HOW TO WRITE ROMANCE💕crafting unique & compelling relationships

hey guys it's Jaylen and I'm here today with another writing video so today I'm super excited about the topic because we're going to be talking about how to write romance because you know what day it is the Friday after Valentine's Day maybe on Valentine's Day you were busy celebrating love whereas today you have time to watch writing craft videos a video I've been really wanting to make recently because I've been writing a lot more Romance in my work over my past few projects it used to be something that I didn't really touch in my writing at all and then it just became something that I started writing more and including more and I'm currently gearing up to write a fantasy romance So today we're going to talking about writing romance I do want to make a little distinction here in this video I really am talking about how to write romantic relationships not how to write romance as a genre romance as a genre is kind of its own Beast it kind of has its own genre conventions that can be quite specific my experience writing romance is usually in the context of other genres so in the context of like fantasy um or actually mostly in the context of literary fiction so I'm really talking about how to write romantic relationships obviously this can apply to romance as a genre but I'm not going to be talking about the conventions of romance as a genre there are a lot of different ways that you can include romantic relationships in your work it can be in a romance book it could be just a love story in another type of book it could be to just explore this type of relationship but it's not really a romance or Love Story art so that leads to the first point which is there needs to be something that makes this Dynamic compelling there needs to be something Beyond just these two people meet and they fall in love a love story on its own isn't inherently interesting just because now love is in the mix I think it can be easy to kind of put love as like a pedestal emotion and Human Experience and think that therefore it's inherently compelling in a narrative but that's not true in fact love is probably the most commonly written about emotion or Human Experience you know there's a reason we keep coming back to it over and over but it also means that you do have to put some thought into the dynamic that you're creating in order to make it compelling because just having two characters who fall in love with each other isn't enough really there has to be something beyond that you know when I think about my own Love Story in real life I think about me and my girlfriend I love our love story it's perfect I wouldn't change a single thing about it you couldn't write a book about it because there's no story there's no narrative there's nothing that makes it narratively compelling it's compelling to me in real life cuz it's my life and I'm happy a kind of conflict free drama free story where two mature independent people meet and fall in love and it's kind of just simple like that that's not really that's not a story that's not to knock my own love story because I'm personally very happy that we didn't have the things that would make it a compelling narrative because that would mean conflict falling in love isn't inherently a story just because these two people fall in love think carefully about why these people why this story why is this a love story that's worth telling because what makes a good Love Story in real life is not the same as what makes a good love story in fiction this is one reason why when I'm actually writing romance like not just writing about romantic relationships as like a form of character study but writing like a romance I actually prefer to do it in a fantasy context and I think this is one reason why Romany has become so popular because I think a lot of people are drawn to this which is the fact that you can kind of tinker and play with the Dynamics create conflict and tension points within this romance that you couldn't have in real life I don't think I was clear enough about this of how to make a Dynam Dynamic compelling and how to make it a story you have to kind of look in two places for this there's the external situation and then there's the internal complexity and you really want there to be both you know it can be easy to just think about why the dynamic is compelling from an external perspective perspective like oh they're in this forbidden situation that's have has really high stakes and that's really interesting but what's the internal emotional component that's really important so you want there to be both you want there to be this external compelling situation that probably has like interesting Stakes but that equally needs to be paired with a reason why this is necessary for the larger story you don't want the romance to be included in the story just because I don't know romances are fun or even feel like it's a default thing because we see a romantic up plot in so many books it's so common you want it to be done intentionally and I feel like a necessary part of this story that could not be extricated from the story without the story being fundamentally like not working and the way to do that is really to make the romance a crucial part of how we are exploring and revealing this character um I think that that is really really important if we don't feel like the romance is a necessary Avenue for exploration of this character and that is a necessary angle of the larger story it falls really flat and it feels like it was just included as a default because romance is a common part of so many stories and you don't want that I don't think that romance should just inherently be included in every book you know because it's common I think it really should be included because there's purpose to it and if there's no purpose to it then it doesn't need to be there but if it's going to be there then it needs to be earned so this Builds on a point to which I've kind of already touched on I always do this I always scrip my points and then I start merging them but bear with me okay which is that you have to make the romance a story so how do you do that with conflict so I guess I should rename part two this point you need to have conflict so if we remember the three types of conflict that you can have in a story societal interpersonal and internal you can think about how all of these might come into play in your romance you should have probably at least two and you definitely want to have an internal conflict an example of a societal conflict in a romance would be something like if you're writing a queer romance in a you know setting where that's not permissible by Society a lot of the times societal conflicts are we would label as like forbidden love you know for whatever reason societally this relationship is not permitted I love queer forbidden romance but it's not forbidden because they're queer but for other reasons like this is how you lose the time War by Amal El morar and Max Gladstone I bet a bunch of you guys have read that book it's it's about two time agents on different sides of a Time war and so they're trying to destroy each other's timelines in order to win this time War but then they end up falling in love with each other and then there's also interpersonal conflict inter personal conflict is a very important part of the majority of stories this is the conflict that's happening between characters so there may be interpersonal conflict between your two characters or there could be other conflicts in a larger web of relationships say the setup is that the main character is having an affair with their best friend's fiance so there's a lot of interpersonal conflict here because there are a lot of close personal relationships at stake so the thing that's threatening the relationship here isn't societal it's relationship driven and then internal conflict is really really key because this is what's going to give your character a character Arc that moves alongside the Romantic Arc this is what the character must overcome within themselves in order to make this relationship work it's how do they have to grow if they're going to make this work with this person by having this internal conflict you're making the character arcs and the Romantic arcs intrinsically interlocked and Inseparable from each other but ideally you want some external conflict of you know societal or interpersonal conflict happening as well so the next Point since we're on the topic of conflict is to think of this push and pull between connection and conflict so what makes a fictional romance compelling is that there's some type of conflict whether that's societal internal interpersonal internal or some combination of the three that are keeping these characters apart so then it's very beautiful if the relationship works out in the end because we get to see the connection overcome the conflict then it can also be tragic on the flip side if the conflict is what inevitably overcomes these characters connection and you can kind of write it in a structure of alternating between these two things so you can have a moment of connection between the characters where they build a closer Bond or their you know their initial maybe negative impressions of each other or subverted or they get closer they you know have some kind of shared vulnerability and then you can have a test where they're put in some kind of conflict situation that tests this connection they've just built and sometimes they might pass that test and sometimes they might fail at it putting them a step backwards you'll get to the point where there's kind of an ultimate test where we see in the end if their connection will overcome the conflict or if the conflict is what's going to win in the end and we're going to have more of a tragic story which is very mean if you do that but you do you my next tip is to think about the main themes of your story and explore them through the relationship I think one way to add a lot of Doubt to a romance is to use it to explore the core themes of your story you don't want the romance to feel like it's tacked on you want it to be an integral part of the story and this is something I really thought about when I was writing a romance in a literary fiction book which aren't two genres that always go together and I think the keys to that we're making it integral with the character Arc and also making it integral with the themes however I think you can do this in any genre each character can have kind of a different relationship to this theme when these characters are brought together their relationship can allow both of them to grow in different ways regarding the same central theme or if it's a negative character art they might regress I have this in my book I'm currently editing the animal sense where the Romantic relationships are not positive it's not a love story these people just have messed up romantic connections with each other and so through their romantic connections we're exploring Central themes that relate to all the characters and yes more than two uh it's not polyme that would actually solve a lot of people's problems in this book it's just disastrous but they're kind of all regressing through how we're exploring these themes rather than growing that's also possible but you know if you're writing a romance then it's probably going to be a positive growth so in my novel holding a ghost which is essentially Love Story one of the central ideas is kind of like what version of yourself is real is it the version that's in your art is it how other people see you both of the main characters of this book have kind of different relationships to this theme they both bring that into the relationship and they can both kind of grow in their own separate ways regarding this Theme by being together building on that I think it can also help to identify any Central motifs or kind of vehicles that you'll use to explore the relationship I think that this can give the relationship a really unique feeling and make it feel really unique to the story and like something we haven't seen before if you have a really specific Motif that you can use to explore this relationship in holding a ghost both the characters are artists in different ways I mean characters a photographer and the the love interest is you know an artist the art becomes a recurring Motif in their relationship because they're both kind of using each other's art in order to understand that person's feelings for them that's like how the relationship is kind of shown in this book is through their art there's one thing I didn't talk about in the video that I felt I wanted to touch on which is actually crafting a compatible couple on the page and what does that look like because obviously if the characters don't have a compelling chemistry and compatibility then there's not a lot of interest in their actual Dynamic so how do you craft compatible characters compatibility between two fictional characters in a romance is very different from what compatibility looks like from two people in real life you know I don't think I've ever been reading a book and been thinking how is this going to work they don't have compatible Lifestyles or daily routines what I like to think of is how you're creating thematic compatibility and I think the best way to do that is to kind of create a sense of mutual growth so wear whatever flaws the protagonist is actively struggling within the book we can see those flaws be challenged and then see them starting to grow from from the balance that the love interest provides and vice versa so the love interest will equally be challenged with their own flaws and based on this sense of balance from the protagonist there will be a a sense of active growth for them as well if we can even see like this kind of sense of healing from both characters that can be really really powerful and it gives a lot of meaning to their interactions on the page because rather than their interactions just being you know conversations to show that they have chemistry that chemistry is actually a path for growth for both of the characters and I think that that is really the key to creating compatible characters is to think almost more spiritually or more thematically of how they're compatible in this kind of emotional thematic sense and how that's going to lead to growth for both characters my next tip is to be really really intentional with the physicality the specific details that you use to describe the love interest that's descri descriptions of their features how they move really anytime the love interest is in a scene being really really intentional with that because picking out these really subtle small very fine details it shows a level of attention and that shows a level of attraction the love interest is just doing the some mundane task it doesn't matter what it is say they're making a cup of tea but we're really really carefully attuned to exactly how they're ripping open the teabag and these really subtle nuances of how they move that shows that the main character is paying attention really closely that really shows especially if the details are appealing you know if they're offputting details then that doesn't really show a level of attraction but if they are even in subtle ways appealing details I think that that's just a better way of showing attraction than what can often happen which is when they're first introduced we just get a three paragraph long look how hot this person is description and it's like okay yeah they're pretty great but I think if your character is paying really close attention to really subtle details and what they look like and how they moveed that really shows attraction throughout the story and can you can also build a sense of Attraction if maybe there is an initial attraction between these characters but then there starts to be and we can show that through this increase in very sensory or appealing details that the character is noticing about the love it trust next up I think it's really important to think about the why in terms of why these people are falling in love with each other romance do really fall flat for me when there's no compelling and specific reason that I can identify for why these people fell in love other than they're both attractive so we're told and they're both there like it can be easy to use a character's physical appearance as a shortcut for an emotional connection like oh they're both super hot so of course they should be together okay I don't really care that's not really captivating my interest from both of these characters perspectives why this person why is this relationship so meaningful you know when your friend is like oh my God I started dating the best guy talking up her new man and then eventually it's time to meet him having a little get together your friend brings over her new boyfriend and you're like why though and you see them interact and you're like you guys seem to have no chemistry no shared interests no nothing why you don't want the romance in your book to feel like that where the whole time the reader is like literally why you don't want it to feel like these people are just in a relationship now because of proximity because the other person was there you want there to be some deeper emotional spiritual connection here that really sells that this is like an extremely important Powerful Love Story that is more important than just your friend bringing over some random man and you being like okay that was the most underwhelming introduction of my life so one way to do that one question that I often like to ask myself about any relationship I'm writing is what about themselves can these characters reveal to each other they've never revealed to anyone else or like what qualities do they see in each other that no one else has ever seen in them vulnerability is a really great way to build genuine connection between your characters especially if that vulnerability is a vehicle for them both to grow and if it's vulnerability that maybe they never been able to share with anyone else if it's something that's so deep down that sharing it actually has really high emotional Stakes for them to have moments of emotional vulnerability with each other really convinces the reader on the page that this is quite an important connection for these characters cuz it's actually quite an important moment in their lives you know these moments should be hard for the characters they should be moments where something has to be overcome but that's I think where the payoff comes from and it's what makes the relationship feel really earned and Powerful in the end another thing that I really like to ask I think this is a question that I've started asking of my characters in a lot of contexts not just when I'm writing romance but especially when writing romance is what is this character's relationship to being loved and there are some other tangent questions like you know what is their relationship to heartbreak if that's relevant to the story or to their life what's their relationship to sex if that's relevant to their life and to the story there can be some other related questions that can offshoot from that but at the core of it is what is this character's relationship to being loved and I think that that is something really really important to ask because ideally by the end their relationship to being loved has been challenged and has also changed your character's relationship to being loved may not be super healthy or positive or optimistic at the beginning you're going to show that being challenged on the page and show them changing and growing as a final like General closing off point just remember that we should be learning about both characters through this relationship both characters need to feel like fully Rich developed living people when you're writing a romantic relationship it is a character study of the relationship and also of both characters as individuals not just the protagonist we don't want a situation where just the protagonist grows and we just learn about the protagonist and the love interest is just there to facilitate that that can make your love interest feel like a device and not a real person what are we learning and revealing about both of these characters through the trajectory of their relationship this is something that you can do in any type of relationship any type of Rel relationship in your story whether it's familiar whether it's platonic whether it's romantic can be a vehicle to explore both characters through this relationship but I think with a romance especially if the romance is key to the story and it's core to the story and this is a really important relationship this is such an important thing to look at so that's all for this video that is everything that I wanted to say on writing romance I hope these tips were helpful for you in crafting compelling relationships in your work again I will leave my video on writing compelling character Rel relationships below because I think it's a really important pairing to this video and it has some more General tips that you can apply to any type of relationship pretty much all the points in that video are really important for writing romantic relationships as well so that's all for this video thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you in another video [Music] bye you know I think being really closely watching someone's hands I think that that's very shows that you're like attracted to them but maybe that's just because I'm gay I can't say that

Channel: ShaelinWrites

Views: 7,507

Keywords: writer, writing, author, novelist, creative writing, writetube, writetuber, writing advice, how to write a book, how to write a novel, writing vlog, creative writing degree, books, nanowrimo, authortube, writing tip

Id: 3Yd2E3Zk8FI

Length: 19min 39sec (1179 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024