Monday, May 01, 2006

Real Life You Can't Put in Your Novel

I've been thinking, over the past few weeks, of things that happen to us that would never make it through editing in your romance novel. And, I'm trying to figure out how I could write them in one of mine.



  • Your heroine finds her first gray pubic hair.

  • Your heroine starts her period while in bed with the hero. (Okay, this rates on the squick meter, so maybe I won't use this one, but I often wonder why women never have periods in romance novels unless it's required in order to show that they aren't pregnant.)

  • Your H/H (either one) sneezes, and a booger comes out for a visit.

  • In a moment of spontaneous sex, you heroine realizes that she hasn't shaved her legs in a week.

  • The hero wakes the heroine up for some nookie in the morning and she rolls away saying, "Ugh. Morning breath."



Most of the stuff that bugs me about real life vs. novels is that missing icky stuff that always happens, yet never gets mentioned. I suppose that we read to escape, but sometimes I wonder what's really going through the hero's mind when, after a week on the lam in the jungles of Brazil when he and the dark-haired heroine can't fight their feelings anymore, and begin foreplay on the leaf-covered ground. He whips off her clothes and looks at her trim, curvaceous body ... and she's covered in stubble from head to toe.

Am I the only one who wonders?

3 comments:

Ceri Hebert said...

You're too funny.

But in all reality, I don't think this stuff happens for at least a year after the couple are married. I think thats the point in their life when they can officially say the honeymoon is over.

ixvmrsc

Anonymous said...

ROFL! No, you're not alone. :)

MJFredrick said...

LOL! I have a scene where the h/h kiss after being forced to share the same bed, and Trish was critiquing it and said, "EW! Morning breath!" I never thought about stubble, though. Hers, that is.

The periods, though, and the going to the bathroom, I wonder about, since I run for the bathroom half a dozen times a day!