Don't Tell Me It's Love

The last couple of books I've read have all had this nasty habit of stopping the plot to TELL ME how deeply in love Character A and Character B are. Long paragraphs describing their conflicted feelings, the intensity of their passion, and the total, all-consuming influence of deep inescapable ~*~tru luv~*~

Well I'm not one for mushy stuff really. I like romance— intense burning passions and all that— but I've always felt that if your characters have to say it or explain it, then you haven't done your job as a writer.

I like to make a habit of writing characters that almost never say "I love you" in stories where characters' feelings for each other are rarely spelled out. Perhaps it's a consequence of cutting my teeth in fanfiction but… I've always felt that it wasn't my place to tell the reader who was in love with whom. That takes all the fun out of it.

Curiously, a couple of weeks ago I posted to a romance group asking for recs. Something with a plot … preferably a plot that was not love-them-lose-them-get-them-back-repeat and did not include any over the top "OMG MY TRU LUV I WILL DIE WITHOUT YOU" fluffyness

While there were some good choices in the responses I couldn't help noticing that a lot of them had BDSM themes. Which *lol* well I don't mind but that's a funny juxtaposition isn't it? As a reader you can either have GRAND EPIC TIMELESS TRUE LOVE or…. bondage.