I have always loved the movie "Singing in the Rain". It combines elements of musical, humor, and storytelling so well it just makes me smile! One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Gene Kelly's character is premiering his first ever "talkie" film, he's always been a silent film star so it's the first film where he's heard talking. He didn't like the lines written in one of the romance scenes so he replaced it with the line "I love you, I love you, I love you." and it comes across as completely ridiculous and cheesy as is evidenced by the audiences roaring laughter and later the poor reviews. The romance of the scene is completely lost on the audience because of the goofiness of it all.
We've all seen the movies or read the books where the two characters initially hate each other then through a series of romantic gestures, or one large one, they find that the love they wanted was there all along! It's so sweet and thoughtful but quite frankly it makes me nauseous. I have never liked those kinds of movies and reading books dripping with romance give me a bad case of excuse-me-while-I-vomit-itis. Maybe its because I never experienced a lot of romance, maybe its because I don't believe that a good relationship is based on romance, maybe its because after being married for almost 10 years romance in our household is "let's order pizza", or perhaps its a combination of all of those things but I just don't know how to write romance. I'm really struggling to make the relationship meaningful without it being so sickeningly sweet or worse goofy to the point of "I love you, I love you, I love you!" Readers how do you do romance? What romantic gestures have you witnessed or experienced that were meaningful and not too sweet? I need some help!
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