Kids in Romance
I don’t write kids in my books. I’m a teacher, have been a teacher for 17 years. I do not want to write about them. Maaaaaybe I’ll have the characters expecting at the end, but in the 15-16 manuscripts I’ve written, maybe 3 have kids. I don’t particularly care to read books with kids in them, either. Again, the whole over-exposure thing. And I tend to think, “Kids don’t REALLY talk/act like that.”
But after watching Dear Frankie, I think I get the appeal of the kids in romance. There’s something just heart melting in seeing a man fall for a kid. It’s powerful enough when a man loves his own child, but to see a man connect with a child not his own, to overcome his own baggage to love not only a woman, but her child as well, destroys me. So maybe the reason I don’t like books with kids is that they don’t illustrate this to my satisfaction.
Or maybe just because they don’t star Gerard ;)
Thanks to JoAnn for the picture!
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14 comments:
LOL, Mary! Yes we all know how much you love Gerard }:)
This topic comes up a lot. I don't mind kids in romance, but then I've never been a school teacher. LOL! I have fiddled with a story idea with a single mother, though. Don't know if I'll ever get to it! =D
Thanks for the Gerard picture, Mary. I live for them. God, he's hot! Oh, the topic was kids in romance. I dislike them when they're used solely for plot purposes, you know, the heroine moves in next door, to the hot guy with a cute kid. Or the heroine doesn't tell the hero that she had his child upteen years ago.
I don't have any kiddos, so it's not something I naturally put in my books. I've only got 3 that have kids in them (not counting the YA, and they're teens), but in those three the kids are integral to the story. The story couldn't stand without them.
I'll admit, I've been putting kids in my romance manuscripts. In the first book, it was more of a cameo appearance. In my current book, I have a boy and a girl, and I'm having a blast with it. I'm enjoying having the kids be...well, kids. I gave the infant an ear infection and the hero saved the day by walking the floors with her. Maybe that's just because I find any guy who does that sort of thing particularly sexy. :)
I waited for DAYS for you to come home, Mar, so you could see this pic of Gerard. :)
My last ms was the first in which I had kids involved...and for the most part, the hero did not have time in the short time span of the novel to get close to them...the fact that he did was covered in the epilogue. Then again, it WAS a paranormal murder mystery, so...
I don't usually read books with kids. I don't find them to really work realisticially within most of the attempts I've seen. But I'm willing to keep trying.
JoAnn
Kelly, I wrote a single mom, a divorced couple and a single dad - the kid was purely a plot device in that last one. And I do have another idea where kids are integral - more of a home and hearth story than what I'm currently writing, though.
Sadly, I won't read a book if there are teenagers - they always seem to act the same, and I don't want to read about the sullenness when I have it at home, ya know?
Michelle, EXACTLY what I'm talking about - I see the appeal when you see a hero really falling for these kids, but in most instances, you don't see that.
JoAnn, LOL on waiting to share this pic. I was thinking about your book before I blogged on this, but the kids weren't obnoxious, and they lent another level of suspense - will the bad guys use her kids against her kind of thing. AND she sent them away before things got scary. Sensible, that was Selene.
Oh, Mary, thank God you are back!
Lovely photo of Gerry.
Have you borrowed the special edition DVD of Phantom yet??
Colleen
Okay, I'm back. Had to look at Gerry again.
I about had a heart attack when I first got here and saw that photo.
I haven't been this ga-ga over a hot actor since I was...well, Katie Holmes's age.
Colleen
LOL, Colleen! Yes, borrowed the Phantom. Actually thought Raoul was kinda cute in the cap, just leaning against the piano and singing so beautifully. Gerry was a little scruffy, but it was cute to watch him sing in the mic. You know, in Tomb Raider, Phantom and Dear Frankie, he's so controlled, but when I see him on talk shows he's hyper. So adorable.
Speaking of kids in stories, I watched The Pacifier tonight. It wasn't a keeper, but it was well done, IMO. They did some stuff at the beginning that I thought was silly, but they ended up using it later in the story. Worked for me.
There's a special edition POTO DVD? Arrgh, must find. Colleen, I totally understand about Gerard...when I saw the pic I sent to Mar, my current ms practically wrote itself...well, the sex scenes, at least. LOLOLOL
JoAnn
There is a special edition, JoAnn. Mom got hers at Best Buy. What you NEED to get is Dear Frankie, which just came out this week. He's in it less than an hour, but what an hour!
Last night, when I started letting myself get into my story, I was really able to up the tension imagining Gerry!
I hate writing kids and I've done a small kid and a teenager (she was and is a lot more fun to be honest. maybe because she's a main player). Small ones are harder I think. I don't remember being small *snort* I'm being silly. Blame it on the edits.
Cece, I wonder if teenagers are more fun to write because of the snarkiness. You can kind of just let go with them. I've never written one, just lived with one. And as one.
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