The Meet-Cute vs Recognition

Some love stories begin with bird poop. Others start with a knowing. Writing love at first sight.

Have you ever considered that there are two kinds of love stories? One begins with a collision, a spilled coffee, or a stranger across a crowded room who turns out to be the boss' son or the rival's brother. They’re the heart-stopping moments that create external reactions. But the other begins quieter. Two people walk past each other, or they share a glance. In their core, they feel that gut reaction, even before the mind catches up. 

I call this recognition. An experience outside the meet-cute.

The kind of first moments I love to write–a split second when the intuition fires off, and the body senses something about the other person. The mind will quickly deny it, insisting that that person would never elicit any kind of desire. But the body recognizes the connection. 

How do I define the difference between the two? Here are two ways I refine my meet-cutes.

First, I look at whether it's plot-driven or not, because both can begin the same way. Imagine you pass a stranger on a bridge. They smile at you, and you smile back. You feel a sensation in your gut, and your eyes light up. Just then, bird poop lands on your shoulder. 

• In the meet-cute, the action drives the connection and scene. 

• In a recognition, there’s a knowing or sensation within that tells you this person isn’t there by accident. They see you beyond the event.

  
  

Some would call it Fate. But fate suggests a force outside yourself determined the continued connection. Recognition is within, a choice you make. You can run away, accept their help, or boldly ask for their number. In crafting recognition, I focus first on the body's response to the other person, then the plot.

The second way I define a meet-cute and inner perception is with dialogue. I play with the interiority as much as what they say to each other. Let’s face it, as strangers, you don't usually understand each other at first.

• In a meet-cute, there are missed cues, missed jokes, and silences filled with politeness. 

• But when two people recognize each other, they engage as if their lives are already mid-conversation. He says half a sentence, and you finish it. Or the silence becomes a knowing, and you choose based on that internal awareness.

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When I wrote The Hayton Collection, I wanted Cordelia and Royce’s first meeting on Rue Hautefeuille to represent something more than a meet-cute. Even with dust in her eyes, and her clocked run time ruined, my goal was an intuitive connection–an awareness in her body.

Same with Ailla. She describes meeting Maccus as a child and “her bones knew him before speaking his name,” and Chelsea “felt Edmund’s breath brush across her neck,” yet he was across the room. 

My goal is to write love stories where the intellect follows the recognition and discovers something neither imagined possible for themselves. Yes, you can call it fated love, but it’s not a locked-in, destined path. It’s a remembering–a knowing that whatever brought them together, whether bird poop, spilled coffee, or a glance, each character has a choice to walk through the open door.

Maybe you’ve had a recognition with a friend, a place, or even a book. You just know that your life is being reshaped, as if your body is remembering something that the mind or calendar had forgotten. 

That’s what I hope you feel when reading my books. It’s one of my goals every time I sit down to write about love.