Sta.sh
The poster made me think about all the standard, somewhat cliche first encounters we see in Yaoi - yes, the tripping into someone, the getting drunk, the angry slap followed by kiss, the OMG, you kissed me now I'm going to rape you. Most of which involve the two heros in a compromising close proximity to each other and the "aha!" moment. Oh, how we love these scenes, wait in high anticipation of them and squee with joy when they finally happen, LOL.
I suppose these things happen in a good het romance as well. So we're following along on the same themes again as in het romances. I also suppose this begs the question -we're all really pretty much the same when it comes to love then, no matter the gender, right? And it's always the discovery that the one dude loves the other dude and low and behold, the other one loves him back. If he didn't, where would our love story be?
The build up to the love discovery is what's most important for our first encounter. If we've seen a fair amount of each character sighing over the other one, arguing, denying any attraction, then wow, that first kiss is a doozy
That's called building the tension. It's always hard as a writer to know when to let loose of the tension and have that first encounter. You don't want to do it too soon before there's a proper build up or that first kiss will hardly be noticed. On the other hand, I've read books where I'm more than half way through the book and the characters still haven't had their first kiss. That makes me wonder if the story arc is only going to be about their first kiss and I get frustrated. And what I really hate? A story line that has the first encounter half way into the book and then, wham, some force takes them apart for a good portion of the book. When I read a romance, I want to read about a romance, dang it. I know each person has their own opinion on this depending on what gets them going. What do you like? What frustrates you in a Yaoi or M/M Romance story line? 
Neutral 
Thanks and hope your holidays are going well!
