Thanks for joining us for the In Stone Blog Tour!
Today, I am lucky have Louise on the blog with a super fun guest post about writing a kissing scene and the embarrassment that came with it!
There is also a tour-wide giveaway happening with some really fun things Louise is giving away. Be sure to enter to win in the rafflecopter below.
Louise’s guest post:
That time I wrote a kissing scene and the embarrassment almost killed me…
I have this friend — she’s not one of those fictional friends that’s really me. She actually exists, I swear — anyway, she doesn’t like writing the love stuff because it makes her feel uncomfortable and this one time she asked me how I managed it. Truth is, it took practice.
I LOVE love, and I love kissing, but in real time that’s an intimate moment between two people, right? Transferring those few seconds on to paper for the world and his wife to read is a brand new ball game. In the very first draft of my book there was no kissing at all because the idea made my insides curl. But the first piece of feedback I ever got from a CP amounted to ‘Erm…why is there no lip locking in this story?’ Her disappointment was palpable and I could totally get on board with that because every book I read has a romantic element in it. I feel cheated when no one is kissing, and honestly, I do like to know how a dude kisses before I can officially add him to my book boyfriend collection. So you guys might be thinking well in that case it doesn’t make sense not to have kissing in your story, all I can tell you is reading kissing & writing kissing are two different things entirely. It’s the difference between butchering Celine Dion in your bedroom mirror and standing on stage doing it on a karaoke.
Instead of fessing up to how awkward writing kissing made feel I gave it some serious thought and decided to give it another shot.
So, there’s me, pacing up and down my bedroom, devouring everything ever written by Simone Elkeles and Jennifer Echols as my computer gives me the stinkeye from a darkened corner. When I’m done freaking out I start tapping away, writing phrases like twisting tongues and frenzied lips. Obviously I’m thinking readers are going to judge the way I kiss based on how I make my characters kiss. And then, when that thought is done turning my cheeks pink, red, scarlet, I’m thinking I hope my dear, sweet, grey-haired old Grandma doesn’t ever read this and think I was french kissing boys at sixteen. I mean, I was, but that’s besides the point. There are some things you never want your gran — who still references the tooth fairy and insists on cutting the crusts off your sandwiches — to know, you know?
The time came to submit my story to my CP and all I could think about was her reading that kiss. I’d convinced myself that my feedback was going to focus on the saliva swapping moment …so I was kind of confused when I got my feedback and the kiss wasn’t even mentioned. I was disappointed. Yep. When I asked her about it there was a definite *shrug* tone to her email, which fitted the I-don’t-know-what-you-were-worried-about feedback that followed. Turns out people weren’t thinking what I thought they were.
Writing first kisses has fast become one of my favorite things about YA. In fact, I spend more time writing and perfecting first time kissing scenes than I do writing anything else. As with everything practice makes perfect, and you know, there are worse things in writing to work on.
~Thanks so much for stopping by, Louise! xo Jillian
Book Links:
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Synopsis:
Beau Bailey is suffering from a post-break-up meltdown when she happens across a knife in her local park and takes it home. Less than a week later, the new boy in school has her trapped in an alley; he’s sprouted horns and is going to kill Beau unless she hands over the knife.
Until Eighteenth-century gargoyle, Jack, shows up to save her.
Jack has woken from a century-long slumber to tell Beau that she’s unwittingly been drafted into a power struggle between two immortal races: Demons and Gargoyles. The knife is the only one in existence capable of killing immortals and they’ll tear the world apart to get it back. To draw the warring immortals away from her home, Beau goes with Jack in search of the mind-bending realm known as the Underworld, a place where they’ll hopefully be able to destroy the knife and prevent all hell from breaking loose. That is, provided they can outrun the demons chasing them.
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About the author:
Louise is a graduate of Garstang Community Academy. She is currently studying for a BA (Hons) in English language and literature with special emphasis on creative writing. YA aficionado. Brit bird. Film nerd. Identical twin. Junk food enthusiast. Rumored pink Power Ranger. Zombie apocalypse 2012 survivor. She is also an avid collector of book boyfriends.
I usually blush when writing romantic scenes like that, too. But they still remain one of my favorite things ever to write 😀
Hey Lilly! Do you know it’s funny because I was convinced I was alone in this, but a lot of writer’s I’ve spoken to lately say exactly the same thing! Kissing, it would seem, is a bittersweet story element 😀