MAKING THINGS SIZZLE — HOW DO YOU MAKE CHEMISTRY HAPPEN BETWEEN CHARACTERS
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K.M. Weiland writes, “Character chemistry can make all the difference in creating a superior story.”
So, how do you put the chemistry sizzle between characters in your story? That’s a big question for a lot of us writers because a lot of readers want romance and fire and good swoony things between characters even when the book isn’t actually a romance.
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Well-storied.com is a great site with a ton of sources and information and it was my first stop when I was trying to figure out what exactly is romantic chemistry. Though I write it a lot, truth is I’m not someone who thinks of my own real-life self as very romantic or even very romanceable.
I am, however, someone who has no qualms about making up a word like romanceable.
So, the wonderful Kristen Kieffler wrote,
“Like all relational chemistry, a key ingredient in romantic chemistry is attraction, the pull that interests one person in another. But the types of attraction that create romantic interest will vary from person to person. In fact, there are four main types of attraction that you can use to craft a romantic profile for your characters. Let’s take a look:
Physical Attraction: a desire to touch and be touched by another person, often in a sexual manner.
Intellectual Attraction: a desire to engage with someone due to their intellect and/or interests.
Social Attraction: a desire to interact with someone because of their social aptitude; their confidence, humor, ambition, likability, and/or particular social personality traits.
Emotional Attraction: a desire to connect with someone on a spiritual level, an attraction often prompted by a person’s emotional capacity, attitude, beliefs, or shared experiences.”
Over on K.M. Weiland’s Helping Writers Become Authors, she has a piece about the five steps to write great chemistry between characters and says,
“When we have great chemistry with someone, we discover an almost instinctive synchronization that allows us to rest into our peak energy while easily batting back and forth the…
