“Meet cute” is the moment in a story when your protagonist meets their love interest. It is such a loaded moment and you can make it truly spectacular – or you can totally mess it up.
“Meet cutes can be some of the most entertaining parts of your novel,” says Jenna. “They can also be piles of sh*t. The choice is yours.”
Jenna gives ten tips for writing winning meet cutes. The first one is that some of the best meet cutes happen under not cute circumstances.
“It’s possible for them to meet under cute circumstances, but that isn’t always the case. “In fact, that probably shouldn’t be your goal at all. That’s not to say you should aim for disgust or outrage, but usually the meet cute happens under awkward circumstances. There’s disagreements, there’s misunderstandings there’s embarrassment… The the point of a meet cute is not to make these two characters fall in love instantly. It’s cute because readers know what’s going to happen eventually. They’re going to fall in love and it’s going to be cute but the meeting itself is anything but…”
“Start with conflict miscommunication, terrible first impressions, petty disagreements, clumsy bungles…”
