Lecture — Romantic beats

• Craft book - Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes
• Diagram to go through the beats
• Can be used for friendships/ace/aro, but example is not
• Theme comes ready made - love conquers all, just need the two+ examples
• In romance, there are at least 2 heros
  • Character is king
  • full arc, all the beats
  • Thinking of each character as protagonist helps with other genres
  • All beats are mirrored
• Industry standard terms (meet cute) plus some changes.
• Tool that plays well with other tools
• space with it by design, gives room for other elements, combine with 3-act structure, etc
• Some are scenes, some are just sentences
• Path:
  • Each character’s intro:
    • need a clear idea of them, no vagueness
    • Hint at the hole in their heart, their wound (snake fangs biting)
    • Goal/Agenda
    • bonus if that goal/agenda is in conflict with each other’s
    • Cross paths, they need friction for sparks.
    • Should still have something to do with wounds
    • Intro is when characters are as far apart as they will be in terms of distance (emotional/reality)
  • Meet cute:
    • Sparks will fly
    • Memorable
    • Slice of life with a hitch - not just like every other day, even if still slice of life
    • Involve the senses - setting readers’ anticipations for the rest of the book
    • Rooted in the bodies, even if not planning on having explicit sex
    • The two heros are in a room together for the first time we know of, so the reader wants to be there with them
  • No Way!! #1:
    • Walking away thinking “hmm, hmm…but no”
    • Usually (almost always) a line “I don’t believe in love/will never love again/don’t deserve love because…” and then backstory
    • False relief
    • That was interesting, but want to get back on track
    • This will be the farthest away from each other they’ll ever get again; there’s been a change
    • Trouble come, trouble go - they think they’ve dealt with it. Hitch is over with (false relief)
    • If you make it explicit, enables you to use refrain, repetition with a bit of change - doesn’t work if you only hint
    • Internal plot (revelations about emotions) more important than surprise
    • Back on track with my life…
  • Stuck together (adhesion):
    • Neither can walk away from each other
    • Literal (snowed in, locked in) or figurative (have to rebuild, volunteering in an event, presentation at work)
    • Where you get to bring in all of your tropes (they can come in before in lesser way e.g: sunshine vs grumpy)
    • Not just metaphors that become cliche, but a storytelling device/shortcut/convention, manage the reader’s comfort and surprise in order to build anticipation
  • (That was first 25%)
  • External goal:
    • First trouble came and went, now complicate things
    • Emphasis was internal prior to this
    • Time for all the endearing shit, both for audience and characters
    • Shows that them interacting could (maybe already is) make them better
    • This is the two-step, gotta be fun to watch
    • If beta readers say they don’t buy the I-love-yous, this is probably the part to revisit. Tweaking these will help. But fuck that, leave that for editing
  • No Way!! #2:
    • Revisit/stop and think about #1
    • Maybe consider, but then!! “Eh, no way”
    • Really satisfying when it comes up
    • Should be mirrored, ideally for both people, or first No Way is for character A and this is character B (this loses the repetition, but this tool is made for a longer narrative, maybe not a short story where space is at a premium)
  • Smol but important: Inkling:
    • Both heroes witness something that happens which makes them wonder what being in love with this other person might be like
    • “I’m against the concept, but now that I’ve pictured it, oh shit”
    • They’ve said No Way!!, but it’s too late, they’ve pictured it
    • Good place for callbacks
  • For real:
    • Slow slide towards bone town
    • Desire becoming specific
    • Offering glimpses of who the other is
    • Dripping out backstory (not everything)
    • Not necessarily wrong about you, but now I’m getting to know you
    • Starts to soften up the No Way!!s
    • Can’t deny the other person is more than their internal arguments - not just arguing against yourself, arguing against evidence
    • Room for desire
    • Here is where the external can distract/interrupt them - bit cheap to do it before here, may distract too soon from backstory
    • But not too much because:
  • (first 50%)
  • Bone town:
    • Sex at 60 pages
    • Either first time they have sex or, if they’ve had sex before (sure, let them hook up!) this time is whoa different
    • Bonfire of intimacy
    • High high, such a high high that it is the false high of the story
    • The intimacy is not false, but this feels like the solution yay I’m fixed
    • The issue is that the gates of their hearts are open but the walls have to come down
    • Still defensive of their tender wounds
    • But because we are cruel gods…
  • Seed of doubt:
    • Just a small bit of real estate
    • A sucker punch and reminder of their wound (still there and painful) even though they’re getting closer
    • Don’t linger, it’s quick
    • Hell, it can happen right there on the pillow
  • Dark vines of doubt (bummer vine):
    • Stretch out these No Way!!s, basically a big ol #3
    • They’re trying to make it seem like they’re farther apart even though they’ve gotten close
    • The internal is intruding now, interrupting the narrative they think they’re living:
      • Wallow #1:
        • Explicitly say it (to themselves or someone else)
        • Name the hole/fear/wound that’s in their heart
        • Name it fully, explicitly, they can’t ignore it anymore
        • “I knew better than to believe in love/love again/deserve love, because when I let my guard down, this happens”
      • Immediate retreat:
        • Stings really bad
        • Make the reader feel it
        • There’s no more subtext because now we know the text of their backstory
        • They’re not healed yet. They’re stucked together or haven’t expressed their doubts to each other
        • Love conquers all, but it’s on the hero to heal themselves
        • The other person isn’t going to fix the hole, love is
      • Choose fear:
        • I could choose love or fear, ding, gonna choose fear
        • This is the breakup, or if they’ve already broken up, this is when we feel it
      • Wallow #2:
        • (colors go from sexy sunset to dark skies)
        • Long dark night of the soul
        • Rock bottom
        • They made the choice, they each have to feel it
        • Now they have to understand what they did
        • Have to say out loud “I hecked up, that was a mistake”
        • Good place to say it to others because this is when they’re willing to listen to advice
        • Won’t solve everything, they have to heal themselves
        • You’ve already created all of these footholds to get out of the wallow-pit: all of the endearing shit from earlier
        • Callbacks are key, offer opportunities to drag themselves out
    • Take an ax to the vines, and…
  • I choose love:
    • A second choice: this time choose love
    • Realization and exhilaration: oh my god, I love Josh, 100% butt crazy in love
    • Sets up all the nervous risk
    • Internal, but explicit, no prevarications
    • Gotta do something about it, has to be a sentence
    • Helpful to connect an internal decision to something external/concreate (e.g: they were fighting over the last book in a store, “I’ll give you the book because it’s more important that you have it”, signifies their internal choice)
  • Very last far point, planning and risking:
    • They’re all in!
    • They’ve chosen love
    • May not be together on the page
    • There has to be risk - they don’t know if it will work, the cost will be big
    • Both of them are doing this (maybe not at the same time)
  • Grand gesture:
    • Never been kissed, asks #1 to kiss #2, risk of rejection
    • Trying to tell the person they’re in love with “I value you, I love you, most importantly I see you and am putting myself on the line for you”
    • Could be one for each:
      • One could be qualified yes could lead to a second gesture - “Yes but I’m not ready” “yes but there’s still a problem”
      • happens at the same time
    • One big moment that ends in…
  • YES:
    • YES
  • Payoff:
    • Shows what the relationship would be like
    • A snapshot of life of them together
    • A freeze-frame of them being together
    • I’m proving that I’m going to work on my wound so that you can work on yours
  • Epilogue/hope:
    • always in romance as a genre
    • Payoff was what happens after the YES
    • Happily ever after or at least happily for now
    • Hope for the future. The spark lives on
    • Not perfect, but they can grow together - sparks still require friction
    • Reward for all the angst you’ve put the reader through
• Big parts are the nodes where they come together, but don’t forget the space apart
• Need to have really good wounds for both protagonists because that’s how they land
• Courtesy of treating each character as a protagonist - character is king
• A model like this frees you up to focus on the character, adds richness
• Repetitions add emphasis/discovery/depth make it feel less clunky
• Indulge in the rigidity of the tool to play with it - two characters bound to each other through all stages of growth
• Works for friends, anyone bound together
• Use it to start from scratch, or maybe you already have a draft and need some help shoring it up
• Consider with multiple partners, all of the different shapes! Could have a braid shape or a spiral shape or argyle
• Start in any direction, hop on at any node and work backwards or forwards
• Gives you ideas for shorter narratives: show a chunk of the caduceus in a short story:
  • some sections more satisfying (if you end on the wallow, that’s mean or not a romance)
  • from meet cute to first trouble come/go
  • stuck together to bone town
  • stuck together to I choose love so long as you imply what it might be)
• For crush:
  • The author knows, but maybe the character doesn’t
  • Audience might pick up some of the mirroring, wonder if it’s as unrequited as it seems
  • Rejection? Maybe, or could just end earlier like Choose Love
  • Reader may not see other character, but author knows to generate angst
  • Stretch out timing for the spaces (stuck together, but takes foreeeever to get to bone town)
  • Character that feels their love is unrequited, but ends in intimacy and truth
  • Oh…we know each other, uh…okaaaay let’s go from here
  • Allowed to keep secrets from the reader for hero #2, but when they’re shown, they have to be there, #1 can miss them
• The grand gesture for poly romance:
  • Fiction and real life not exactly the same thing
  • Some sort of public action (maybe not hyperpublic, but witnessed) because there’s no going back
  • You’re saying “I’m willing to risk myself for you because I’m seeing you fully and I love it”
  • Maybe coming out and saying these are my boyfriends is maybe not the best because that’s kind of a coming out story
  • Each character gets a snake
  • Don’t have to dive super into every character’s path, but author has to know
  • Has have to tailor to a basic structure (e.g: plan is everyone huge dinner at big restaurant with something everyone loves; all going to LARP and they all have feelings)
  • Some members of the relationship team up for the final grand gesture to get the last person in
  • Celebrate the complexity
  • What if the snakes are couples (e.g: one person trying to come in and the couple trying to bring them in)
  • Caduceus connecting to another snake part way through, or two caduceuses connecting, intersecting at the seed of doubt leading to stuck together
• Maybe there’s another wound there if you go into a second book? Past or new trauma - maybe we only got to bone town and are just realizing that
• romantic tragedy, caduceus joining with another going in the opposite direction, break-up and new relationship at the same time
• Specialized form of a very generalized character arc - this one is just fitted to romance, the beats in that order:
  • “Discernment” - that’s a breakup story, so plotting a caduceus in reverse might help restructure the story
  • Same could be done for a character and a job or character and city, and the job/city are essentially personified
• If you break the tool, it’s still super useful, you just may not be writing a romance. Just using it to make the characters the most important part of the story by giving them stages to grow through

Readings

A Minnow, or Perhaps a Colossal Squid

• Al:
  • The comedic aspects are really great. Some of the lines are just fantastic
  • Didn’t realize would be reading about vore.
  • Fantastical elements intertwined with everything, felt almost Wes Anderson-y - “So, by the way, language is a thing! What a mess!”
  • Dildonic appliance
• Kyell:
  • Love the subtle humor of Damiana’s paper. The first three times, she says “But let us talk natural philosophy” and then she never does.
  • The humor is paired with serious/weighty topics
  • The third paragraph drops Anthropovores and Concupiscent (pisc as fish root, even if not in the meaning), Mariposan as secondary world/alt history
  • Parenthetical “(how?)” gives narrator’s judgement
  • Written work is presented to the readers directly as part of the story and one of the characters in the story is also reading that work, gives empathy to that character because you’re having the experience of reading the work and so does that other character, you’re experiencing the same thing
  • Character work:
    • Characters are mirrored but also in opposition:
      • Damiana has been leaving the society in search of truth
        • explicitly rejecting society in lots of ways
        • “I’m looking for the answers you only make stories about and your stories are dumb. The path to the truth is to reject everything”
      • Estrella from early on has been an intimate part of the society (whether or not she wants to actually do the thing)
        • she considers turning the fish back into humans, but she never did
        • She recognizes the same problems in the society as Damiana, but chooses to embrace them
    • Estrella becomes Damiana’s voice in society, and also the pescification is a good thing, giving Damiana what she wanted in the end
    • The executioner is laconic, not her tía, but everyone’s tía
    • The Reina could do rarework, but couldn’t think any bigger than fish? Really?
    • Damiana says ‘turn me into a squid’ but los Matadores gift something else in the form of chupasirenas - you get your reward beyond imagining via your suffering without faltering, both have been trying to get across that there was something more
    • not a deus ex machina, despite the gods literally swooping in, because it’s driven by a character’s choice, sacrifice, and connection - everyone has shallow truths and this is a deep one, and really, nothing is fixed
  • World:
    • Arcs are intertwined with society
    • Names:
      • Queen is “Queen of Shadows”
      • Estrella is “Star” (a guide in the purpose of sea)
      • Damiana is “Tame/domesticated”, which she rejects, though chupasirenas are pets of sirenas - she rejects the queen’s fixation on money
        • Makyo: “Damiana is also a plant used in triple sec sometimses. May be reading too much into it, but it shows some in her almost drunken bravery.”
        • “Apparently also an anxiolytic, so that it eases anxiety, which shows up in the chupasirenas’ role.”
        • Via the Pharmako/* trilogy
    • Given the choice of turning into a fish or a bird, we’d probably all choose bird, but in the end, the birds have to protect themselves, while the fish are explicitly protected
    • In our own history, if you murder someone, you can buy your way out of prison/punishment if you killed someone of lower status, but if you owe someone money, there is no way to buy your way out by its very definition, and you can’t murder your way out of debtor’s prison
    • Society’s obsession with money: if you want to put something like that in, you have to have it in mind and do a revision pass to say the love of money runs counter to the love of the world, where can you explicitly say that? Even if it’s just a little moment
  • Any time you can do the reversal of bad thing into good thing, it’s a super effective device (not just a good thing, but a full on unexpected subversion)
• Kiri:
  • It’s super charming
  • The imagery, esp with trying to get back to the water
  • Takes one out of current place and transports reader to another place
  • Dry humor lands very well
  • Footnotes really polished it off at the end
• Dayna:
  • Rants are fantastic, and this is a very good one.
  • Trying to get across everything inside her until her very last breath, headed to the gallows
  • You train your reader to read your work
  • Newsies: “What makes a good headline?” “Nudes! Corpse! Lovenest!” - in this, there are catchy words like mermaids! Gigantic! - those bits are still there to teach you to read so you don’t bounce off of it
  • $20 words brought in with sarcasm almost as a jibe, intellect as sass
  • Rarework is incredibly intimate, and no one is meeting her on that level except Damiana because they’re both there to be intimate
  • Estrella is very thoughtful and is trying to connect with people, and would if only they would reach out in return
  • An academic paper introduces a distance between reader and author, but Estrella makes it a more personal thing through her connection
  • Her suggestion, so:
    • Read this longer ago, almost bounced off it at the beginning
    • Form of epistolary narrative (miscellany if not specifically epistles), which takes more attention and energy
    • Academic paper provides room for an infodump, which caaan be good, but not necessarily
    • Works not just because of the catchy headline which is a whooshy opinionated teaser, but with the paper, they purchased that space
    • Makes a very good entry point to a secondary world via worldbuilding and name recognition
    • Gives all the characterization of Damiana because she’s being remembered at the beginning, and there’s a ticking clock of stakes
    • “Don’t just know about them, fucking respect them” “Don’t just treat this like a new whale to hunt to extinction”
    • As the threat of fishifying looms, she has owned that decision rather than letting it be done to her
    • This paper becomes her memorial, and then you find out that the only way she discovered the sirenas was their dead bodies, so this becomes a new yearning
    • This is a new payoff that only her connection with Estrella can provide, has gone from tiny minnow death to death at the sirenas’ hands to a new third-path payoff, and that’s just the academic paper, and Estrella gets a third path payoff of an unexpected connection, since Damiana is never coming off and it’s finally a good thing
    • Footnotes act as an aside
    • Damiana’s ultimate end as chupasirena is something neither expected, so Estrella’s complicitness is a search for something meaningful becomes a connection (which happens whether she wants it or not, she can feel it when they die or whether or not they’ll come back/turn back; Damiana gives it willingly and Estrella gets a full connection)
    • Big theme of the story is said right off: think bigger, and not just bigger but grander
    • Both settings and worlds mirror each other:
      • Eternal el Estanque vs eternal maelstrom
      • Murderers into birds: you reduce both lives into kill or be killed in grand way; but with debtors, shove them in a box out of the way and call it mercy
      • Subversion: Damiana chooses both kill or be killed and debt
      • Nature vs society, and society is just as harsh and vicious, and nature is just as clean
    • Language: several sentences repeating repeating the same thing to build up the world, but also a way to buy a chewy voice
• Makyo:
  • The language is beautiful and lush and delicious like Time War
  • The learning curve is steep because it slams right into the language
  • The two characters and their arcs are mirrored, but have opposite directions
  • Ergodic format with footnotes and asides