Chemistry 101

So Oldest Daughter is making me watch an entire season of True Blood on our video on demand. I had walked in about two nights ago when she was watching it in my room. People, there's a LOT of sex on that show. But then she started telling me the whole back story. When she got to the part that the female lead's boss is a DOG (shapeshifter), I threw up my hands. "Forget it!" I mean, this is not for me.

UNTIL . . . the vampire and the female lead shared screen time. Folks . . . Chemistry 101. I was hooked. So, just as she did with House, she is catching me up, fast forwarding through boring parts so it's just the good stuff, letting me know who is who.

And I started thinking about it. If you have ever seen a movie with bad chemistry between the leads (hmm . . . I am thinking a very bad movie with Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd) then watched something with totally hot chemistry like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or last night's completely had me falling off the bed scene between a vampire and a human . . . then it's sort of puzzling.

From a writing perspective, these shows have scripts CALLING for chemistry. But you can create all the banter you want, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I mean, I SO want HIM to star in THIS. (Genius? Are you sending this to his agent?) But would that guarantee chemistry with the female lead? I have no idea.

I have been getting reader emails about the sex scene between Kate and Julian. They think it's hot. I think I wrote them with chemistry. But what IS it that does so?

In my opinion, it starts with brains. Then banter. Which is why short-cutting that and making it all about rippled abs or whatever . . . does nothing for me. (And given Julian has no body, that's just as well in the case of Freudian Slip.) Maybe it's a moment of vulnerability--just a minute, a moment, a conversation--when someone let's someone else in.

So I toss it to the peanut gallery. What creates chemistry? Best onscreen chemistry? Book chemistry? How do you create it?

Chemistry 101

When I was 21, the person whose company I enjoyed most was a man named Kurt (or Curt--I can't remember), quite a bit older than I was. He worked as an exceutive vice president at an investment banking firm in the Twin Towers, was originally from Montcalir, New Jersey, and we were friends. He often took me out to dinner at places that I could never afford on an editor's salary, and we would talk for hours with no lull. Things got tricky around my birthday when Kurt decided he had enough with being "just friends." And the fact is, I was really young and didn't feel any chemistry.

Now that I am older and wiser, I miss him. When the Twin Towers fell, I combed the victims' names . . . and truthfully, I have no idea what happened to him. He stopped being my friend, and I am left with wondering . . .

Here's the other thing, I was REALLY young. And I am telling you that I agnonized over this "chemistry" thing. I didn't understand it. I WANTED to be madly in love with him. I wanted to like him as more than a friend. But I didn't. Oh, there were lots of reasons I suppose. In hindsight, I don't imagine we could ever talk politics. He was from "old money." The only thing old about any money we had was if it stayed in our pockets a while. But chemistry made no sense to me. You couldn't "will" it, could you?

Years passed. The people I had "chemistry" with were almost uniformly not good for me. And now--again older and wiser--I wonder about chemistry and do think it can be nurtured. Either that, or the things that I like in a person are much different--intelligence, decency, a sense of purpose, spirituality, belief in social justice, a sense of humor, can the man make a decent scrambled egg? My chemistry with women friends is similar . . . humor somehow edging out most of the other qualities.

As a writer, every time I put in a relationship (romantic or even close partnership), I'm looking to create "chemistry." For me, I "show" it through dialogue--finishing each other's thoughts, inside jokes (even if the reader doesn't quite get it yet).

So . . . your thoughts on chemistry? Can it be forced? What is on your chemical combustion list? How do you show it in writing? And if Kurt is somehow reading this . . . hi!