My character meetings are becoming increasingly contrived

grocery store, or if they've already met...why can't MC2 have seen something he liked and tries to find 1

Reservoir Angel said:

...whenever I try to think of something it just sounds contrived and massively coincidental to the point of being totally unbelievable,

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Are romances believable? But there are less-ludicrous options:

- a contrived meeting by one or the other character, or one of their friends, or maybe each one is trying to contrive a meeting with the other (this actually happened between my wife and I)

- they met through a common profession or interest, and now they meet again the same way

etc.

Soul said:

grocery store,

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I was thinking something along the lines of this. There are plenty of public places where people can bump into each other. Where is your story taking place?

You need a plotline that makes it seem perfectly natural for these two people to meet more than once. Give them a common interest, a friend in common, some big event both are involved in. Never count on fate to just throw them together -- not, at least, more than once.

The thing about new romance writers is that, in my experience, they tend to ask themselves the wrong question. You should never have to ask how you can "throw these two people together" but what it is that's going to be keeping them apart, romantically speaking, for as long as it takes for the commitment to each other to believably form.

Everybody of adult age has emotional baggage, and plenty have commitment issues; it's been done A LOT, but maybe you can find a new twist. Maybe one of the potential lovers is passionate about some cause or thing the other is just as passionately opposed to. Maybe there's some danger threatening them.

In any case, if these two characters belong together, you should be building the obstacles in their path and concentrating on the emotional journey both will have to make in order to end up together.

MC1 works for a PR company. They're hired by MC2's manager and MC1 is assigned to do MC2's publicity. MC1 is a photographer. They're hired to do MC2's album cover shots. MC1 takes their dog to the vet. MC2 is at the vet with their terrapin. MC1 goes to the opening of a new store. MC2 is the star opening it. When you desperately want to avoid someone, it can be almost impossible.

What CeCe said.

You have some basic story you're telling. There's a conflict that stands between the protagonists falling in love (internal conflict). There's a conflict that stands between a protagonist and some really important goal (external conflict).
Or there's both.

Where they meet is determined by the conflict of the story.

If the conflict is over secret plans, they meet because one of them is running off with the plans. If the conflict is that an innocent man is going to be hanged, they meet because one of them is trying to prove him innocent. If the conflict is the protagonist feels unworthy of love, the opening is the protagonist being shown this unworthiness one more time.

One trick, is to look at the last scenes in the story. Those scenes solve the conflict. The early scenes are kinda a mirror of the ending scenes. The first meeting opens up the conflict that the last confrontation of the story closes.

All of that said,
You can pick something random, write it in a sketch, and go on from there.
You can always go back and rewrite the beginning.

Reservoir Angel said:

I keep trying to think of ways for one of my MCs to run into the other one again despite them only having had one short meeting, but whenever I try to think of something it just sounds contrived and massively coincidental to the point of being totally unbelievable, and the scenarios just keep getting even more ridiculous the more I try to think of one.

Right now they start at "MC1's best friend has a slightly stalkerish obsession with meeting MC2 again (MC2 is a semi-famous celebrity, just fyi) so she drags MC1 back to the place where they originally met him to wait there until he shows up again" Lovely. Stalkers. Just what a celeb wants. And it sounds more about the 'friend' than about MC1

But range all the way through to stuff like: "MC1 is a medical intern/student at the hospital where MC2's parent is recieving medical treatment." This might work. 'Recieving treatment' sounds longish term, and 'parent in hospital' is scary. So, repeat visits, and MC1 is kind and helpful, and while MC2 is waiting for the nurses to finish whatever they're doing, (which MC1 has explained to him) they chat.

I honestly can't figure out how to get these two guys back together in such a way where they get to have a decent conversation and begin building on a friendship.

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Keep the stalkerish friend as an obstacle, someone who's getting in the way.

Reservoir Angel said:

As evidenced from my signature, I'm working on my first shot at romance writing, but I've got a snag.

I keep trying to think of ways for one of my MCs to run into the other one again despite them only having had one short meeting, but whenever I try to think of something it just sounds contrived and massively coincidental to the point of being totally unbelievable, and the scenarios just keep getting even more ridiculous the more I try to think of one.

Right now they start at "MC1's best friend has a slightly stalkerish obsession with meeting MC2 again (MC2 is a semi-famous celebrity, just fyi) so she drags MC1 back to the place where they originally met him to wait there until he shows up again"

But range all the way through to stuff like: "MC1 is a medical intern/student at the hospital where MC2's parent is recieving medical treatment."

I honestly can't figure out how to get these two guys back together in such a way where they get to have a decent conversation and begin building on a friendship.

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I remember us talking about this awhile back, so forgive me if I'm remembering details from a now-outdated draft. One suggestion was to make that first meeting completely contrived (if I remember, MC #2 crashes into MC #1 in a chance meeting at a restaurant, seriously injuring him), but then to make it have enough depth that there was a connection between the two characters. That way, MC #2 would conceivably want to see MC #1 again and would seek him out. Maybe he brings him a gift basket the next week as a further "I'm sorry" for the serious injury and they talk then. Maybe he offers some hard to get sports tickets or tickets to a show as an apology. So even if his reasons are lame and contrived, that's believable, since you'll "arrange" to be where your crush will be.

Less believable for me would be two men in a huge city randomly running into each other a second time a few weeks later without a compelling reason for it, particularly if one of them is a fairly famous figure. The friend stalking the famous guy and MC #1 happens to be the sidekick is okay, but it would be a bit of a ho-hum for me. Even if one MC is reluctant to get into the romance at first (common), I want to see some interest, chemistry and spine from the main players in making this happen or resisting it. Having them passively dragged along as the sidekick of celeb-stalker doesn't get me very excited.

Give them both a cause they are passionately committed to: Save the Whales, and they keep running into one another because of it. But their approach to saving whales is different - one wants to go the petition and lobbyist route, write a thousand letters to the whaling countries, stage silent and peaceful protests outside their embassies.

The other one shows up at a meeting dragged-down and dirty - he just got off a ship that plowed into a whaler off Greenland. He changed in the taxi on the way over after being helicoptered in to make the next meeting. (His friend's in the taxi with the change of clothes and tells him "she'll" be there, too.)

Same cause; different approach. They'll argue, banter and bicker but keep banging into each other - until they really bang into each other.

Do you write erotic romance?

Lol, have them meet at Hooters. Seriously, gay people ALL over Hooters.

Think about how real people met. They take the same train to work everyday and happen to strike up a conversation out of frustration when it's late. They work for the same company. They crash cars. They walk their dogs in the same park. They volunteer at the same location. They join a singles' group. They're introduced by a mutual friend. Any of these can work for your story.