Ever get tired of using the same words over and over?
This week I felt like paying good money for someone to create new words because the old ones are, well, old. I’m at a crucial point in my WIP where my hero and heroine are ready to admit their love for each other and I’m looking for words other than ‘I love you.’
It’s not that I don’t like those words. If you write romance you spend a lot of time thinking about them. Maybe that’s why I’m tired of them. It’s me; too much thinking.
So, I started writing down all the ways I could think of to declare Amour and you know what happened? It became personal. That is, I had to ask my hero for help. How would a rogue MI6 agent admit love when the only thing he has ever enjoyed is killing for a living? He wouldn’t enjoy being in love. He’d feel vulnerable like one of his targets. My experiment, the expressions of love fell away in the face of my MI6 rogue. However, something else took it’s place. My MI6 rogue’s personality is such that he would never admit love for the heroine but at the very least he wouldn’t kill her. He’d protect the object of his affection or die trying.
Problem solved and in this case, actions speak louder than words. My MI6 rogue will handle his declaration of love his way. If he uses any words in the frozen wilderness in which they are being stalked, it will probably be something like, ‘you don’t go out there without me, understood?’
Anyone else with no words? Writer or a reader, how do you deal with it?