So, this morning I decided to skip a scene in my book that I just wasn’t in the right mindset to write. I hate writing out of sequence, because it’s a slippery slope to just skipping to the things you want to write, leaving just the harder/less fun stuff all for the end. In other words, it’s a good way to wind up not finishing a book.
This morning, though, I stand by my choice. It was the first scene I’ve skipped in the book, and I’m like 3/4 through the draft, so I’m not abusing the option. And I was definitely going to screw the whole thing up trying to force it, so there really wasn’t any point. And I actually wound up with a daily word count of over 3,500 words, so clearly I made good use of my time.
I’m not really here to talk about writing out of sequence vs. writing in order, though. I want to talk about why I needed to skip that scene, and the greater context of that.
I started out, many years ago, writing horror and dark fantasy, but that evolved into Urban Fantasy pretty much the minute I discovered UF as a genre. With this new series I’m working on, Olive Tree Academy, I’m making another fairly natural evolution, and branching into Paranormal Romance.
I am not a romance fan. Like, at all. Nothing against anyone who enjoys romance, but it’s just never been for me. The funny thing is, though, the romantic subplots are very often my favorite part of anything I read or watch in any other genre. Honestly, once I realized this about myself, I wondered why I wasn’t a romance fan. So, I tried again.
And I figured out fast why romance doesn’t work for me. I can’t relate to the characters. I can’t relate to their lives, their personalities. Any of it. My favorite romantic pairings from my favorite books & TV shows are the likes of Simon & Izzy and Magnus & Alec from The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, or Quentin & Eliot from The Magicians (the TV show, not the books.) I love FitzSimmons on Agents of Shield, and Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite is one of my favorite books ever.
No traditional romance novel, paranormal or otherwise, offers this type of nerd-love or queer goodness. I just can’t relate to the ultra-feminine heroine who falls for the testosterone-poisoned alpha male, convinced she can cure him of his misogynist ways. I honestly can’t get more than a chapter or two into a book like that before I just have to put it down.
But I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Those other books and TV shows have huge fandoms, and as a member of several of these fandoms I know exactly what the fans are into. If you look on AO3, the fanfic website, there are, as of this writing, 2,645 pieces of fic for The Magicians, and 1,885 of them are tagged as Quentin & Eliot. That’s just over 70%. There are plenty of people who want to read romance that isn’t traditional alpha male stuff.
And, I decided, if nobody else was going to write it, why shouldn’t I? And that’s what my Olive Tree Academy books are. Diverse romance, for those of us who want romantic plotlines with characters we can actually relate to and care about. I have nine books planned out, and they cover a lot of different people, personalities, and pairings. I am starting out with a M-F pairing, but the male character is bi. And not he-cheats-on-her-with-a-guy bi, not “he’s just curious” bi. Bi as in his last relationship was with a guy, and now he’s with a girl, and that’s just perfectly fine with everyone, full stop.
Beyond book one, I have plans for a couple of different M-M pairings, a F-F, and one character who I’m pretty sure is ace and/or aero that I’m not quite sure just yet how I’m going to feature. I have a chubby girl as a romance lead, without her weight being even part of the point. There’s also plenty of racial and cultural diversity, and not a single misogynist needing fixed or damsel needing rescued. I’m very excited to get these books out into the world and find those people who’d love non-alpha romance as much as me. And this is paranormal romance, so there’s plenty of non-romance plot going on, too, of course.
But back to my skipped scene today.
It was the sex scene.
And this isn’t me being too shy to write sex, I promise you. I’ve written plenty of that, and published it unabashedly. But this is… different. I’m having trouble finding the right tone, because I have so little frame of reference. I’ve never really read a book like what I’m writing, not really. I can’t write a whole book of the geek boy and the socially awkward girl getting together and then have them suddenly all confident and sexy when the big moment comes. But this is still a romance novel, and this scene needs to be feature-worthy. I’ll figure it out, but this morning I just wasn’t there yet.
All in all, I’m super excited about these books, and I can’t wait to start getting them out into the world and seeing what people think of them. I hope people love this world and these characters as much as I do, because I’ve been waiting far too long for someone to write something exactly like them.
If you want something done, you have to do it yourself, I guess!
Guess that’s all I’ve got for now. Sorry if it was a bit meandering today! See you next time!
~Sara