Playing fast and loose with the Cute Meet.
Billy Mernit’s definition of “Cute Meet” in his book, Writing the Romantic Comedy, is: The
inciting incident that brings man and woman together and into conflict; an
inventive but credible contrivance, often amusing which in some way sets the
tone for the action to come.
The romances I have read or watched all had cute meets
and in everyone of them the hero and heroine were both surprised during the
cute meet. It may come to pass they he, she or they discover they had been set
up, but never has the hero or the heroine set up the cute meet. If you have
examples, please let me know because I’m drawing a blank.
I was witness to a real-life contrivance in which the
heroine set up a cute meet with the object of her desire. She, a ballerina,
showed up late for bar class. A hunky guy, motioned to her and made room to fit
her on a four per bar, making it five with her in front of him. Since they switch
directions, she had to be tortured by his exquisite form and visa versa. The
mirror told her he noticed, and nearly too obviously. She devised a plan to
intercept him on the way out of the building. After class, while he was talking
with the instructor, she went upstairs, looped around to near the front steps
and watched for him. She nonchalantly marched down the steps and ran right into
him (with in an inch of his face) as if she had to go back to class for something she forgot. Okay ballerina's like karate experts can stop on a dime, but an accidental kiss would have been more to the point but this is what happened.
“Well hello,” she said.
You can fill in the rest.
Writing tip: don’t shy away with freshening up plot
points with original ideas to make your novel memorable. Don’t do what
everybody else does.
