So…you turned in your Frasier entry…feeling tense? 

Of course – because you’re hoping for a great outcome, but your fears of your manuscript – the frailties you recognize in your writing are shouting at you that you might not succeed.  And, the more you continue to write, the more you fall in love with story-crafting, the more you invest into the process, and the more you see the hope of publication. 

What you have here is….sexual tension!  Okay – no, it’s more like Award Tension.  Or Publication Tension, but it has the same elements of Sexual Tension.

You didn’t know that did you?  I bet right now you feel a little weird. 

It’s okay.  You can read this in the privacy of your own home.  Maybe ask the kids to leave the room. But we are going to boldly talk about it because Sexual Tension is a key element to writing romance.

Let me be clear – in the CBA we don’t put the trigonometry on the page.  We close the door.  But, we do often let the reader see and experience…The Kiss. And this falls under the category of “sexual tension.” 

 Which means we need to talk about it. (You can kind of read the computer at an angle if you have to.) 

How do we create sexual tension in a book, and when do we use it? 

I’m going to break sexual tension apart into components, and then we’ll talk about how and when to weave it into the story.

The components of sexual tension.

Wishing:  Pull toward

The Wanting –

            Enjoyment –the why (Physical and emotional)

The Work –

            Investment –  more and more they’re willing to let them into their life.

The What-if

            Hope – taste of what they want

The Waiting: The Push away

The Walls

                        The external obstacles         

                        The internal obstacles (smaller)

The Wink – the first Kiss – The taste

The Warning

                        The large internal obstacles…

The Wonderful – the full out kiss!

Let’s take it apart:

The components of great sexual tension start with the Wishing – or the Desire.  The more our characters wish for romance, affection and a happily ever after, the stronger the tension will become.  Think of the wish as the buildup of steam.  J  Or perhaps water against a dam.  I usually put it in terms of the PULL toward the object that their affection.  The pull takes on three different forms:

            The Wanting – The characters must enjoy spending time together.  Sure, they might have sparks, but even those sparks should be enjoyable.  As the romance progresses they should have an increasing awareness that they like each other – they enjoyed each others’ personalities, or wisdom, or spiritual insights, or sense of humor, or strength – whatever it might be as the story unrolls.  They will also become more physically aware of each other – from their initial beauty to imagining what it might be like to be in their arms, to wanting  to be there! Increase the Wanting – emotionally and physically. 

I tried to pick a movie that had the right romantic tension, and yet one most everyone has seen…so I picked one of my favorites, Dirty Dancing.   In Dirty Dancing,  when Baby sees Johnny dance on the dance floor with his partner, that is the first step of the Wanting.  Then, she even gets a taste of what it might be like to be with him when he asks her to dance that first night when she “carries in a watermelon.”

            The Work – The characters should fall prey to the law of increasing rewards – meaning, they will continue to discover the “layers” of each other, and find the “treasures” inside each layer.  As they discover the increasing value of each other, the idea of not being with each other – even if they still have considerable obstacles, will seem more and more horrible.  The key to the Work is a slow “unlayering” of the characters – and an appreciation of each layer.

In Dirty Dancing there is a lot of work involved as they learn the dance.  Then, when she finds out about Penny, Baby gets even more involved.  She is pulled deeper and deeper into Johnny’s life – and begins to know him beyond his playboy image.

            The What-if – Your hero and heroine should also begin to picture what a future might look like with the other person.  What it might be like to have them in their life (in a positive way – we’ll get to the negatives in a moment!)  They need to talk to their friends about this, and even visualize it to the point where they thirst for it.

The What-if in Dirty Dancing is really played out when she actually dances as his partner.  As they sit in the car together, she says “we were great.  We pulled it off.”  She has started to see them as a team.

The Pull is just one half of Sexual Tension.  We also need the Push if we want to create adequate pressure.  Think if the Push as the dam wall.  Or the lid on the pressure cooker.  I also call it The Waiting. 

The Waiting is that time period where you are building the Wish….but are keeping the hero and heroine apart.  This first element of keeping them can be termed The Walls. 

The first set of Walls between your hero and heroine  are those External Obstacles – or Why Nots that we’ve set up between the hero and heroine.  What physical elements in the plot keep these people apart?  Some of the obstacles I’ve used are:  She’s the fire chief, he’s a volunteer firefighter. (The Perfect Match) She’s a reporter (undercover) intent on proving he’s guilty of a crime.  (Reclaiming Nick).  He’s the cop who arrests her (Nothing but Trouble).  She’s a bookstore owner, he’s her new handyman who she thinks is sabotaging her. (Happily Ever After). 

In Dirty Dancing, the Walls, are, of course, the fact that she is a guest, and he’s a staffer – and rather low on the totem pole, too.  Plus, he’s not one of the frat boys – he’s from the wrong side of the tracks. 

These obstacles are key to keeping them from throwing themselves into each other’s arms.  However, as the story progresses, these external obstacles will feel less important than their love…and this is where Internal obstacles come in.  Underlying the external obstacles will be the hint of a bigger issue, usually something from the character’s past that make them afraid of love.  Maybe they lost their first love, or maybe they caused the death of someone they loved, or maybe they come from a broken home…whatever the internal obstacle it is, it conspires to keep them apart on an emotion, and even spiritual level. 

However…eventually (usually around ½ way through the book), they can’t hold back any longer, and….well, they have what I call….The Wink.  This is that tentative, or quick, or accidental, or even purposeful-but-mistaken the first Kiss.  It acts as a taste of hope, a taste of what could be.  Now, here’s a secret – the timing of this kiss is essential because once you allow them the kiss, tension deflates.  I often wait for that moment when the tension feels unbearable…that moment that it feels natural for them to kiss…and then I hold them back!  I wait until the next chapter.  And then I give them just a taste…so I don’t deflate the tension.

In Dirty Dancing, you might think they skip The Wink and go right to the big event – but the tension has been building for so long, we feel like they might have already kissed.  But the wink can be something that acts like the kiss – a moment of recognized attraction. So, for Baby and Johnny, you could say the dance was really the wink. 

Now, we’ve had the taste of the happy ending, The Wish becomes overwhelming.  The hero and heroine want to be with each other, they have worked to get to know each other, and they’ve gotten a taste of The What-if. 

About three chapters later, I then have The Wow.  This is the amazing, we waited for it kiss!  The one with all the pent up passion, and in general market stories, often more happens than a kiss.  But this Wow is there to cement in their minds that Wonderful ending they’re hoping for. 

In Dirty Dancing, we have the WOW in the old house – where they are dancing, until….yes, it’s a strong scene that we all remember.  

But just because we had the Wow doesn’t’ mean we’re going to give them their happy ending yet.  They still need to Wish for it. 

In Dirty Dancing we see scenes where Baby and Johnny are in bed, the rain falling around them, and she’s wishing they could be together, have a happy ending.  But, of course it’s not to be – they still have those internal obstacles keeping them apart. 

So, you need to hold them back with a final Warning.  The Warning is that internal obstacle that suddenly becomes so overwhelming that it feels insurmountable.  Often the Warning happens right before the black moment.  The hero and heroine have to believe that they can’t overcome the internal obstacle to love. 

In Dirty Dancing this comes when Johnny is accused of stealing, and he’s fired – even after he’s exonerated.  He’ll always be “trash” – from the wrong side of the tracks.  (and he believes this, even though he’s proved otherwise) So, he leaves, (and we all cry).

            To find that internal obstacle, ask your character:  What holds you back from love?  What inner element keeps you apart?

Of course, true love will win the day – they’ll know that the Why of their relationship is stronger than the Why Not, and armed with some truth that overcomes the black moment, and they are set free to have The Wonderful, foot-raising happy ending kiss.

Or, burst through the doors, say, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner” and then dance the final dance, their way, to their kind of music!  

I’ve had the time of my life….

See with the right kiss, all that tension was worth it. 

It’s all over.  The kids can come back in the room now.  J 

See you next week when we talk about character layers!