Capturing the Emotions

You see them everywhere. Couples. Husbands and wives. Men and women. Some make you happy just looking at them, seeing their joy in each other. Some make you shake your head and wonder how they manage to stay together. Some are like carbon copies of each other- they dress alike, act alike, talk alike. Some you’d never know they even know each other.

I never had the privilege of knowing a couple that took true joy in each other. My grandparents fought like cats and dogs and kept all sorts of secrets from each other. My aunt and uncle fought like Tasmanian devils with machetes. My adopted grandparents seemed to have marriage down to a comfort level-they lived together, got along well, but I can’t remember them ever showing a speck of emotion for the other. My mom and stepdad spent time together and argued often. My mom kept secrets and talked bad about her husband when he wasn’t around.  These were the prominent marriages in my life as I grew up. It was what I saw, what I learned.

But they aren’t the couples I’ve always enjoyed seeing together. It’s the elderly couples holding hands as they walk into the grocery store, the men who look at their wives across a room and their expressions change, the women who seem to gravitate toward their husbands- looking happier when they’re with them than when they’re apart… Those are the couples I enjoy seeing together. They’re the ones that give hope to everyone around them. They’re what we strive to capture when we write romance.

There’s a couple at my church that you can tell get pure joy from one another. He lights up when she walks in the room, she becomes…more…when he’s around. He looks at her with pure indulgence on his face, she leans close everytime he gets near. And when they’re surrounded by people…they’re in a world all their own.

And they’re a joy to watch because they bring romance to life.

I’ve tried time and time again to capture all of that in a manuscript. My hero’s give in to my heroines, they hold their hands, stroke their cheeks. Their eyes soften when they look at each other. She gets warm and tingly when he touches her in the lightest caress.

Those deep relationships are something I find most difficult to capture with words. I struggle to put onto ‘paper’ (okay its digital paper on the computer but still…) the emotions I see in those very few couples that seem to get it right leave me longing to capture it in the relationships I write about.

I have one hero that refers to a picture of the heroine as looking at the camera with love then he goes on to think that she only ever looks that way when he’s behind the camera. In another manuscript the world disappears everytime the hero and heroine look at each other. For her…she gets sucked in and nothing exists but the man in front of her.

But no matter how hard I try I’m always left feeling like I can’t capture those feelings. I can’t grasp and transfer to my manuscripts the deep affection and…what? Completeness? Oblivion? Love?... that I see in those very few couples.

How do you portray the emotions between your couples?