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If anyone knows me, they know I’m not big on kissing, on romancy schmancy stuff, but it is everywhere.
Everywhere.
Now, don’t get me wrong, a good love story can always make me smile, kissing and sex scenes all have their place.
But they’re not my favorite.
Maybe I’ve been jaded by too many of those scenes that felt forced or not realistic… I don’t know. Possibly there’s more to life than kissing?
Don’t give me that look. It’s just my opinion. Remember? I talked about this… You don’t have to agree with me.
So writing about romance and kissing aren’t my thing. But, Kathy, you write YA… isn’t there supposed to be relationships, aka kissing?
Supposed to be? Nah.
For one, I’m not going to force love on my characters because I think I have to. Do you know how much that would make my ms suck? A lot.
Two… I have written kissing. I have written crushes. Devin in Faerie Wind has a crush, and she’s too much of a fraidy cat to do anything, well, until she starts turning into a faerie and, well, magical confidence happens. Kim in Fate’s Mistake suddenly confessed to me that she had feelings for her best friend. I said, “What? Are you nuts? You have a puzzle to solve to change the future and you like him?”
Well, she kissed him.
So, I can do it, if the situation arises. But I don’t go into a story with romance in mind. But, Kathy, teens… they like that.
Sure. I suppose. But not all of them. As a teenager, I didn’t date. I didn’t focus on boys or kissing. Heck, boys scared me. I had no idea who I was, I didn’t need any more problems.
There’s more to life than kissing. There’s more to life than the hot boy or girl in Calculus class. There is learning about yourself, learning to believe in yourself, learning to love yourself. These are all YA themes.
Someone asked if there would be a love interest in my sequel to Doors. Right now, my answer is no. I have no plans for kissing. However, as I’m writing, if Bryn decides to pull out the I-think-I-love-him(or her) card, I will roll with it. She is eighteen after all… I fell in love at eighteen.
I have no problem with sex in YA. I have no problem with kissing and relationships (bad or good ones). All this happens in real life. Teens face all sorts of choices, of situations. Fiction should reflect that. But when it comes to the kissing stuff, I am not the one to write it.
There are no supposed to’s here. There are just words and feelings. There are people and the stories they have to share. Let’s celebrate that there are no rules, that we can write what we want. Really, it’s a good thing we all have a different way of telling those stories or books would be mighty boring.
