I have no plans for them to "hook up" in my outline, though I considered it. It seems to be somewhat obligatory that such characters should.

And it might happen naturally as I write the story. Sometimes characters take on a life of their own and do things, and I'm okay with that.

But if they don't, is it likely I'll hear from an agent or editor that I should re-write it with them getting romantic?

As for your story...when you have two straight characters of opposite gender, neither of which has a significant other waiting for them, then you have sexual tension. Whether you have them get together in the end or not, the tension is there. It's usually best if you address it in some way. That way doesn't have to be the two of them hooking up.

Here's the thing, readers won't need a reason for those two characters to get together if they do. They need a reason for them to be apart if that's what happens. It's actually harder to write it that way. And paradoxically, trying to keep them apart my increase the sexual tension and the expectation that the two get together in the end. For example, if they hate one another and are constantly snipping at one another, I'll be sure they're secretly in love with one another and just need time to realize it.

In the end, they may end up being 'just friends' like Harry and Hermione in the novel. But I'm sure, if it had been a real situation, they would have entertained the thought of 'what if?'

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If you are single and your friend of the opposite gender (assuming you're straight) is single and at least slightly attractive, you will entertain, at least a little, the thought of romance.

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I know that is the modern view, and it may be true some of the time--maybe even most of the time (which is more likely because of our cultural bombardment of sex--which most fantasy worlds don't have--than because it is natural). But it definitely isn't true all of the time. I'm sure it's not always true even with all modern teenagers, so I would have little qualms in avoiding it with non-modern, non-sexually-bombarded teenagers in fiction.

That being said--there are different kinds of sexual tension, and some don't require anything of romance.

One would be physical attractiveness. That's not to say the MTV generation's version. You have to admit that physical attraction matters. I think my wife is attractive. Many people may not agree. That's okay. It doesn't matter what other people think, just what I do.

Another quality would be emotional compatibility.

Another would be a woman's ability to raise a family, or a man's ability to provide.

Another would be personality and sense of humor.

Humans are sexual creatures.

I've known people who claimed to have completely platonic and close relationships with the opposite gender, even when both parties were unattached, heterosexual, and not related to one another, but it was always hard to swallow. Watching them, I always felt they were flirting. It only ended when either the couples hooked up with one another, or with other people....and the other people thing worked better when they both found other people. If only one found another person, their SO was inevitably jealous of the strange and unexplainable relationship.

Of course, the editor might then ask you to remove the barrier.

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Even 200 years ago Farmboy A would have entertained thoughts of Farmgirl B.

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That may be true with some of the farmgirls, but not necessarily with all of them, and not necessarily with Farmgirl B -- he could have interest in farmgirl C, D, or J. Whatever the case -- it ain't necessarily so that any two people of opposite sex will have that kind of attraction or pull toward romance.

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I've known people who claimed to have completely platonic and close relationships with the opposite gender, even when both parties were unattached, heterosexual, and not related to one another, but it was always hard to swallow.

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Honestly, I have certainly had friendships with men I never had sex with. I have worked with hundreds of men, had lunch with dozens of them, drinks after work, talked about things, got together with them with groups of friends, and didn't have sex with them.

There were some of them that that little niggling thought occurred that he might be a good lay. But with most of them, I didn't even think about it.

I find the idea that in all books any time there is a male and a female that they HAVE to "hook up" just absurd. Of course, they don't have to. Some men are not particularly attractive to some women. Some women are not particularly attractive to some men. While I will agree that there are people who are totally sexually promiscuous, it isn't an attractive trait in either men or women.

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I find the idea that in all books any time there is a male and a female that they HAVE to "hook up" just absurd. Of course, they don't have to. Some men are not particularly attractive to some women. Some women are not particularly attractive to some men. While I will agree that there are people who are totally sexually promiscuous, it isn't an attractive trait in either men or women.

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You're saying you have never been friends with a man you didn't have sex with? Really?

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Why did you immediately spring to SEX here? Wow, did you ever miss the point.

However, I did entertain notions, however briefly, of hooking up (going out on a date, maybe??? And I require far more than three dates to get to the sex point so....) with every attractive, single man I was friendly with when I was single.

What I was talking about above was the people I knew who claimed to be "best friends with" or "like brother/sister" with a member of the opposite sex. I had a male best friend in college. I went through the whole thing I described...I dated someone else who was jealous and moved between us. My friend and I drifted apart until the other guy dumped me and we started becoming good friends again. Now, we're married.

Of course, there are a lot of ways to be friends with the opposite sex without being BFF. And many of our relationships are more casual...coworkers, classmates, someone you "hang out" with, etc. Even so, once adolescence kicks in, there is quite a lot of evidence that the dynamic between men and women changes substantially and that they begin checking one another out.

Checking one another out does NOT mean jumping one another's bones.

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I find the idea that in all books any time there is a male and a female that they HAVE to "hook up" just absurd. Of course, they don't have to. Some men are not particularly attractive to some women. Some women are not particularly attractive to some men. While I will agree that there are people who are totally sexually promiscuous, it isn't an attractive trait in either men or women

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PS - I don't mean sex when I say romance.

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The expectation is switched to on. You can switch it off...

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If you want to rule out sex, make the girl overweight. Yes, that's cruel, but it is an easy way to turn the "on" switch to "off", assuming the boy isn't so horny he'll put a paper bag over her head.

Now, before you jump down by throat for being a sexist bastard, please do remember, we're talking about the attitudes of seventeen year old males, not about the attitudes of adults.

I remember a Swamp Thing story by Alan Moore that exactly captured the way teen age males talk. It wasn't pretty, but it was memorable.

As for the problem with putting this situation into a book, it can be summed up with: 'characters are like real people, but filtered and condensed.' If you are focusing on these two people in your story, every detail about them is relevant, or else you wouldn't waste the space in providing it. Including the fact that one is male and the other female. Which is why the reader is going to wonder if something is going to happen on the romance end of things.

But that doesn't mean the reader has to spend much time wondering. Good writers direct the reader's musings in their own direction. If the book has a good enough hook otherwise, the reader should spend more time worrying about how this boy and girl are going to get out of whatever mess you've put them in than whether they're going to want to smooch eachother afterwards.

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quote:The expectation is switched to on. You can switch it off...

I think that has more to do with the habits of average writers and present-day obsessions than it does with real life. A writer doesn't have to follow the hoard in order to be a good writer. One option is simply not to turn it on.

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But the expectation is already on. It's default.

It's one of the reasons more conservative cultures consider people in "modern" society decadent and think they belong to things like "the Great Satan."

When I was seventeen I wasn't having sex. In fact, I married at 24 and was a virgin until then. But I sure was thinking about sex. You can figure a lot out if you have an imagination, as most young men do.

There are a lot of puritanical ideals about sex even today. Sex isn't bad. Sometimes people who aren't married have sex (whether you agree with it or not, it happens). Sometimes characters do drugs, I doubt most writers are trying to encourage it, they are just honest enough to admit that it happens. And you know what? That doesn't make you evil. People do things they shouldn't. It creates conflict. Without people doing bad things, you have no stories.

I want to go to heaven some day. I want to exist in a state of perfection. How do you define that? Have you read many books where the whole story takes place in heaven? Wouldn't that be the most boring thing ever? No conflict.

So basically, characters of the opposite gender will entertain thoughts of sex (maybe not intercourse, maybe just attraction) unless:

One is ugly (beauty is in the eye of the beholder)
One smells bad
One is stupid
One is fat
One is really annoying (though that doesn't always stop it)
One reminds you too much of a sibling (this has happened with me)

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It hasn't been very long since "modern" society started allowing unmarried and unrelated men and women to be together alone without chaperons of some kind (probably because women have entered the "work force" in such large numbers). Those in the past who were allowed to be together were considered vulgar and immoral by nature (or they were ignorant and didn't know any better).

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It depends on the society. In ancient Greece, the wife of a citizen was confined to the home, and the husband took a hetera (think high-class call girl) when he wanted a companion to go to the theater. (Heinlein mentions this in several books.) This, however, only applied to citizens. The wife would have male slaves in the home. In ancient Rome, women had much more freedom. If you read American history unexpurgated, you will discover that many of the pious Puritans considered it perfectly OK to rape an Indian woman they chanced upon in the woods. And, considering that this is a G rated forum, I won't even go into the subject of sheep.

This changed not when women went to work (that was during WWII) but with the invention of the automobile. The back seat of a car was the deflowering place of many a maid in the early 20th century.

The macho ideal is not that men and women will be mutually attracted to each other, but rather that a macho man will instantly rape an unprotected woman. See, for example, the biography of actor Antonia Bandaras, who freely admits going on rape sprees as a young, macho man and feels no shame about it.

The one constant, throughout all of human history, is that young people think about sex. A lot. (Note deliberate use of a sentence fragment.)

"The DaVinci Code" as I recall, didn't involve a "relationship" between the guy and the girl, but the sexual tension was certainly there. It's been a long time since I read it and I've read a LOT of stuff since then, so I may have it confused, but I do remember seeing the film and thinking, "Why is Tom Hanks walking away from that beautiful woman???" In most adventure stories of that type, they would've gotten together. Again, a man and a woman on an adventure, and danger often leads to romance (even if short-lived) in fiction or film.

So give your couple a third friend to be the "fifth wheel" who puts the brakes on the sexual tension. That's one way out of the problem. At their age, I guarantee you, that girl and that guy ARE looking at each other and at least wondering what it would be like to have a relationship, no matter how smelly one is or how the other looks or whatever. Those things might factor into their thinking, but the thinking WOULD be there! That's just human nature.

I have a huge extended family. Many of my cousins were absolutely gorgeous boys but I never once had even a twinge of interest in them (nor they in me). We all knew each other too well and for too long.

Part of the excitement of romance is learning about each other (although many people do marry their "best friends," most of the time they weren't best friends all their lives, but started being friends as teens). That element of mystery and learning about each other is missing when the people involved have known each other forever, as in the case of the Harry Potter actors or your cousins.

So, if you really want these two kids to not be interested in each other romantically, and you don't want people screaming at you for making the girl (why not the boy?? Why does it ALWAYS have to be the girl???) fat or ugly or whatever, make them lifelong close friends or even cousins. Problem solved.

Lynda

A third friend can work and is a good suggestion, but there will still be some tensions that the author will need to deal with.

Do you have to deal with the 16/17 year old hormone issues? Sure. But humans are (at times) thinking and (somewhat) rational beings, unless he's overpowered by his sex drive, they can choose not to go down that path.

In other words, there are a lot of options, nothing is obligatory, so it might be worth brainstorming, or letting your characters decide. IMHO, making one "unattractive" isn't going to work, since it relies on stereotypes of beauty/ attractiveness and doesn't do justice to the nuance of human relations.

And yeah, as Lynda says, why DOES it always have to be the girl??? I guess that's one thing I like about HP, that Ron is kind of a dork in the beginning. Actually, he pretty much stays a dork, but he's lovable because he proves himself loyal, courageous, etc.

Women get fat, hag, or scrawny/mousy.

Men get stinky, short, bad teeth, and pock marked.

Cliches are good to avoid but they can also draw on stereotypes that you can play to your advantage if you want to quickly form an image in a reader's mind without spending much time on it. In other words, if it's not very important to your story. I don't waste time making every last little detail original. It's fruitless anyway.

If the two characters are virtually strangers to begin with, the fear of not knowing if the other even likes "me" is very real. As these two teenage characters get to know each other more and more as the story progresses, the fear of losing what friendship already exists, just to satiate some lustful desires, can certainly stop either one from ever bringing that sexual tension to the surface.

In short, as long as you explain their thoughts, even if it's only in one short scene, I would find the lack of any developing romance completely believable. (ie. "I often wondered if he/she was becoming more than just my friend, but I feared the reaction if he/she didn't feel the same way I did. Besides, now was not the time, what with the mutant robot ninja monkies close on our trail")