xlv - Day 16 - Do you write romantic relationships? Are you good with those? Do you write sex scenes?

There may come a day when I stop dissecting these questions, but today is not that day. Once again, I feel as if the direction my imaginary interviewer has taken is contrary to the one I'd be taking myself. For today's batch of questions I can't help but think "romantic relationships" is intended to be viewed through the lens of Hollywood or Harlequin bodice-rippers. I don't write romantic relationships in this context. There was a time at the height of my "woe is me, I can't get a girlfriend" phase (i.e. high school) that I may have veered off into adjoining territory, but I've never seriously tried to write that kind of romance.

Romance hasn't figured in the short stories I've written since I decided to take writing seriously. It doesn't factor into the shorts I like to read, so naturally it doesn't in the ones I produce. I don't think that's likely to change, but one of the magazines I'm trying to get into seems to print a high enough volume of stories with gratuitous hookups. If once I've got a dozen stories under my belt I still haven't got a publication credit to my name, I may see what happens if I try to follow that formula.

My longer stories, on the other hand, will have a place for romantic relationships. I use the future tense because I intend to have a romantic element to the overall story arcs in both my novels, but haven't written it yet. In my fantasy novel I have the seeds of a love triangle that I intend to use to influence the events in the second novel and onwards. The currently unfinished draft of my second novel (a supernatural mystery/thriller) will have a romance based on betrayal. Because neither are on paper our official answers to questions 1 and 2 are "not yet" and "we'll see".

I'm going to ignore question 3. Why? Because my mom currently amounts to a significant percentage of my readership. Because I haven't found a workshop yet. And because I don't have an editor to advise me on the pros and cons of showing my characters getting it on. Until these three things change, I'm gonna have to plead the fifth.