Do you want to come across as a twelve-year-old girl? Even if you are a twelve-year-old girl, your readers shouldn't be able to tell just by reading your cheeseball fluff. How many I Love Yous are acceptible? How do you tell cheeseball content from solid writing? Find out here.

By: SpookyMulder 

Cheeseball Content

     This section is dedicated to cutting out the fluff, the garbage, and to avoiding a collective gag reflex from your audience. Does this mean cutting out romance? Hell no! You can write a sappy, cheeseball romance novel, but you can write the same story with little sap and all the romance if you do it correctly. The problem is, cheeseball is a matter of opinion and is difficult to define in black and white. You must learn to recognize it on your own. Cheeseball content runs the gamut and can appear in any and every part of writing, not just love, not just narrative. It is poison to believability. 

Speaking of Love: We covered “Speaking of Love” in the Believability Overview, but we will go into it a bit more here. Why beat it to death? Because it’s that important and it’s also the area where most offenses occur. Novice writers shove love between characters down their reader’s throat. It isn’t necessary!! Your reader will know the characters love each other without ever once being told, without a single “I love you” in dialogue, without other characters discussing it. The way your characters interact, the things they say to each other and the manner with which they say them, their actions and reactions will say it loud and clear. Use “I love you” ever so sparingly! As I said before, save it for moments of the highest impact or once or twice in casual conversation. Pet names are an absolute gag-fest. Same goes for terms of endearment unless the character on the receiving end hates that her guy calls her Pookybear and thinks of stabbing him every time he says it J 

BAD: “Andy, I am falling in love with you. It would be an honor to go to dinner with you.” *Gags and retches*

     Here is an excerpt from “The Girl in the Tower” where Harry meets the girl he would eventually marry. What it shows is their attraction without a single mention of it:    

    Sara stood and offered him a hand up. As he took it, Harry thought she must be able to see his heart pounding. He was convinced it was trying to break straight through and land on the floor at her feet. He was sure that his entire chest must be moving with every beat. It had to be visible but Sara didn’t seem to notice. She was looking right at his glasses as he rose from the step… 

Romantic Actions: It is possible to “over-show” the love between characters. Please be subtle. A heartfelt touch of the hand speaks volumes. Kissing every five minutes speaks to my trashcan. People don’t maul each other in public and, after the initial charm of a relationship wears off, people aren’t super affectionate at all times, either. Affection, even if you feel it’s what people do in real life, should be “quiet” and semi-rare. This doesn’t sound right, I know, but it’s what your characters say to each other and how they act that is the important factor. 

TIP: Think of it this way, if you yell all the time, people stop listening. They become desensitized to yelling and disregard what you’re saying completely. If you never yell, that one time you do everyone will pay attention in a big way. Every word you say will resonate. Now take this reasoning and apply it to every area of writing, not just romantic actions. It will never steer you wrong. 

Cheese in General: Like I said, cheese can be anywhere and everywhere in a story. Description can easily go cheeseball fast. Overemphasis lends to it, glorifying beauty, using fluffy adjectives and the list goes on forever. Cheese is the #1 cause of unbelievability and is probably the most difficult aspect of bad writing for a writer to recognize in their own work.  Therefore, the best suggestion is to read lousy novels. Go get something with Fabio on the cover (in my world, he is the universal symbol of romanticheese) and take note of what doesn’t work. Notice those things that seem silly, words that make you smirk. Study bad writing for the many lessons it holds and learn from it. Someone spent a lot of time killing the English language, might as well put it to good use.