The Ultimate Guide to Writing SLOW-BURN Romance 😍

we're sisters best friends and authors on a mission to help you stoke your creative fire and live the life of your dreams we believe that purpose fuels passion and that creativity is your secret weapon for Mass construction there's never been a better time to bless the world with your dream realized you're listening to the Kate and Abby show what's up guys welcome back to another episode of the Kate and Abby show today we are tackling a big topic something that has been highly requested um and it is romance Slow Burn romance specifically writing better slow burn so Slow Burn romance is something that Kate and I are both huge fans of um and a lot of you guys love as well and there's a reason why we love Slow Burn because it feels realistic when it's done well it can be so immersive because we feel like we are on a journey with these two characters as they overcome their own struggles and their own obstacles and their internal Journeys and also in the Journey of meeting each other falling in love with each other having different relationship conflicts and it can feel so realistic when it's done right so we are going to tackle this topic today in our write better Series right better Slow Burn romance and we're gonna dig into like the most important things to remember when you're writing Slow Burn and some of the common pitfalls and mistakes to avoid when writing Slow Burn just things that can frustrate your readers and make them lose interest in the story um or make your pacing feel like it just slows down way too much so ways to avoid that we're going to go into that and then we're gonna um also give you guys some really good prompts some questions to ask yourself at the beginning of your writing process and at the end of your writing process to really um dig into those deeper layers of conflict with your Slow Burn romance and with your characters so yeah super excited to get into this topic we have a few story examples as well to um kind of dig into to discuss um with this topic so yeah looking forward to getting into that but first before we get started um we have to thank our sponsors who are you guys you are the sponsors of the Kate and Abby show and we couldn't do without you and you are the reason why our podcast is never interrupted by ads or sponsorships and we so appreciate your support so if you get value out of this podcast and you want to keep it Interruption free go to patreon.com the Kate and Abby show we also do exclusive monthly hangout live streams on the patreon in the patreon community and that's something that you don't want to miss so check that out patreon.com the Kate and Abby show okay let's get into it so there's a lot of different aspects to tackle with um Slow Burn romance and I think we should probably start with the first set of prompts or questions to ask yourself um at the beginning of your story because this is something that will really help you to identify the different layers of conflicts for your specific story and once you have the answers to these questions it will be easier to conceptualize the ideas that we're going to share on the other points so I'm going to quickly go over the first set of questions to ask yourself at the beginning of your romance story what is the internal conflict both my characters are personally struggling with what kind of relationship do they have with each other at the start of the story and why how long have they known each other how did they meet how much does character a know of character B's internal conflict how much does character B know of character A's internal conflict are they keeping any secrets from each other and if yes why so these are some good prompts just to go over and if you don't have answers for all of them right away that's okay some of them will come up throughout the course of the story like maybe how do they meet maybe they haven't met yet maybe they're going to meet in the course of your story um so that might come later but figuring out these two characters as individuals developing them as individuals first is going to be very helpful when it comes to bringing them on the Romantic Journey because really all well-written romances especially Slow Burn romances are about individuals you know it's not just about the characters as a pair it's about them overcoming individual struggles and their own stories yeah and how they intersect yeah exactly and and how the chemistry of them coming together creates new conflicts right right and and helps them to overcome their existing conflicts and I think that's one of the things that can make it feel so much more richer from a relationship standpoint is when these individuals have their own goals they have their their own stories their own personalities as individuals outside of who they are as a couple or potential relationship and that makes their story and character so much more richer for when those paths are going to cross it's not like the romance is the whole story and there's really nothing else I think that's one of the things that can cause it to feel kind of flat is when you don't have those individual stories because just like in real life you have your own story so you want each of your characters to have just as much conflict going on yeah 100 and and if you're if you're finding like oh the only conflict I really have is the romance and what happens because of it then you probably need to take some more time to go deeper into these characters as individuals so that's those are all good questions to ask yourself to start this process um and and then as we go on this journey of the Slow Burn romance some important points to keep in mind and when Kate and I do these episodes of the the write better series we try to keep it pretty um to the point so that we're not overwhelming with like a bunch of information but like what are the most important things right so I feel like we've we've distilled this topic down to the most important things and one of the most important things I think with um Slow Burn is pacing getting your pacing right that's something that I've seen again again when like when Slow Burn isn't done well it's either too fast or way too slow and there's like a happy medium there's like a a golden there's a balance rule there yeah where you need to find like what is the perfect amount of progression um so that we don't feel like we are slowing to a stop right right because we need to have that emotional progression even if not a lot happens and when I say emotional progression it doesn't always have to be forward progression you know it can be sideways progression or backwards progression like we can take three steps forward and two steps back we can have moments where maybe the relationship progresses in a positive way and then a secret is revealed or some sort of situation goes awry and we have this new conflict spring up and that creates some new conflicts and turmoils in the relationship um and playing with those things will help to keep your pacing on track and not too slow because I feel like when when you don't explore those possibilities it's like okay well I have point a or they meet and then I have point B where they live happily ever after so I just have to like slowly make that happen but like extremely slowly because you know point B is on page 350 and point a is on page one so we just have to like stretch this way out like instead of thinking it like that thinking of it like that think of it as like it has a bunch of plot points like this progression of the romance has many different plot points along the way that kind of creates the structure in a way and it can work with different story structures like the three act structure if you follow that um or it can be all your own it can like literally just be coming up with a list of the emotional progression and what are the steps forward are there steps forward and then steps back are there moments of conflict both in the individuals lives and in the relationship right you know and how does that make the romance take different twists and turns because that's that's gonna that's gonna create a way better roller coaster ride of emotions than just a flat Arc of going from point A to point B right you know which I think both of our examples are really yeah they reference those Concepts really really well yeah so like what's what's the first example of the two that we talked about that goes that comes to mind the first example that comes to mind for me is Miss Scarlett in the Duke morning sir I'm a private detective working a case and will pay you handsomely to know the other way word will soon spread that my father has died if I didn't take this case someone else will Miss above the door won't be a sure way never to have any client which is a BBC Masterpiece drama the third season just finished airing recently so good you guys need to go watch it if you haven't yeah it's excellent and it's a great example of a slow burn that first ticks the box of each character having their own internal conflict really really clear goals for Eliza she has this dream of being a successful female detective in Victorian London and being able to hold her own and have a successful business even up against the men who have these big detective agencies being a detective is a job for a man and yet you do it every day William [Applause] my line of work not yours if I'm to make a name for myself I need as much experience of crime scenes as possible we see that she's really driven by her passion to be able to be an independent successful woman and and we're rooting for her and we're watching her struggles as she tries to juggle her personal life with her professional life and find a balance between the two a lady should always act like a lady on the subject of my fee it's gone up that's like me that is business with um the duke or William Wellington we see he's really trying to climb the ladder in the police detective agency he's working for he works in Scotland Yard we see the conflicts he deals with at work constantly having to try to keep everyone else in line dealing with the stresses of work up against what he would really like to be doing with his life and also trying to balance his own personal life as well and we see there's these deep-seated feelings that he has for lies and that Eliza has for him he will never allow you to work with him you've taken a shine to this woman have you not you can handle everyone handle you and it Roots really deeply into their backstory which is referenced in a really tasteful way through dialogue throughout the first season yeah mostly we see little tidbits of their conversation referencing how they knew each other growing up and Eliza's father was his mentor and so we see that there's like so much backstory there's so much history with these two characters but there's this Clash of personalities there's lots of salty banter there's lots of butting heads because they're both kind of going after the same career so they're in they're competing in a lot of ways we are in competition are we not no one of my cases well it would save myself time if we shared our resources seems to me we have a conflict of interest here so we see there's there's the little bit of like animosity that rears its head sometimes there's there's arguments there's heated debates there's Secrets they keep from one another but there's always some kind of emotional rollercoaster plot Point happening to progress their relationships slowly forward they also have plans and goals that they're each trying to achieve making it feel really realistic so we're watching The Duke's own respective story we're watching Eliza's own respective story we're watching them both go after their own respective goals but we're also seeing them sort of like crash into one another over and over again and what those intersecting moments look like for both of them yeah it's so well done and like you said it's there's progression like in each episode you feel like there's because they go through all these obstacles together and a lot of times they're working together and you see see the shift in even their attitude towards each other how it changes from episode to episode season to season and how watching them go through different struggles together brings them closer and in some ways brings them farther apart depends on what happens in that episode but there's always like some form of progression so that you feel like you end you end an episode feeling like you've you've gone to a new place with these characters and it also really utilizes what you were saying the concept of it doesn't have to always be forward progression it can be two steps forward three steps back yes especially in this last season season three we see the Duke get into a relationship for a period of time with one of Eliza's like enemies from her school days yes and we see you know okay how does his his relationship with this woman affect Eliza how does it create new tensions and new stresses it feels like you may have been avoiding me it's been busy even though it's kind of going in the opposite direction you want to see them get together but it's like no we're watching that like totally derail and how to how what happens if we throw that into the mix how does that change the relationship because all that chemistry and tension is still there yeah exactly and it keeps the pacing quick yeah you know it's like something's always changing something's shifting there there are new conflicts new um new little turmoils and disagreements and it it forces the characters to confront themselves in different ways yeah and face some of their own fears and their own conflicts internally and that's what we're talking about with emotional progression so if you feel like well I can't have it progressed too much because I want to save like the big love profession for the end like you can totally do that and still have progression I mean like I know as as viewers of and fans of Miss scarlet and the Duke were both like waiting waiting for them moments like that moment and all the fans like on YouTube the YouTube Community are like when is that moment going to finally happen but there there has been enough progression in moments that it doesn't feel dragged out it feels like oh the anticipation just keeps building and building and that's really what Slow Burn is when you think about it you're slowly burning up to you know actually igniting this fire right so you're building up to the crescendo you're building that anticipation it's not that you're just dragging the moment out you're actually building layers of anticipation is really what Slow Burn is referencing it's not just a drawn out romance it is a romance that you're slowly building the anticipation for that big moment where there's going to be you know whatever the love profession scene the characters finally get together yeah you're building the anticipation for that yeah so that's a really active plot it's not the absence of a romance it's like building this very intricate yeah structure for it to take place yeah exactly and I think the way that you build that anticipation something that I have noticed is that you have to give you have to give us a little something you know don't save it all for the end and also don't feel like you have to rush to give it to us before way before the end right like you can space these um it's kind of like a cookie Trail yeah like to that sort of the love profession moment but it's it's we're getting little rewards along the way you know for our patients and our dedication that's a good way to put it you know so it's like and you have those little moments um in Miss Carla and the Duke they're kind of few and far behind but but you uh you see them in all yeah like all the fan made videos like right always have like the Highlight moments of like the progression you know they maybe they touched hands maybe she almost told him something of how she really feels maybe he almost said something so it's always present you're keeping it present yeah you're keeping that thread sir coming to the surface so and it's a great way to put it it's you're rewarding your readers or your viewers for their patients yes and your drawing I'm just like I can make you wait forever you don't want to lose that that flavor and that thread you want to keep introducing it and reintroducing it and new interesting ways yeah exactly and you want to keep the Romantic tension strong because if you lose that thread then you and you have the characters drift too far apart for a time you can start to feel like was there even a romance I forgot yeah I've seen that happen is like ah it's it's it's a mistake but yeah giving you want to keep that thread yeah keeping the thread active through the story so that you you continue to be rewarded as the reader as the viewer but there's still something to be desired and I don't mean that like your writing leaves something to be desired I mean like you're literally the thing that we desire is is waiting still yet to come yes Beyond the Edge of the Horizon we're still anticipating it yeah because we're still excited because there's also the reverse of this which is it like happens so soon that it's like there's no longer any questions or Intrigue left yes and I've seen that done way too many times that it's like I was waiting for this to like slowly burn and boil up to this moment but it's like no we're just gonna like quickly pile it on there it is like next office it's almost like you could tell that the the writer was like eager to just get it out of their system right it's like so it it kind of it kills the momentum and it makes it makes it not as exciting or like intriguing of an experience yeah not as active of a viewing or reading experience it's kind of more passive because it's like we already have seen everything we feel like we've already seen everything like what else is there so you want to leave that big unknown and that um build up but you want to make sure that we're still getting little rewards along the way that keep us motivated to keep going right um and another example that we discussed before we started um is All Creatures Great and Small which is another incredibly well done BBC drama that Kate and I have talked about in the show before we did a whole episode on side here characters write better Side characters we use that as an example because there's such great Side characters in this show but the Slow Burn romance is exceptional in All Creatures very very well done it's probably one of my favorite Slow Burn romances of all time because it's so well paced like you never feel like this is rushing but you also never feel like oh come on when's something gonna happen you know and it's it starts the the story starts out with as far as the romance plot goes we have James who is the main protagonist of the show who is a young vet who has come to work for Siegfried his new employer in in Yorkshire the Yorkshire Countryside and so he comes to this cute quaint little town and it's kind of a lot of different Misadventures and interesting scenarios take place but he meets this young woman Helen who lives nearby I'm Helen headed James headed Mr Stefan is assistant another one um and they start to kind of form a friendship before romance because she's actually romantically involved with someone else can I see you sometime I'm sorry I shouldn't have it's not that it's just this is what you're hiding um and engaged to him right yeah at some point eventually that's the point she gets engaged to this other guy he was me today we're getting married but the wedding ends up not happening and I won't spoil the whole show in case you go watch it because you should definitely go watch it but all around lovable show yeah yeah to to spoil one thing James and Helen do end up together obviously but their romance is perfectly paced because like all throughout season one you know that Helen is supposed to be with this other guy but there's something between her and James that's like undeniable it's undeniable to them and the viewer and the viewer just can feel their chemistry so much and wants them to be together it's like a complete fool of yourself for me every single day last night with the first time in a long time that I felt like myself again and because there's this other sort of deviation or I guess um sort of like a a something keeping the characters apart for the first season it creates this really nice Slow Burn Pace that makes it not feel frustrating at all because you're like okay I can see where this is going you know there's this other scenario it's kind of a love triangle actually yeah but it's not too intense of a love triangle but we have this this Force that's keeping these two characters apart for like pretty much all of season one and then throughout season two we start to see you know more development more development and and then the pace gets a little bit quicker I've missed you missed you too but the pace really stays very um very much super even yeah very even throughout the the whole series in that each episode feels like you have a little bit of progression just enough to make you satisfied make you want to see more but never like we've slowed to a stop and now you know James and Helen aren't even interacting in this episode and we feel like nothing's changing there's always something changing whether it's some scenario that James gets involved in and it creates conflict between Helen and her fiance and you know like little little conflicts that create drama and create a better story you've been called out season's having trouble with their pups do I never come with you anything stand in your mind off can't drive home in this I'll hover back in time you have my word Ryan it's actually a great example too of using the main plot to actually create conflict within the relationship so there's like lots of because this is a show based around the stories of these vets veterinarians going in you know helping out animals a lot of they're they actually artfully use the different cases that he's experiencing with animals to like create drama within the romance in really unique ways that you wouldn't even anticipate so it it does such an excellent job of weaving that in pulling from the main plot and make infusing the romance with the main plot rather than feeling like a side plot It Feels So Central and beyond that also is still in keeping like we were saying with each of these characters has their own separate Journeys and it plays a huge part in the romance of James being a veterinarian and he lives at skeldell house and he has this whole life and career that he's building for himself and Helen lives with her family her father and her younger sister and she has all these responsibilities of helping to run the farm and she feels very responsible for taking care of her family and she doesn't even know what a life would look like outside of that so they have these really unique Journeys that they're both separately on and it helps to create conflict with okay what would these two look like as a couple how would they even navigate that with all these separate responsibilities they have and how would those things overlapping or clashing create conflict they do an excellent job the writers of that series of creating so much conflict from the individual Journeys yeah so true it's it's very well done definitely go check it out because we think that you would love it it's like it's such a cozy show too it is very good like I don't know who they don't like it it's very soothing it's like a cup of warm tea it's lovely but yeah perfect pacing for a slow burn romance and just very sweet wholesome romance too like very healthy romance um and it's cool to see how how the conflict of the romance creates new conflicts for the individual characters like you were saying and just in very simple ways it doesn't have to be anything huge or dramatic it can be something very simple every day seemingly ordinary and watching how these individual characters navigate that based on why it matters to them is really what makes us empathize with it whether you know whether we're following James and Helen as they navigate romantic relationships in the in all creatures great and small or watching Miss scarlet and the Duke as they run around solving crimes in the Streets of London and so like no matter the setting no matter the genre if it's more of a um like a laid back contemporary Vibe not a lot going on kind of ordinary life or it's more of a higher intensity mystery or a fantasy or fantasy like regardless of why is going anything yeah exactly like these same principles apply to everything so it's like you can apply these principles and these ideas to your characters no matter what genre you're writing and create a really solid structure and and timeline for your Slow Burn romance so to recap pacing is the number one thing to think about with Slow Burn romance try to find The Sweet Spot not too too slow not too fast Give Us rewards along the way even if they are small even if they are small moments of emotional progression the point is emotional progression keep the momentum going even if it is slow progression we will still hold on as long as we feel like there is progression and you can leave a lot to the ending or the big Crescendo climax but still keep in mind find Opportunities to give us a little taste of what's to come along the way so that we don't feel like these characters are drifting apart so I feel like there is there this is leading up to something we're building those layers of anticipation and another important thing to remember is to develop your characters as individuals and make sure that they are going on their own individual Journeys and balancing that with the romance and that the romance doesn't just take complete Center stages like this is the only conflict in the story your characters should have their own conflicts as individuals and that creates new conflicts because of the Romantic plot you have going on so finally to wrap up prompts that you should at questions that you should ask yourself at the end of your Slow Burn romance these will help you just to kind of come full circle from where we started and reflect upon what you have written or what you've outlined and see what you've accomplished here so first question how have both my characters changed and evolved as a result of their Journey or their relationships with each other how much has character a affected character B's internal conflict how much has character B affected character A's internal conflict are they still keeping any secrets from each other why or why not and what does the future look like for these two characters and hopefully those questions will springboard lots of new ideas for you and maybe even inspiration for books that you didn't realize you wanted to write maybe sequels or spin-offs or what the possibilities are endless no it's a fun bonus yeah so let your imagination run wild here and um really just take your time meditating on these questions and if all the answers don't come right away that's okay some of it evolves as you're writing the story you know it's something you have to discover and your characters will come to life in a new way as you're writing them so let that process happen trust the process trust the practice trust your characters they will take you great places but hopefully you took some notes hopefully you got a lot of value out of this episode if you want to see more podcasts about romance specifically writing romance all the different types and tropes comment below and let us know because Kate and I are always looking for highly requested video topics and we would love to talk more about the different romantic tropes and plot devices and how to write them better so looking forward to seeing your replies and also join the discussion tell us what you thought of this episode we hope you enjoyed it and if you haven't seen the video version of this podcast you can find that at Kate's YouTube channel which is youtube.com k-a-mns thank you guys so much for listening and thank you to our amazing patrons who make this show possible if you get value out of this podcast go to patreon.com the Kate and Abby show and help us keep this podcast alive and free of interruptions until next time stay stoked and rock on

Channel: K.A. Emmons

Views: 35,415

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Id: kK5_KuqIq90

Length: 31min 39sec (1899 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 28 2023