder, and the Rooibos Baby, a mixed genre anthology that was put out by the Sharp Pencils Writers group. Peter embarked on a writing career after retiring as an accountant in the travel industry. He is married to Audrey.

Hello, I’m Lady Ophelia Thornton, heiress and only daughter of the Earl of Rhodes. By far, my most favorite pastime is to put skirt-sniffing fortune-hunters in their place. I never miss an opportunity to do so!

You can read about my attempts in Not Quite A Rogue.

 

Hi! I’m Akheela. Akheela Edwards. Evolutionary biologist in the sci-fi romance, Where The Light Rests, due for publication in 2022. As you read this, I’m on the moon. Yes. I just said that. I am part of the world’s first civilian mission to the rock that reflects our sun, spending my days studying the tardigrades, tiny, prehistoric animals, found trapped in the lunar ice. And my nights trying to reconcile myself to the fact that I live with a fucking humanoid robot butler who can see everything I do.

 

Hi Penelope, this must be a bit unusual for you, as a journalist. Usually you’re the one asking the questions. Now you’re answering them.

Yes, it does feel a bit strange. I was created in the imagination of Peter Barker or PG Barker as he calls himself. Peter used to work as a freelance journalist while still a high school and university student, so my life experiences are based on that. His genre is romantic suspense. This WIP is slightly different. He has me dealing with the subject of corruption which is quite endemic in this country.

Everyone has a very special, sometimes awkward, occasionally bittersweet first kiss memory. Let’s find out about Ophelia's, Akheela's and Penelope’s! 

My first kiss was, dare I say stolen, on the most trafficked street in London. I, for one, never saw it coming. Had I an inkling of that man’s intention, I’d have surely dashed for the Thames!

Then again, what can an unattached lady do at the callow age of twenty?

  

Peter doesn’t mention anything about my high school love life other than someone I had a crush on. In my back story there is David with whom I had an idyllic romantic relationship.

David was special to me. He was someone I fell deeply in love with. Unfortunately, once campus life was over, David went home to Livingstone in Zambia and I returned to the fictitious town, renamed Amagquma on the East Rand.

Wow, you jump right in, don’t you? It’s okay, Marianne warned me about this.  My first kiss was with the class hunk in 6th grade. His name was Patrick. He was tall and, well, I mean, he was sweet enough, but I only liked him because all the girls were supposed to. Susan kissed him, and so I had to, you know? I mean, my mom always told me the only way a girl with an afro was going to get the same things as the pretty, white girls, was by taking them. So during Shelley’s birthday party, while the movie was playing on the TV in her parents’ lounge. I just slid over to him on the couch and slapped my lips on his mouth. Then I froze, until he put me out of my misery by kissing me back. I mean, that’s the story of my life, really. Jumping in, then freezing and thinking shit.

The kiss wasn’t bad, I guess, as twelve-year-olds’ first kisses go. And I did end up living with a guy who looked a lot like Patrick. So, you know. Maybe he was more than just the boy I kissed because Susan did, after all.

 

That would be Harry Spencer, the rogue Earl of Avondale. By Jove! That jackanape kissed me on St. James Street in broad daylight! Had I not been disguised as a gentleman myself, I might have been thoroughly ruined! And therein lay the shock of it all. He kissed me while I was disguised as a man. Caught me quite off guard!

To this day, the tips of my fingers still go numb whenever I recall that scandalous scene. Though, between the two of us, who was more scandalous at the time, is still up for debate.

Although there can only ever be one very first kiss, every romantic relationship has a moment where you share your first kiss. Let’s explore your present romantic interests! 

I married that scoundrel Avondale. God forbid another reckless youth tries to steal a kiss. I’ve run out of places to hide the duelling pistols!

Any suggestions, dear reader?

 

His name is Geoff Brickhill. My boss sent me to interview the head of the Department of Health procurement division which had been set up in our little town. That person was in a meeting so I got passed on to Geoff who was an official there. I was blown away by his good looks as soon as I met him. He was very passionate about rooting out corruption, and that became the focus of our relationship at first.

After one of our meetings I asked him out of a date. That was something I’d never done before. He was impressed. He thought I was progressive and he liked that. I took him to a new restaurant and at the end of the date he walked me to my car, hugged me and kissed me as we were saying good night. I was surprised to find how electrifying his kiss was, particularly as I had been in a relationship before.

Avondale has been my only kissing partner. That’s not to say we don’t keep matters of the lips thrilling. These days, I have been fantasizing about kissing Avondale while riding atop a horse. I suspect, however, that for the position that I have in mind, I’d be wearing breaches again or drag my skirts above my knees. . .

Heavens, my cheeks suddenly feel quite hot! In any event, the likes of this scene ought not to be painted for the eyes of others! Not from my lips. Let us leave the details to the author.

 

Ugh. You had to go there. Fine. Tom. I kissed Tom. And no, not only because I’m a Star Trek fan and he has dimples and has the same name as Tom Paris from Voyager. Here’s the rub though: our kiss should have been perfect. It should have led to seriously good sex. Because maybe it’s the purified air, or maybe it’s the slightly lower air pressure out here, but orgasms are pretty intense. I was kinda looking forward to sharing one with someone else.

But I couldn’t do it with the bloody android staring at me. I couldn’t even focus enough to tell you if I enjoyed the kiss we’d been building up to for eight weeks when it finally happened.

And the fact that both Tom and the android looked at me as if I was the delusional one, and asked what worried me about a computer with a human shape being in the same room, when I was surrounded by computers while having sex on earth, didn’t warm me to either of them. Arseholes.

Would it be that I had more love interests to compare my husband’s ki—

“More what?”

“Harry? When did you arrive? Why are you glaring at me? Have you been hiding there the whole time?”

Forgive me, dear reader. I should have foreseen Avondale lurking in the shadows of this interview. He put on quite the sulk when I did not invite him to join me today. I’d not have gotten a word in otherwise!

As for the matter of more kissing partners . . . I’ll just leave that for your interpretation.

Not at present, no, but I do declare today has been a delight! Next time, I shall be sure to arrange for a more private setting. For now, I shall be off. A brooding male is waiting to be appeased. And what better way to soften one's spouse than by demanding wanton kisses!

 

YES! I’d like to be able to park the fucking robot butler in a deep, dark closet, preferably one where its energy cells would deplete totally. I never asked to be watched twenty four hours a bloody day!

…

Although. The thing is, my android understands me in a way I have never experienced with any human romantic partner. And no, we haven’t kissed. We can’t. It has sensors for a mouth. But in the middle of the night, when my demons wake me, its arms surrounding me and its solid, humming warmth behind my back makes me wish that we could. That someone who spends every moment of their existence working to understand me, could be human enough for me to be allowed to fall in love with them.

 

I have feminist sympathies and I felt quite proud of myself for initiating the first date. However deep down in my girly of girly heart, it would have been nicer if he had initiated the first date.

Geoff has made up for it. The hugs and kisses are coming at full tilt.

Now that you’ve met some of our ROSA members’ characters and learnt all about their first kiss experiences, share your thoughts in the comments and if you’re feeling brave, share your own experiences of first kisses! 

If you'd like to find out more about creating characters with sizzling chemistry, writing romance that leaves readers wanting more, and have an opportunity to network with industry professionals, join us at ROSACon 2021.

The Six Requirements of a 2020 Heartthrob

The other day I watched Top Gun again. I was a total fan in the eighties, Tom Cruise dazzled me. But when I watched it now, I was like, PEE-YEW!

How was I ever in love with ‘Maverick’ Mitchell?  Through my 2020 lens he is a shocker.

A clue came to me via the wealth of knowledge that is all things history, Dr Glen Thompson, who put me on to the work of social and cultural historian Carol Dyhouse. She’s written a book entitled Heartthrobs, A History of Women and Desire. This book shows how change in the social position of women shapes their dreams about men.

An article on Dyhouse’s work in New Books Network explains:

“Education and wage-earning brought independence and a widening of cultural horizons. Young women in the early twentieth century showed a sustained appetite for novel-reading, cinema-going, and the dancehall. They sighed over Rudolph Valentino’s screen performances, as tango-dancer, Arab tribesman, or desert lover. Contemporary critics were sniffy about “shop-girl” taste in literature and in men, but as consumers, girls had new clout.”

For example, Dyhouse explains that in the fifties, Doctor and Nurse stories were hot stuff in romance novels. Mills & Boon could not get enough writers to keep up with the demand. Why?  Well, Dyhouse proposes that after World War 2 women were looking for security and stability at home, and who could provide better than a McDreamy Doctor?

Since we write love stories, I thought it best that we acquaint ourselves with what makes a heartthrob in fiction/movies/popular culture  in light of women’s social position TODAY and what better place to do an absolutely unscientific study than on  Facebook?

103 comments later, here he is guys. The hands down, all-time winner-by-a-country-mile, the definition of what makes a heartthrob in 2020 for women in the south of Cape Town:

Yeah baby.  The mamas like this guy. Jason Momoa.

side note: (very extremely different to Tom Cruise of 1986 right? Actually Tom Cruise of any year)

The only other person mentioned is the also-fabulous Gerard Butler.

Kinda similar to Jason? But with less muscle. And fewer votes.

Anyway, as a public service to all the potential heartthrobs out there, I analysed the unscientific data and wrote it down. Good news for the silver foxes is that Not One Respondent mentioned youth as a must. Bad news for the bossy boys however: the Alpha Male is out. While wearing a beard or being clean shaven are not  game changers, a few other things  are.  Here are the salient points, if you want to know what women dream of.  Some of the items, like #2, are astonishingly simple.

1.  Save the planet. The most desired quality in a 2020 heartthrob is environmental advocacy. (Jason has it…OBVIOUSLY) If you’re thinking of giving the guy in your latest WIP a coffee lid, a straw or a plastic bag, think again. The ladies are not swooning over men who aren’t trying to save the planet.   ‘A man with compassion for animals, nature and the environment’ ‘Cares deeply about the planet ‘ ‘On a journey to try to save the planet.’ ‘Greenpeace activist type.’
2. DO NOT STINK.  You would think this is basic, but I was floored by how many women’s real life experience must be malodorous enough to inform this fantasy of an odour-free man. Pongs of any kind our OUT. Breath, body and any other unmentionable smells of any kind are a non-starter.  This includes too much cologne. Also dental hygiene. Own teeth for the win. Yes. Someone took the time to type that in. So writers, include confirmation of good personal hygiene in your narrative. 
3. Get off the couch. (It’s clear Momoa is no couch potato) A fit, outdoorsman seems  to be the bomb in 2020.  Make sure your character runs, paddles, surfs, cycles, does sports,  swims, dances or plays cricket with the kids.  
4. Be kind and gentle, tough guy. It’s okay to be in touch with your emotions. While women want to be protected in the face of danger, they do love a heartthrob who ‘cries in movies’, is ‘kind, gentle, empathetic’ , has a ‘connection to his family’, is ‘kind to old folk/generous, demonstrative, affectionate’ and ‘humble’ FYI check out this vid where Jason is not afraid to cry, ‘his heart has always been as big as his biceps”
5. Unplug.  I took ‘Something with a heartbeat and doesn’t sit on his phone on the couch’ as a sign that this point needed a heading of its own. ‘Doesn’t do social media’ ‘not searching or on Tinder!’ ‘Doesn’t have a tv.’ ‘ability to be present’
6. Cook.  Every woman loves a man who cooks. And yup. You  guessed it. Aquaman cooks.

So there you have it. Bear in mind – a) my non-scientific study group was an FB Moms group so all the non-moms  might not feel the same way b) my non-scientific group all live in or near the South Peninsula in Cape Town, so the Joburgers might have another view.  Who knows, maybe they still like Tom Cruise?

Of course there is one heartthrob who had been loved by women for over two hundred years,  is time-proof and remains a heartthrob no matter what, forever and ever. You know who?

Mr Darcy, of course. And why have women loved Darcy for centuries?

  …”it has been that this man, this proud, manly man, loves Lizzie Bennet. He ardently admires and loves a spirited, fearless, funny woman, who says what she thinks, who thumbs her nose at female silence and compliance. He is not intimidated by her; he does not wish her to be less than she is.”  – Caroline Criado-Perez, The Guardian

How to Increase Suspense in Romantic Thrillers

One of my favourite romantic suspense stories is Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks.  Katie plots a life-saving escape from a violent and abusive husband and builds a new life for herself in a seaside town in North Carolina.

While Katie is trying not to fall in love with a kind and handsome storekeeper in North Carolina, the wicked husband is slowly but surely hunting her down.The reader is compelled by the fragile love story unfolding, as well as fear of what will happen if the husband finds Katie.

Merriam Webster defines a thriller as a “work of fiction or drama designed to hold the interest by the use of a high degree of intrigue, adventure, or suspense.”  Suspense is defined as the “pleasant excitement as to a decision or outcome.”

So when we write love stories that include a thriller element, we suspend some of the facts from our readers knowledge, in order to fuel excitement about the outcome. We insert a mystery, an adventure or a dash of intrigue into the story by leaving clues that raise questions in the reader’s mind, over and above the will they won’t they of the romance.

 1.     A Hook

If suspense can be described as anxious uncertainty about what will happen, then in a romantic suspense novel, we need a hook that will grab the reader’s attention early to raise questions about what will happen next.  The hook should be uncomfortable enough to it give our reader some anxiety.

Drew Graham -Unsplash

In the first chapter of Safe Haven, we find Katie waiting tables in a casual family restaurant in North Carolina, surrounded by dating couples and nice, friendly people. But in that safe environment we learn she can’t sleep, her hands shake, and she refuses a date because of a bad past experience.  She thinks back to when, for just a moment she was happy, like the dating couples.

And we’re hooked. We like Katie, but we’re worried about her.  Why do her hands shake and why can’t she sleep? Is her trauma over?  What will happen next?

2.      Plot Twists

Colton Sturgeon - Unsplash

As we go along, we insert plot twists or more surprising information that must either shock our readers or be unexpected. This keeps the momentum of the initial question going.  

In Safe Haven we are surprised to learn that Katie’s ex is a policeman, someone who should keep others safe.  Instead he is abusive, we know he is trained to kill and are terrified when he uses his police connections and resources to hunt Katie down.

It is preferable in romantic suspense to find the balance between the thriller twists and the love story.  Rather keep the suspense plot simple and have one good plot twist, surrounded by the ebb and flow of the romance. If you end up with multiple not-so-shocking plot twists, the thriller side could descend into melodrama.

 3.      Setting

Joe Beck - Unsplash

A chilling setting is another way we can increase the suspense in a story.   Think about the setting of a dark and stormy night. It is a well-known trope for a reason. Storms and darkness create the kind of mood that feeds suspense. There are many other settings that create a mood in which suspense will flourish: old castles, windswept beaches, quiet parking garages, forests, desolate mausoleums.

4.     Character Vulnerability

When it comes to your characters, think of the worst thing you can do to them, and then make it worse.  This will give your readers the anxiety you need for them to feel the suspense.

Caleb Jones - Unsplash

Expose vulnerabilities in a character so the character becomes real and worth worrying about. For example, in Safe Haven, the handsome storekeeper is also a struggling single Dad. He tries so hard and we love him for it. We really don’t want the evil husband to come and take revenge on the storekeeper and especially not his children. They are part of the storekeeper’s vulnerability and make the reader root for him. We keep reading to make sure the children are going to be fine.  The character of the storekeeper grows as he has to deal with the fact that the threat to his children’s safety comes from the jealous ex of the woman he loves.

 5.      Time limits

Another way to increase  suspense is by setting a time limit. Give your characters a limited time frame to accomplish something.  In Safe Haven, Katie has to get the storekeeper’s children out of the house before her ex-husband burns it down.  You can imagine the suspense is pretty intense.

Brooke Cagle - Unsplash

Romantic Suspense author, Sandra Brown has the following extra tips on writing romantic suspense on The Novel Suspects 

“The four elements of romance that I incorporate into every book:
1. The hero and heroine must share time and space.
2. They are co-dependent, needing each other in order to survive a common threat or to overcome a shared enemy. Neither is happy about requiring the other. They’re reluctant allies.
3. Nevertheless, they desire each other. Badly.
4. They’re forbidden to each other. Something built into the plot makes it impossible for them to submit to their desire. If he’s a fireman, she needs to be an arsonist.

The Suspense

I plant a question in the reader’s mind early on. If not in the first sentence, then certainly by the end of the prologue and first chapter. I continue to plant questions and if I do it correctly, the reader isn’t even aware of the questions. But I withhold the answers for as long as possible. The first question asked is the last question answered. That “aha” is the reason for the story. It’s what makes the point of telling it.”

Excerpt from Love, in Writing by Elsa Winckler

He drew in a deep breath. ‘You were in the lift with me last night, weren’t you? You’re wearing more clothes now. What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow me here? What…?’

Margaret seldom got angry. She normally found it a useless exercise. No one took her seriously anyway and she always ended up with a terrible headache. But she was angry now. And the beginnings of a whopping headache stretched its tight tentacles across the back of her head.

 ‘I was unfortunate enough to have to share the lift with you last night, yes. But this is my shop. I did not follow you here.’

 ‘Your shop?’ He seemed to be at a complete loss for words. For a little while at least. Then he gestured irritably to the books on the shelves. ‘This is a ridiculous bookshop. You don’t have any science fiction books, no —’

Margaret lifted her chin. ‘You are most welcome to leave, sir. No one is forcing you to stay. And we do have science fiction books. There is a whole section behind you. You will also find the latest vampire stories there. The only difference between this book store and any other is that —’

 ‘You only have books with happy endings. I’ve never heard of anything so completely bizarre. It is, you know.’ 

‘Well, now you have. Goodbye, sir, I don’t believe we have anything of interest for you.’

 ‘You can’t kick me out, I’m a paying customer!’ He looked around. ‘And from what I can see, you need some of those,’ he sneered.

 Margaret walked towards the door. ‘Please leave. As the proprietor, I have the right to kick out anyone I want to.’

 From the corner of her eye she could see Jen vehemently shaking her head and trying to catch her attention. But she now wanted the man out of her shop, out of Kommetjie, out of her life.

He stared at her for a long moment and then walked passed her, muttering. ‘Margaret, do you have any idea who that man is?’ Jen asked breathlessly.

‘Yes. He’s the one I told you about this morning. He was the one who thought I was stalking him, as if I…’

Jen laughed and covered her face with her hands.

‘What?’ Jen dropped her hands and rolled her eyes dramatically.

‘That man, my dear Margaret…’ She giggled again. ‘That man, the one you have just kicked out of your shop, is Graham Connelly. The Graham Connelly. The world renowned Graham Connelly. Science fiction author. You even have one or two of his books here. Only those with happy endings, of course, but at least we do have a few of his books.’

Margaret groaned and sat down in the nearest chair. She swore.

Jen inhaled sharply. ‘Did you use a bad word?’ Jen giggled.

Margaret swore again. ‘Yes, and I know I never do, but that man…’ She got up and paced restlessly through the shop. ‘I was rude, but I had a reason to be. He is…he is…impossible.’

‘Impossible? Is that the best you can do?’ Jen laughed. ‘But I can see that you are really angry and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you angry. Your eyes are stormy, you are breathing heavily, your cheeks are red and you have been swearing. And all because of a man. Does any of this sound familiar to you?’ 

‘What do you mean?’

Jen only smiled. ‘You should read your own books. Any first chapter of any of your books. What we have here, Margaret dear, is a first chapter in one of your romances.’ And still smiling, she turned to a customer who had entered the shop.

Elinor Glyn - the 'It' Girl of '20s romance writing

A handsome young Englishman enters his sedate Swiss hotel room only to find an exotic Balkan queen stretched out on a tiger skin with a lush red rose clamped between her teeth, just waiting to seduce him into a marriage of convenience.

The scene, from Elinor Glyn’s 1908 book Three Weeks, scandalised Edwardian readers and cemented her notorious legacy as a trash novelist. With titles like Glorious Flames and The Flirt and the Flapper, Glyn’s more than 40 novels exerted a huge influence on romantic and erotic fiction of the time and helped boost her career as screenwriter and director in silent era Hollywood.

She coined the popular expression ‘It’, that elusive and alluring quality of absolute sex appeal. ‘It can be a quality of the mind or a physical attraction,’ she said and these beguiling properties were bestowed on ‘20s actress Clara Bow, forever remembered as the ultimate It Girl in a movie of the same name. Hollywood gossip has Glyn reportedly teaching Rudolph Valentino how to kiss while he filmed Beyond the Rocks with Gloria Swanson, a movie based on her 1906 novel.

She was born Elinor Sutherland on 17 October 1864 in Jersey on the Channel Islands, but her family moved to Canada when she was a baby. She was brought up by her grandmother, of Anglo-Irish aristocracy, who instilled in her a sense of style and upper-class breeding. With her green eyes and flame-coloured hair, Glyn could easily have been a character in one of her own scandalous books.  After her marriage to wealthy but spendthrift landowner Clayton Glyn hit the rocks, she took to having affairs with various English aristocrats. In fact, Three Weeks was rumoured to be inspired by her affair with Lord Alastair Innes Ker.

She died in London on 23 September 1943. In 2002, Johanna Lumley played the novelist in the film The Cat’s Meow, as a guest on tycoon William Randolph Hearst’s yacht the night Thomas Ince died. Her career as a novelist is now largely forgotten and, reading her books out of historical context, her prose seems positively tame. However, Elinor Glyn pioneered mass-market women’s fiction in the early 20^th century and she was one of the first female directors in early Tinseltown. 

Elinor Glyn is just one iconic romance novelist of our times. Which author has most influenced your career as a writer?

Lyrical Romance

The First Annual Lyrical Press How Lyrical is YourRomance? Contest opens on Monday, January 16^th. This contest is open to both published and unpublished authors.

Entries must be complete works, ranging in word count between 15,000-100,000 words, any heat level, and fit into one of the following subgenre categories:

• Contemporary romance
• Historical romance
• Paranormal or urban fantasy romance
• Romantic steampunk
• Romantic suspense

Get ready to be a .... Star!

Sapphire Star Publishing is a small press publisher, dedicated to bringing reader’s quality romantic fiction. “We understand that publishing is only the beginning,” reads their website.  “We work alongside the author to provide the tools to help their work reach readers all over the world, ensuring each publication the opportunity to reach its full potential.  By seeking out and publishing talented authors, Sapphire Star is able to deliver quality fiction that inspires, provokes, intrigues, and entertains the most important part of the equation—the reader. 

Win a Kindle

If you can impress the editors with tales of first love, broken hearts, triumphs, tragedies and, of course, a happily ever after, you could win a Kindle Fire and a publishing contract with Sapphire Star Publishing!