Paranormal Uncute Meets

The meet-cute. Hollywood thrives on meet-cutes for all sorts of movies, though Wikipedia, among other sources, claims it's mostly the staple of screwball and romantic comedies. It's defined as a "contrived encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic circumstances...During a "meet-cute", scriptwriters often create a humorous sense of awkwardness between the two potential partners by depicting an initial clash of personalities or beliefs, an embarrassing situation, or by introducing a comical misunderstanding or mistaken identity situation."

In paranormal romances, granted, the meet-cute isn't always so cute because a lot of paranormal romances aren't comedies. The hero and heroine often have a meet-dramatic, I guess you could call it. But there are lighter paranormal romances out there that do have meet-cutes. I know, because I write them! That being said, here's a list of some meet-cutes you will NOT find in paranormal romance novels, not even the funny ones:

1) No matter how hunky your next door neighbor is, when you catch him in his canine form on the night of the full moon honching your poodle--it's not gonna be a cute meet.

2) She's a herpetologist from Earth out sunning her iguana. He's from the desert planet Zartorr where scaly reptiles are the only source of meat. Since his spaceship crashed, he hasn't eaten for days. You get the picture--and it's not cute.

3) She has to dig herself out of her own grave--again--and he has the shovel handy since he just robbed a nearby plot. She might like to eat brains, but it's not cute when he bashes hers in.

4) The first time he comes across her in his time travels was class picture day in seventh grade. She was in her ugly duckling phase--and it's not cute.

5) The ghostly matchmaker lures them into the same quaint little inn, but there's a reason it just got a really low score from the local health department. Food poisoning? Not cute.

6) She's an angel, he's a demon, and they meet when they're dueling over the immortal soul of Henry the Solid Waste Specialist, aka the janitor. Since he's on the job the first Monday after Spring Break in Dayona cleaning hotel bathrooms, it's hardly cute.

7) His spell misfired as she was jogging past his house, and it turned her thighs into large hams. Even if they are honeybaked, she's never going to think that's cute.

8) She accidentally sneezes dragonfire all over the hunky new doctor at the clinic. It ruins his new hairplugs, and they weren't even cute to start with.

What are your favorite meet-cutes, or meet-dramatics, from paranormal romance novels?

Jody Wallace

www.jodywallace.com * www.elliemarvel.com