Hate

If you don;t want to do the heroic thing then don't do it; it'll come out forced. Maybe you could find a way to thread their lives together so that interaction is unavoidable. A hurricane catches them unawares (depending on your time period), tornado, winter storn...you get the idea. Converasation could be begrudging at first and then she could realize maybe he's not so bad...No rescue or anything, then they go their seperate ways once the crisis is over but neither can get the other out of their head...ten years later...you get the point. : ) You say it's not a romance but if it's their destiny to fall in love....I'm confused.
S

Hate could be your connection - one kind of passion sparks another kind of passion?

Or, you could just get them drunk.

Well, my method is usually to get them having mad passionate sex which clues them in to the fact that maybe they don't really hate each other but if you're looking for something more gradual here are a few ideas:

Something (e.g. someone else loathing her without good reason) happens to make her reevaluate whether her loathing of him is really justified.

Something (e.g. a rescue) puts one of them in debt to the other, and they have to struggle with the fact that they don't want to feel grateful.

One has frustrating difficulties, an embarrassment, or a temper tantrum, and the other thinks this is amusing/cute.

Reverse psychology - an outsider tries to turn them against each other, but they react by allying more strongly and defending each other. "Only I'm allowed to insult him/her like that!"

One of them has some object (e.g. a favorite food) that the other really wants and is willing to temporarily act friendly and flattering to get.)

One of them sees/hears/whatever the other one doing something esthetically impressive, like singing or fighting.

We all love to hate...?

Akuma said:

I know, the word "hate" must look funny in the Romance Section.

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We know what your characters think of each other. But what do they think of you, I wonder... They are facing you with the ultimate writer/character confrontation, ie, 'do I contrive, or let them tell their own story?'

So to me, what you already have is terrific, in that they are confounding your every attempt to get them together. Romantic stories seldom go the way I want them to go, but there is always a definite story reason for that. If you contrive a meeting the story won't work, which I think you realize already.

Let the story roll on. Let it speak. Everyone plans and they like to think they're an expert until someone pulls the wrong chain. Life is like that. Fictional romance is no different. We cannot be God, even in romance. Fate is there too. That's what happens when anything is real.

And it must be real.

How? Don't ask me, I just write.

Let the story roll. -- hey, let them hate with a passion -- plan to destroy each other, then watch your typing fingers magically bend around to all the right keys explaining their good points or something like that...

I can't advise you on your personal life. No more than I can dictate your characters -- no more than you can dictate to them,

Right?

I only have two other comments to add to the good suggestions already here:

1. If she loathes him, there must be a reason. Can you remove/alter the reason so that she looks at him differently? For example, if he killed her parents - or has always BELIEVED that he did, but then finds out he really didn't, and was framed or in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc.

2. If this is sci-fi/fantasy, the concept of getting them drunk is as easy as while they're on the run, have them gather fruit from trees and not realize that they're overripe. Make a dish of food and they both wind up drunk completely unknowingly.

Just a couple of thoughts. Good luck!

Does she absolutely, positively, completely loathe him? Or is there at least a glimmer of attraction/lust?

Think of the classics: Taming of the Shrewd, Pride and Prejudice, etc. There has to be something that tells the readers "Ah, they're destined to fall in love." What is it? Then you really don't need to have some "heroic" or "melodramatic" vehicle to *make* them fall in love... people fall in love because they do -- they don't need a reason or a rhyme... sometimes, it's when they HATE each other the most that they KISS!

What you are attempting is very good when it works. I tend to like people who are complex and come to a discovery.

Here are some thoughts. We'll call them Tad and Tia.

1) throw them into situations of self-discovery where perhaps she sees her own hypocracy, where she's the bad one, and he's the good guy.

2) Throw them into a situation where she sees his charming side and good side. In other words, if she's going to fall in love there has to be some undiscovered qualities. Perhaps she misjudged him? She finds out he was "a good hearted guy," who was more a wounded warrior, than a monster. And she wants to suddenly fix him and bring out the good.

3) Bring in competition,

"Mona walked into the room with tons of attitude. She didn't even pretend not to be interested in Tad, classless twit that she was. She walked right over to him, found some excuse to brush UP against him, and then even leaned over inches from his nose, obviously to draw his attention. And surprisingly it worked. Tad tried to act cool, but she saw his smirk.

At first Tia was mocking Mona inside her thoughts, "Such an obvious vixon, no guy would be interested in someone so desperate." But when Tad said nothing, even smiling when Mona pulled her body so close a postcard couldn't fit between them, leaning in to whisper something obviously teasing, she felt suddenly possesive, irritated, and then she said to herself, "Why am I angry; I don't even like that jerk?"

Then Mona slid her leg across his, and Tia thought she would hit the roof. She wanted to scold him, and said, mocking, "What's the matter Tad, feeling a little desperate tonight?"

Mona flipped her long black hair back, and looked over at Tia with scorn, her eyes beaming through a narrow squint, and said, "What's the matter honey, jealous?"

"Of what?" Tia smirked. "A desperate Bimbo who has to flip her wigglies at a man to get his attention? Loser!"

"At least I have something to flip you moron. If he's your man, then I'm in the wrong, but you are over there acting like such a disinterested priss. Is this your boyfriend or are you just angry I made the first move? So what is it you obnoxious..."

Tia didn't even let her finish the sentence. She stormed off in a huff, but not so much because of what she said, it was because she suddenly didn't know the answer to the question. He was a tough guy, a criminal, although not an unpleasant looking man. Yes, he could be charming when he wanted to, but she wanted no part of him, or so she thought. Did she have feelings for him?

a-Muse-d?

Akuma said:

I believe this story was created a long time ago and that their love is inevitable. I'm the one, however, that must physically create this story.

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I love the beginning of your last line (above -- I hope 'above!') It says to me that you really care about the plight of your main characters. That first connection between writer/character is for me a major draw of romance. In some romantic scenes I've written, characters have become so vivid that I have seen them -- I jumped back instinctively from the screen because I felt like a voyeur! Jumped back into reality, darn it!

Yes, I understand that your characters' love is the core element. I also understand that your participation has given them voice. So it is also with the children of man and of woman. Children are usually created by love, but their destiny is their own. It does not belong to the parents, even if parents know what is best. Parents struggle for their children, but in the end, parents can only watch and hope.

There are parents who try and engineer their childrens' futures. Frequently it ends in tears. A parent has not the intellect to predict everything a child may face. Fate cannot and will not be engineered.

In an artificial environment, engineer anything you want. The result is an artificial look. It doesn't look natural.

It does not look real.

Sure you have to 'physically create' that's what any creator/ parent/ writer does. But creations are separate entities. They have free will. That's what I meant when I said 'let the story roll on.'

Let it roll -- write and see what happens. The characters will just go on as usual within the parameters you've set. After aimless pages maybe they'll let you into their lives. Maybe you'll enter their world. Getting into their world is difficult when you're not even sure their world is real, or if it really exists. Fiction is just an intellectual conglomeration, anyone will tell you that. It's just your fingers typing out your thoughts. Just a contrivance that skips over the ordinary bits for the exciting bits. That's what they will tell you.
When you realize the world of your characters is real and actually exists, which you seem to have implied in the above sentence I pointed out, the hard part will be closing the door and returning to your own world.

Only then will you know the answers, and the questions.

It's spooky, but writers were always the final frontier. Fiction is the edge of the known, where reality mixes with the mists of legend.

Have fun!

Akuma said:

She is so used to hating men that She doesn't realize that she may indeed love Him. How long, indeed, will she be able to hold up hating him.

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Sounds like tomorrow's Iraq and not a place many would visit by choice. But stories are a different matter! I'd hate the SOB as well and besides him giving food -- being fed is surely our right as people anyway.

But if she may realize love, the reader will certainly realize it could happen as well. I hope you write and let it 'roll on...' If you do, you will know her fury and God help anyone who stands in her way. And love? 'It always finds a way,' so it was written.

Good luck!

Sometimes a person realizes she loves the other person:

1. absence makes the heart grow fonder: he'd been gone for days now; suddenly she realized a strange feeling... she wondered if he was dead. Oh...

2. something about him that triggers her emotions: the ice on his hair reminded her of something... then she realized, to grow old with him was everything she wanted...

3. jealousy: Scarlett glared at Carla as she giggled and touched Jered's arm. She felt a fire burning inside. What is it? She took a sip of her wine. Oh, my God, I'm in love with him.

Akuma said:

By the way, Nateskate, very vivid scene.

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Thanks. You inspired me. I love it when people throw ideas out on here. In fact, we could probably do a thread, "Has anyone's post ever inspired you?"

This whole board is like a flowing writer's conference where people introduce ideas that spark ideas.

What was that old T.V show with Bruce Willis and Cybal Shepherd? I think it was Moonlighting? I like the banter, where you can tell they sort of like each other, but they also have this constant tension. Throw them into a fourteen hundreds landscape, and they are one coupling in my story. She doesn't trust him, and he thinks she's a spoiled brat who can't comprehend the complexities of his duties. He starts to like her, and she puts up walls. Then she starts to like him, and the role reverses. Now he has the walls.

Now throw in an Aragorn type, who has come to rescue her. Oh, it's so complex, but fun. Did I mention she was a Princess who ran away to avoid an arranged marriage, fell in love, had a kid, and now that kid is hopelessly lost in an enchanted forest? And she is forced to come to the Lord of the Land for help, but at first as a peasant women, who is annoying his staff. She reasoned she could not go back to her father, and has been living a lie, the role she has assumed for over fifteen years.

But the Aragorn type doesn't understand the situation. He was searching for her for fifteen years, but took on somewhat of a Captain Jack Sparrow persona to blend in with a hard land. And oops, she stabs him because she assumes he's a theif who stole into her room. But when he proves to her who he is, she is filled with remorse and admiration, realizing what this man had to live through to find her.

Bruce Willis or Aragorn? Well, at this point, she's very attracted to the Aragorn figure, and hasn't figured out the Bruce Willis figure, but since the Bruce Willis figure has sent out his soldiers to find her lost son, she can't leave with Aragorn-type. At anyrate, I like things to start complex, and get more complex before anyone knows what is going on.

Akuma said:

Oh, yeah, one small detail I forgot to mention about our warring couple.

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I guess stories come to a point when there's no more to be said. It has all been said -- or what can be said within the limitations here.

And what was said was love. That's what the fragments said to me. It was eyes into that other world named fiction, which we can only apply what we know in this world. Then sometimes we arrive with love in fiction to see that love. But we must embark on that sometimes ardous plod of writing what we see. Finally to seduce those tiny desperate little islands called editors with universes, but only in a paragraph.

Wild Akuma -- ROLL ON!!

Akuma said:

Oh, yeah, one small detail I forgot to mention about our warring couple.

He has Multiple Personality Disorder and his other personality randomly (or so it seems) tries to take control over Him so it can...er...kill people.
She, however, once angered the personality into coming out. But a funny thing happened. The personality didn't kill Her, something that has never happened before. Perhaps it is because She is a woman. Or is it something deeper?
It scared her, no doubt, but She gained a twisted and frail kind of trust in Him. She hated men but the thing in Him hardly seemed like anything mortal.

Just an added note.

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Wow, you like degree of difficulty! But that's cool. Are you throwing out ideas, or do you know where you are going with this?

Akuma said:

I know where I'm going with this. It's basically a big part of the story itself. You'll see when it comes out in the Bestsellers

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As I say to all my "To be famous" friends, "See ya on Oprah!"