Kissing Fun: The Language of Love by Author C.D. Hersh...

 

Photo from the U.S Navy files via Wikimedia

As we’ve mentioned before, we’re hooked on the Bachelor television show. Yes, we know 99 percent of the “in love” couples at the end of each season don’t make it past the screening of the series. Yes, we know it’s a lot of drama and cat fights. Yes, we know it’s probably all hokey. Nevertheless, deep down we are romantics who hope that some lucky couple will find true love. 

The Bachelor season with Sean had a couple of romantic dates planned for his ladies. On week two there was a group date photo shoot with Harlequin, one of the most well-known publishers of romance novels. On week three Sean took Lesley Murphy to set a new Guinness World record for the longest onscreen kiss. The old record was 3 minutes and 15 seconds. Sean and Lesley set a new record with a live audience cheering them on. 

Watching that long on-screen kiss made us curious. If two people who barely know each other can lock lips for over 3 minutes and 16 seconds, how long can a couple who are in love kiss? So, we did some research from a purely writer’s point of view. We set the timer and read a love scene from a romance book for 3 minutes and 16 seconds. 

If you were reading a 3 minute 16 second love scene (referencing kissing only here) it would take approximately two pages of lip-locking description to break the world record, assuming you are not a speed reader. That’s an estimated 600 words in Times New Roman font. When we searched the computer’s thesaurus for alternate words for kiss and kissing—because you would surely not want to use the same verb each time you mentioned kiss—we came up empty-handed. Roget’s Thesaurus netted us a measly six synonyms: smack, buss, osculate (caress), brush, graze, and shave (touch). What shave has to do with kissing, aside from whisker burn, we have no idea. Roget forgot an obvious synonym, in our humble opinion—smooch. 

On the hunt now, because we couldn’t believe how few alternate words we’d found for kiss, we went to the Romance Writer’s Phrase Book, by Jean Kent and Candace Shelton, where we found one hundred and five kissing related phrases. However, only 61 were suitable for use in 3 minutes and 16 seconds of lip-locking, record-breaking kissing description. To win the record both parties’ lips must be touching the whole time, and some of the phrases in the book involved kissing other body parts. 

Next, we did an internet search for synonyms for kiss and kissing. Here’s a few more that we came up with: snog (British slang for kiss), neck, canoodle, peck, suck face, make out, spoon, get to first base, French, plant one on, Yankee dime/nickel (a favorite of Catherine’s parents), bill and coo, cupcake, spark, make whoopee, and mwah (onomatopoeia for the kissing sound). 

The next step in the research is to write a 600-word kissing scene. Better yet, we think we’ll set the timer and create our own Guinness World Record for kissing. That’s bound to be more fun than struggling to write 600 kissing related words on the computer. ☺ Have you kissed someone you love today? Here’s an excerpt from our book Can’t Stop the Music for you to read while you remember if you’ve kissed anyone today.

Tipping her chin up, he whispered, “Anything for you.” Then he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, savoring the sweet taste he’d only dreamt of. She leaned against him, their bodies molding together perfectly. In the strains of Woodstock music coming from the living room, he swore he heard the lyrics I’ll gift you forever, to have and to hold.

As their kisses grew more passionate, she mumbled against his lips, “We should drink our tea before it gets cold.”

“I hate chamomile tea,” he confessed.

She drew away and stared at him. “You lied?”

“Fibbed a little. But only to get my foot in the door.”

She punched him lightly on the chest. “Don’t do that again.”

“You have my word.” He grabbed her fist and kissed her knuckles one by one, lavishing his tongue over the flesh. A tiny moan escaped from her. He gazed at her in expectation. Her eyes dropped shut, her head dipping backward as an expression of rapture floated over her face.

The doorbell rang, startling them apart.

If this piques your interest, then the links for our books are on our Amazon Author Page 

C.D. Hersh–Two hearts creating everlasting love stories. Putting words and stories on paper is second nature to co-authors C.D. Hersh. They’ve written separately since they were teenagers and discovered their unique, collaborative abilities in the mid-90s. As high school sweethearts and husband and wife, Catherine and Donald believe in true love and happily ever after. 

They have a short Christmas story, Kissing Santa, in a Christmas anthology titled Sizzle in the Snow: Soul Mate Christmas Collection, with seven other authors. Plus, their paranormal series titled The Turning Stone Chronicles. 

They are looking forward to many years of co-authoring and book sales, and a lifetime of happily-ever-after endings on the page and in real life.

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