This is what happens when you go to Jamaica for a writing retreat and leave your laptop sitting out on a table.




At first you think: "Cool, a frog. I like a frog." (Not as much as Holly, who spent our trip to Jamaica chasing frogs all over the villa and imploring them to be her frog friend.) Then you sit down at your laptop to work and realize things look a little different. Surely your book wasn't called "City of Frogs" before, was it? And was it about the struggles of a valiant band of frogs against the evil Lord Toad? Perhaps not, but hey, this version is pretty good, anyway.

( further pictures of Jamaica under the cut )

My friend Justine Larbalestier recently posted a great entry about romance — not her own personally, though that would also be fascinating I'm sure, but romance in fiction. What makes it work, and what doesn't.


I can tell you what I like. I like tension and obstacles. I like lots of longing and unrequited love. I like to start a book and not really be sure what's going to happen in the end, if the author's going to mess me around or break my heart, or break up the lead couple and plonk them down with other people, or maybe end the story with them all alone. I like characters who can't tell each other how they really feel for whatever reason (King of Attolia does a great job with that.) Most of my favorite fictional romances are not in books that one would classify as romance. (You can find a whole bunch of them listed here, including explanations of why I like them.) I adoreforbidden love of just about every variety. I even like that Mulder/Scully friends-who-would-do-anything-for-each-other-but-are-they-in-love business, even though it'll make you crazy after a while.

What I really, really like: When the romance works seamlessly with the plot. What I don't really like: When the romance is the plot.

So, my question is, what makes romance in fiction (and hell, media in general) work for you? Turn-ons, turn-offs?