My Kind of Research – The Kissing Scene

Me and my research partner.

I love a good romance, but I’m a bit of a realist. I want a happy ending, but I also want some reality. I’m willing to suspend a certain amount of belief when it comes to how a couple meets and falls in love, but I’m a codger when it comes to physical contact.

I’ve read some pretty interesting kissing scenes through the years. Some melt my knees and others make me blush. Then there are the scenes that make me scratch my head and wonder, “Do people really do that?”

That’s where my husband comes in.

“Honey, I need you to sit beside me with your left arm around me, then cup my cheek with your right hand, turn my face toward yours, and kiss me.”

That’s right—I re-enact scenes to see if they’re really as romantic as they seem. Sometimes they’re scenes that I wrote; sometimes it’s a scene from someone else’s book. Regardless of who wrote it, I want to know—is that even comfortable, much less romantic?

I’ve discovered some very sweet kisses. I’ve also discovered a few things that I won’t often include in my books (I’m not saying you’ll never see these things in my books, but they don’t make many appearances):

• Lap sitting: I’m a tall girl with a long torso. When I sit on my husband’s lap, his head comes up to my shoulder—not romantic.
• Cupping the face with both hands: I find this awkward and can rarely stop giggling.
• Kissing while sitting side-by-side: Again, tall girl. Tall husband. Between knees bumping and the awkwardness of trying to make up the height differences, it’s just weird.

After ten years of marriage, however, there are a few things that I had never considered “romantic” gestures or touches, but they are some of my favorite shared touches:

• Hair: I can never get enough of my husband playing with my hair. You can expect to see my heroes running their fingers through lots of hair.
• The back: My husband rarely holds my hand. Instead, he always has a hand on my back or shoulder. I love it.
• Ankles/feet: Feet pretty much gross me out. I never let anyone touch mine (and I don’t want to touch yours), but when my husband walks by and runs his fingers across my feet or ankles, my heart twitters. Now I’m always looking for an excuse to sprain a girl’s ankle or break a toe, just so the hero can slip off her shoe and touch her feet.

Before I got married, it didn’t occur to me to second guess the physical contact between heroes and heroines, but it’s become something I want to get right. I want to write a scene that makes my heart flutter. If that means doing a little extra research, that’s okay. The hubs is always willing to let me test out a kissing scene.