Since I never learned to set limits, I’ve decided I’m not done with the first Heat with Heart post. 

Since PBW roped me into doing the workshop, I figured turnabout’s fair play.  (It was only a meme… she coulda not done it… :O>)  I sent her the same questions I’d asked the other authors. 

In response to this…

 A good romance is going to have emotional tension.  A good erotic romance has to have both emotional and sexual tension.   How do you accomplish it?

PBW/Lynn Viehl responded

You know that RWA thing where you’re supposed to think of twenty reasons why your hero and heroine should be in love?  I always think of twenty reasons why they shouldn’t, because I think the most interesting couples are the ones who are complete opposites (it helps that my guy and I are in that boat.)  I build that ying-yang into their characters to create emotional tension.  I also do the same for the love scenes — there are always a ton of good reasons why my H/H shouldn’t go to bed with each other — and I weave them into the story as I lead up to the love scene.  In both cases, it makes the tension go through the roof.

I hope Jambrea doesn’t mind me using her example.

 Jason was born into a cult and managed to escape, but lost someone very close to him. He is on a task force to help break this cult up.

Molly was abducted into the cult as a young woman (around 14) with no hope of escape.

This here offers a story line that has the promise of a lot of tension, a lot of conflict.  The way it’s worded, with no hope of escape, it makes me wonder.  Does Molly realize the situation she’s in?  Does Jason understand that she isn’t there of her own free will?

Now if we were to make Jambrea sit down and list twenty reasons why these two shouldn’t be together, I bet she could do it easily once she got going. 

An example from one of my current WIPs

T comes with more emotional baggage than three other normal people.  T isn’t normal, though.  (no details, just trust me…she’s not normal)

Cullen fell in love with T one hot summer years ago.  But then somebody close to him died and he holds T responsible.  She could have saved his loved one’s life

Can I go through and list twenty reasons why they shouldn’t be together?  Besides the attraction, what is pulling them together?  In my book’s situation, it’s one of those life or death things.  No, the world won’t end, but somebody else that Cullen loves is in danger and T is pretty much his only hope.  So his world will end if T can’t help.  The problem is, if T does help, her world is very likely to end.

If you’ve gotten your hero and heroine and a little bit of backstory going…I want you to make a list and take PBW’s advice and explore 20 reasons why these two shouldn’t be together.  You don’t have to list the 20 here.  I’m paranoid and always worried somebody might swipe my ideas (it’s happened to me personally so I’m quite contest to stay paranoid)  and I don’t want you to risk that happening to you.  So just to get you started on your list, list two reasons here why they shouldn’t be together.  But make sure you list 20 on your own.