Almost every other romance author around me is writing like their biggest goal is to make two people fall in love. For me, it’s the opposite. I’ve never believed in rushing stories on the page, and I’m not going to do so just because the story says it’s time. I love a slow burn, and lucky me, my readers love it too when there’s a slowly built romantic connection between characters.

I’m Not In A Hurry To Get Them Together

Let’s just take an example from real life. How often do you think people fall in love, the head-over-heels kind, in exactly two weeks? When I’m writing, I don’t sit there thinking, Okay Maria, chapter five kiss, chapter eight is for confession, and you must give a happily ever after by chapter ten. My characters would probably ignore me anyway. (Spoiler alert: they love to take their time, so you might have to wait quite a lot).

Yes, yes, you can smell the jealousy here. But the funny thing is, this is usually where it starts getting good. When you cannot really predict what my characters would do next, that is when you get a romance story that you’ll force your friends to read. And yes, this includes your BookTok friends as well.

Why I Let Love Take Its Time

This is why you wouldn’t find me rushing the connection between my characters. Trust me, I’ve tried that too, but I want my readers to feel the romantic connection between characters when they’re reading my book. I want you to feel the tension building up, and preferably bite your fingers waiting for the time your favorite characters would finally kiss for the first time. And when they finally do? I want you to say, yeah, they were meant to be together. That is the kind of romance I will always choose to write.

Maria Cox