How to Never Fail at Writing: Fiction Guide - How to Achieve Success in Writing: Capturing The Most Beautiful Sort of Dialogue - Love Confessions

• You can buy Crown of Blood here or if you’re from the British Isles/Europe here .99 cents for the Kindle edition and 25$ for the paperback edition.

• You can upgrade your subscription, to whatever suits your budget (it’s only 10$ for a full year’s subscription and 70$ for a founding subscription which is likewise on sale).

• You can review any of our serials or anthology, it really does help.

********

I’m writing about this topic though most might say that this sort of speech or dialogue doesn’t require much thought. I’d disagree, as all scenes, all dialogue in a story requires a great deal of thought and purpose put behind it.

In the case of love-confessions this is a complicated and difficult topic to write about. To be quite honest this is one where I feel that the average female writer might excel more at, and yet I’ve observed some male writers who’ve done a pretty good job.

First we have to pin down just how exactly what it is that we’re writing and good examples of how to do it.

So first off, a love confession is a scene wherein one character conveys his or her affection for another, usually it’s a male character who does this. The reason being that men have always been the ones responsible for chasing after those they desire, with this going as far back as the ancient Greek tales of Helen and Paris, and even those of the likes of Zeus and his paramour of the week.

Though in the latter’s case there was little in the way of love involved, so that it is an anomaly (perhaps a better example is Hades & Persephone). Its happened though that the act of chasing after the other in literature has evolved thanks in large part to the court-romance of French Romanze literature, and the latter day literature of Jane Austen amongst others.

One of the best examples of a love confession scene is that from Pride and Prejudice as Mr. Darcy confesses his affection to Elizabeth.

This is the most popular love confession in the Romance genre. It happens to be a ‘Direct Confession’, and just as there are Direct ones there are Indirect Confessions, which involve a slightly different form.

The Direct Confession I’ve observed happens to be one in which the character admits to his adoration for his female counterpart. It involves a straightforward admission and is fairly straightforward.

While I’ve in the past advised that a writer for dialogue observe the traditions as set down by the likes of Cicero, Shakespeare and others, I would advise against this model with regards to a Direct Confession.

The reason I do not think form and style should be too important a focus when doing this sort of scene is that it can often seem fairly unrealistic. If you pay attention, or have ever confessed your affection for another in life, it is a terribly awkward, difficult thing and one in which a person if uncertain of the other’s affections might struggle to get the words out properly.

Darcy’s confession is a good example of this, sure Austen’s speech is very poetic but this is due entirely to the nature of speaking and writing in that era. Linguistic skills have since that era declined as people’s intellect have which is a great shame (not to say that people are necessarily stupid just that our ancestors were far cleverer and better educated where Grammar is concerned among other things).

We must therefore ask ourselves how is it that a Love Confession in the most Direct Manner might be written?

Well for one thing you have to write it in the most raw, direct and almost plaintive manner imaginable. It must appeal, it must almost sound like a supplication, and it should usually floor the other character. A good example of this is that of Zenobia from Hour of the Dragon, where she absolutely floors Conan the Cimmerian when she confesses her love for him.

It quite literally comes out of nowhere (as does she), with the young maiden speaking not in the flowery speech of a Shakespearian character laying out their souls to the audience, but in blunt, raw speech as she bears all that she is before Conan.

"But I am no painted toy; I am of flesh and blood. I breathe, hate, fear, rejoice and love. And I have loved you, King Conan, ever since I saw you riding at the head of your knights along the streets of Belverus when you visited King Nimed, years ago. My heart tugged at its strings to leap from my bosom and fall in the dust of the street
under your horse's hoofs."

You see? She makes it clear that she is human, she burns with hate, fear, and love, she is not a toy, nor is she some soulless automaton.

There are two other things that are interesting, the first being that Conan is absolutely stunned. Sure he’s received such confessions from the likes of women like Belit and Valeria before, but apparently he’s amazed by Zenobia’s beauty and the innocence and purity of her confession.

What is more is that Robert E. Howard seems to pour a lot of himself, or possibly one might suspect Noel, the love of his life into the character of Zenobia. It might just be that Howard took down the words from his lover and put them into the mouth of his favourite heroine, we may never know.

Another example of this sort of confession, is that of Genji for his stepmother, though in that case it is quite inappropriate as she is Empress or ‘Chief Wife’ to the Emperor of Japan.

The confession is one that is honestly heart-rending as it is one that has haunted Genji all his life and that’s plagued him for so long that once it is out he can’t take it back. Naturally society and his station in life forbids him from actually proceeding with it.

He is also bound by a passionate sense of filial duty towards his father the Emperor of Japan. And this also brings up another point about the ‘Direct Confession’, it can also be a confession of non-sexual love, such as that between parent and child or siblings (more on that in another essay, one I’ll write next week). The Direct

But as it is one can also look to the Indirect Confession as one of the more poetic forms of confessions of sorts. This one can come in many forms, with the best examples in cinema in my view being those of the Last Samurai and Family Man movies.

The confession in this scene is somewhat direct but also indirect in some ways, it’s clumsy and in some ways sloppy, but it is also tragic.

Tragic in the sense that the dream he had of his Family Life is gone and was just a dream and might never be. It is quite well delivered. What’s so great about it is also the manner in which Cage delivers it, he’s not over the top, he isn’t pompous and is even quite a bit pathetic.

He doesn’t follow it up with some cheesy, annoying kiss as Hollywood is prone to doing, but rather with just a relieved almost teary-eyed ‘okay’.

The other scene is even more Indirect;

This dressing scene involves a confession. A broken one, not a word is uttered, no great Hollywoodian flourish, just tightly wrought emotions, gestures and solemnity and a great score.

There exists also love confessions when the other would be recipient is absent. What is this confession? Take for example the confession of Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption about his wife, he confesses how much he loved his wife to his best friend Redd.

Or for a better one there’s Otsuu’s confession of love to Musashi… when he’s locked up in prison.

Excuse me using rips, or raws or whatever, I wrote this essay in a hurry.

Otsuu is at the breaking point.

Musashi’s might well become a cripple. He’s losing the usage of a leg, due to an extremely bad wound, and is freaking out because he might never fight again. Yet he doesn’t care, he wants to go on, to fight on and carry on as he has in the name of self-improvement.

Why? Because he must continue to self-actualize. He can’t properly wed Otsuu until he’s perfected himself, no matter how long that’ll take and this is driving her nuts. She wants him now, she wants him by her side, and she wants to live with him as Man and Wife, yet he won’t bring himself to actually take her on his journey or even consider taking her on as his wife for fear that she might perish or be targeted.

Otsuu isn’t afraid and is prepared to endure, yet she also fears endlessly for him, because she’s in the same situation that plenty of wives to soldiers and warriors have been in the past, fearful of the day he doesn’t return home.

It is for this reason, the rawness of these emotions that you must not ever be overly flowery, or at least not forcefully flowery. If you write it as flowery, you must ensure that it is artful and sincere. Never lose the sincerity, and this is why I argue for rawness, as true love confessions are raw things and very roughly spoken.

They never or rarely if ever involve some character sounding as suave as hollyweird characters like in say Titanic or whatever. It is a rough thing, and usually involves ‘Confession’, ‘Expectation/Dread’ and then ‘Relieve and Joy’ when it is returned. The reason it comes in three stages, is that art imitates life.

Once the words are uttered they are alive, they are no longer able to be taken back. So you dread being laughed at or rejected. Wherefore when it is returned there is relief and joy, and gratitude to the heavens.

Remember this and you’ll do fine.

In Brotherhood of the Gemstone I’ve a confession of sorts by Tormod for Kenna which is a very unusual and humorous affair of sorts. I say humorous because his love for her begins with fascination for her courage, her tempestuous ill-temper and her haughtiness towards him, at which time he kidnaps her and then admits to being full of affection for her. The reason he likes her is that she’s loyal, and contemptuous of those who are not and those who get in the way of her loyalty to those she loves. For a single-dad like him, there could be no better partner.

Of course in Prince of Flames the love confession comes at the beginning of the tale, as Prince Aganyu falls in love with Charaji the water-sprite early on. Where I went wrong with it, was that it was a bit rushed so that I’ll have to rewrite it later, the thing there is that the main pair are a very impulsive duo so that the embarking upon a love-affair between them is done recklessly, has little in the way of reason and is passionate to say the least.

And that brings up another essential element; the abandonment of Reason or better yet Rationality. The Confession is an impulsive, reckless act that should involve the character losing what poise they have, and what dignity they have. It should be about them losing what presentability that they have.

They are embarking on the most beautiful thing man and woman can do, but the trouble is that they are exposing themselves completely and utterly. At no point should there be a single breath in which the characters have time to think, or roll their eyes or check their watches. This would of course remove from the scene.

When writing it you can note that there are birds upon the nearby branches, mention the snow falling from the tree branches, or otherwise mention the dog whining in the background or something. This is how the Japanese handle it in their literature.

The French like to have a gunshot, some sort of tragedy and a desperation to the moment, not sure why it’s just that our literature usually comprises some sort of dramatic event that comes from without and shakes up the heroes so that they contemplate their internal world and then burst out of their shells to confess everything to the other person (such as in French cinema and Jeanne Fille du Roi).

In terms of literature one should remember to write from the heart, write from one’s own soul. But you might well ask yourself? How do I do that?

You can either refer back to such a confession in your life, and you might also look to one source that I find oddly useful; music.

Music helps set the mood, and while you can use more recent songs I tend to find older ones much more appropriate, specifically Classical and Romantic era music. It is just more soulful, there’s usually no words and has only feelings to it.

Here’s a good video with I believe a good playlist tied in with it.

It happens that these songs fill one with the essence of love, with the very vibration of the emotion, with the full beauty that it has.

Oddly I also like to refer to poetry, usually that of Shikibu Murasaki, Virgil and also various French poets. It helps somehow. Look also to paintings and classical courtly art, I find it helps to contemplate it as I listen to the above mentioned music and to ponder the characters.

********

How you can support our work

• You can buy Crown of Blood here or if you’re from the British Isles/Europe here .99 cents for the Kindle edition and 25$ for the paperback edition.

• You can upgrade your subscription, to whatever suits your budget (it’s only 10$ for a full year’s subscription and 70$ for a founding subscription which is likewise on sale).

• You can review any of our serials or anthology, it really does help.