I’ve written the big, climactic battle (which, it turns out, is more “creepy” than “epic”), and my heroes simply need to make good their escape and then….
Well, that’s the part I’m not quite sure about yet. Somehow, they have to decide they’re in love with each other — or at least heading in that direction. Technically, it might be good to throw in a sex scene, at this point, since there was only one in the story, at about the halfway mark, and it was pretty tame.
A fellow erotic romance author was lamenting a couple weeks ago that the genre dictated that a sex scene should occur at a certain point in her story, but she wasn’t sure if the characters were ready for that. At the time, I thought that was a bit bizarre, but now I can completely see her point. I could probably toss in a brief sex scene somewhere, but I’m not yet sure if my characters are in love with each other.
This story is nearly as long as The Meaning of Vengeance, but that story took place over several weeks. This story takes place over, let’s see…two days. Yep. Two days. Plenty of time to fall in love and build a meaningful life together.
I’ve always been amazed by this phenomenon in movies and written fiction. Whenever a lot seems to happen, we expect the hero and heroine (or the other hero) to be in love by the end, and to run off together. But often, the time period involved is very short. Time frame doesn’t really matter to the viewer or reader, however, as long as they perceive that these two characters have been through a lot together.
So, where does that leave my two heroes? Well, the main character (Connor) has just learned that the guy he hired to be his bodyguard (Luis), and was beginning to trust, isn’t everything he appears to be. I won’t give away more than that. But although I don’t foresee this being an obstacle to their relationship, once they’ve worked things out, they haven’t had time to work things out.
Three months later, Connor told Luis, “All right. I guess I forgive you now.”
“Great,” Luis replied, pulling the rehead into an embrace, “Does this mean we can finally have sex again?”
Jamie Fessenden's Blog 