Romance
Romance works best for me when attraction is slightly inconvenient. Not melodrama, just the ordinary kind of awkwardness that comes from two sensible people misreading each other for perfectly defensible reasons.
A useful chemistry scene often isn’t smooth at all. It’s someone talking too fast, or becoming oddly formal, or noticing one detail and drawing the wrong conclusion because they are, inconveniently, human.
If every exchange is easy, the tension can go flat. A little friction makes the feeling legible.
A useful chemistry scene often isn’t smooth at all. It’s someone talking too fast, or becoming oddly formal, or noticing one detail and drawing the wrong conclusion because they are, inconveniently, human.
If every exchange is easy, the tension can go flat. A little friction makes the feeling legible.
Friction helps, but only if it’s doing some work. A lot of romance scenes mistake awkwardness for chemistry, when it’s really just two people circling the same paragraph. I’d rather see one character noticing the wrong thing for a proper reason, or avoiding the obvious question because it would cost them something. That at least earns the tension.