I know that some readers are all about the inciting incident but in the romance genre it’s all about the meet cute. Wherever you stand on whether the inciting incident or meet cute comes first argument, we can all agree that without the meet cute there is no romance novel.
I’ve seen romance novels where the initial flirting takes place over text (I’m looking at you The Fastest Way to Fall) but in the end every romance story has that moment when boy meets girl, or girl meets girl etc., but the point is that there’s that magical moment when sparks fly, their eyes lock and the scene sets the tone for the entire story.
That’s a lot of weight to put on one scene but a good meet cute is up to the challenge. The meet cute, in my humble opinion has got to be epic. It’s got to stick in the readers’ minds like it was tattoed to their eyeballs. But what gives a meet cute scene the title of epic? Let’s go through some examples.
- The Ultimate Embarassment: move over you have lunch left in your teeth or bad zit territory. Oh, no. I’m talking about situations where the character wants to pray “Lord have the Earth swallow me whole because I can’t continue any longer” level of embarassment.
- The Completely Unexpected: I hate the predictable. Because of my childhood obsession with Sherlock Holmes I’ve ruined more than my fair share of movie outings in my childhood so when I don’t see the meet cute coming I love it!
- The Hits Just Keep On Coming: There’s something satisfying about watching a train wreck and this type of meet cute is no different. This meet cute sees the character’s situation spiral down from happiness to absolute rock bottom. These meet cutes should come with a bard singing Alanis Morrisette’s Ironic in the background.
These are just a few of my top meet cute examples. I’m continuing this discussion on the next episode of the Romance and Carrying On Podcast so be sure to download the next episode!
