Writing Romance Arcs

hello everyone Alexa done here and today I am going to be talking about how to write a good romance arc this topic has been requested many many times and if you can't tell I kind of put it off what's funny is I wrote this outline four or five months ago and I just hadn't filmed it yet because I love romance I do technically write romances so my first two books are retellings but they're retellings of classic romances and I'd say they're definitely heavier on the romance and they are on anything else in terms of plot but I guess as much as I identify as a Rehman's writer it kind of scares me to give you concrete advice on how to write good romances but I'm going to do my best and so that's the thing this is just my thoughts and ideas on how to write a juicy romance arc don't think of it as too prescriptive but just hopefully helpful if you're struggling with romance or you want to try writing a romance hopefully this is going to help you out I essentially wrote down all of the beats of a good juicy romance that I think you need to have essentially a curve a story curve of romance beats slightly modified from the Blake Snyder beat sheet and as much as I map answer who technically doesn't outline I do actually tend to pre-plan my character arcs if you've watched my writing process videos you know this and romance arcs are an intrinsic part of character arcs for me so I actually do kind of plot out my romances before I start I did with brightly burning and I did with the Stars we steal again they were retellings of famous classic romances but I did have these romance beats and the arc of the romance in mind so the first thing that you want to do for your romance is to establish a baseline for the romance and the characters in that romance part of this is just like for your own edification like you need to decide what the baseline is for the romance where are these characters going to start is it going to be enemies to lovers is it going to be friends to lovers they're going to be two people meet and they're neither friends nor enemies two lovers though what is the middle ground there you have to have some kind of conflict zone in enemies two lovers it's obviously that they don't really like each other and they're going to fall in love and in a friends to Lover's it's usually some sort of unrequited emotion that forms the backbone of the character arc either your main character is going to be oblivious but the reader knows that the friend loves her or vice versa so once you decide what that baseline of your romance is you have to write a meet-cute it can be a literal meet-cute so the scene in which your characters meet for the first time and it's cute dagnabbit I mean just think of all of the scenes in your favorite rom-com so it's huh they run into each other on the street or the cute conversation in the coffee shop etc so on and so forth and of course in a hate to love the meet-cute doesn't literally have to be cute it can be meat hate it's whatever the first interaction that these two characters are going to have on the page it's the first beating moment and you want to bear in mind what your baseline is and where you want them to start and where you want to take them to remember that very very very often I hesitate to say always but will say most of the time that meet-cute moment is going to be referred back too many times in the course of the romance the reflection of oh the first time we met either oh I hated him or I never knew or whatever it is and again if you're doing friends to Lover's the baseline is that they know each other so the meet coot doesn't necessarily have to be the first time they've ever met but it is the first time you have them on the page for your readers it's the first time the reader is meeting both of these characters in a romantic context the next section is what I call continuation of the status quo you're going to need to further establish the baseline of the romantic relationship after the meet cute and this is usually going to be alongside your act one though sometimes it can be an act too depending on when they meet each other but you're going to need to have a few scenes where you're reinforcing their friends and this is the dynamic of their friendship or man they really butt heads and don't like each other it's a few scenes don't go overboard you can have a pacing problem when you really drag out this section you're not beating the reader over the head with it but giving them enough nuggets of that baseline so that they start to get that tingly feeling in their tummy so when you start to change things this is all about building romantic anticipation and playing on tropes that people love what's really important about this continuation of the baseline is that it'll help you avoid insta-love this is a huge problem that can end up in romance and when you jump from the meet-cute straight into all of the romantic tension and declarations and so on that is when it can feel like insta-love so continuing your baseline before the next step can help combat that and the next step is simply rising tension you have to start building the tension in the romance the reader should be able to see a shift there should be a scene in which there is a demonstrable shift in the romantic dynamic if it's friends to Lover's for example so let's say you have a main character who loves her best friend but he's oblivious it might be that teasing moment where the reader goes wait does he love her and then of course you're gonna want to do some reversals to toy with their emotions in hate to love it's gonna be that first moment of maybe there's an appreciation I think about Pride and Prejudice I'd say the first real moment of the rising tension is when Elizabeth walks in the rain to be with her sister Jane and there's a moment where you know they're taking the turn in the room with Caroline and like Darcy's kind of watching them and as the reader you know that this this is the starting to build the romantic tension section basically into this section which is going to be your fun and games section of act 2 basically so like it's that first part of act 2 where you're giving them the reader the montage of what they signed up for which is the rising tension the fun tug of tension in the romance in every interaction they have in every scene there should be a tiny tug of the romance aspect moments basically but at the same time and this doesn't make it makes it hard you also are looking for moments within those themed scenes where you have little tugs and like thoughtful gestures or like a little moments of connection one character thinking something about the other you're also gonna have plenty of moments of doubt in this exact same section it's having little things that plant seeds of weight well maybe not you can also plant misunderstandings in this section note don't go overboard with misunderstandings because some people really hate romantic plots that rely heavily on misunderstandings meaning it can be a very shallow and trite trope but I actually like misunderstandings when they're well done and a critical misunderstanding especially in this section can fuel your romance I mean pride prejudice is literally hate to love based on misunderstandings and perception basically this is the section where you are delicately balancing all the things the tugs toward the positive romance the seeds of doubt little moments of misunderstanding you also want to have good callbacks to that establishment of status close section the character thinking on the meet-cute trying to interpret behaviors it is a delicate balance but this is the promise of the premise this is the fun and games section from the beat sheet your reader once this section you're giving them lots of little delicious things to hang on to a my warning here again is not to drag too much because you need to get to the Romantic turning point this is more or less going to align with your midpoint turn usually your big twist in the middle and also don't forget this can go alongside a book that also has a big twisty midpoint turn but if you're also doing a romance arc alongside that you want to align it to similar points in the book so you essentially need a big clear obvious moment where the romance takes a turn in Pride and Prejudice this is the infamous letter in a friends to Lover's it could be one of them confessing their feelings or if you have a main character who's oblivious to the friend who's in love with her it's her having her moment realization but also to confuse you sometimes this doesn't include a moment of realization the romantic turning point should be obvious to the reader but doesn't always have to be obvious to the characters I'm someone who really likes unresolved sexual attention so really torturing the reader or being tortured as a reader through the romance arc so sometimes this is a big turning point in the romance and the main character doesn't necessarily have to realize that it's a turning point but you is the reader so for example and I hate to love it could be the other one who the main character assumes is a terrible person who hates them does something really really thoughtful and it starts to maybe change the main characters mind but us as the readers go oh my god he loves her she loves her she loves him whatever it is or he loves him as well or they love them and then next you have your main character actually acknowledging the turn in the romance you need to have some sort of change in feelings flash status quo but you want to make sure there's still plenty of doubt plenty of obstacles still to come because you don't want to make it too easy going back to Pride and Prejudice as my favorite example for this video when Elizabeth gets the letter from Darcy that is not her turning point in the romance it's the turning point in the romance for the readers obviously but her immediate reaction is anger her turning point is when they go on their trip and she sees his house and meets his sister I mean look it's not entirely about the fact that he has a really nice house and then you get to do more tension rising tension lots of shared looks moments you can do more misunderstandings it's fine to do tons of reversals you want to do a lot of romantic torture in this section because you are barreling toward your third act climax whatever that is in this section before your third act climax or as part of your third act climax I want you to do what I call the almost hand touch it doesn't literally have to be the almost hand touch but it's that moment and yes do you know that I got that from north and south because I got the South actually it's in the private purchased movie as well in the same section it is that moment where you almost of that big romantic moment the touching the almost kiss like the reader as a romance reader is like yes yes yes and then you pull back and you torture them and you ruin whatever that moment is do that that emotional moment is torturous for the readers but it's the torture that they've signed up for this is part of her followed by the big misunderstanding it can't possibly happen moment the doubt of all of these buildup of moments the-- no he couldn't possibly love me or know he's done something too terrible and I can't or I've done something too terrible and I can't or he's an just gotten engaged to someone else whatever that giant obstacle you're gonna throw in the way of your main romance pair this is where you're going to do it and this can be part of your third act climax so the thing is the beats aren't quite as cut and dried in a romance because it's gonna completely depend on it there's specific romance you're writing essentially beats I'm going over our emotional moments to hit and they can vary depending on the book after that almost romance moment you also want to do the misunderstanding it can't happen moment it's basically to bring your readers down this is going to be similar to the bad guys closing in beat but it's not the darknet assault what you're gonna get to do in a minute it's basically to calm everything down after having your romantic reversal like the aha moment and like an almost moment to calm things down a little so that you can punch them in the face next because next is the culmination of all the things it's a confession of love it is a kiss or an adult romance that can be sex I mean it can be sex in Hawaii as well you're just probably going to be fading to black meaning you want a culmination big moment because your romance is building up to that you're basically giving the reader what they want and then you're gonna punch them in the face okay so punching them in the face it needs to happen after this because that big moment where things finally happen isn't the end of your book essentially in some romances that almost but not quite and that misunderstanding can be the third at third a climax been in a Pure Romance arc your third at climax is basically when they actually get together in some way or form confession of love a kiss and or sex and then you have to take it all away at least temporarily this is when you shove your final massive obstacle in front of them so that the reader even though they know it has a happy ending you're basically tricking them even though they know they're being tricked you need to throw a legitimate conflict and obstacle in front of this couple this is usually the place where a really dark secret is revealed that stands in the way so let's say it's a bet romance this is when she finds out she was a bet this is when she finds out that he has a fiancee or this is when one party tells a lie to the other because they don't think they're good enough or there's something going on so you basically throw the massive huge obstacle in their way that is a gut punch after you've given them a snippet of happiness or true confession of feelings and then you get to have oxd I mean listen there's been on so the whole time if you've written a good romance there's plenty of angst throughout that's a lot of those moments of doubts and kind of those like little reversals all throughout but this is when you're really going to milk it welcome to the dark night of the soul this is when your character has lost everything and everything's terrible and awful and hope seems grim and then you'll fix it you'll do the last beat which is reconciliation you will fix all your problems and figure stuff out and you'll have your big final scene of actual romantic happiness more confessions more kissing etc so on and so forth and then you will complete it with the normal beats of a story you know I love a good day new mom after the big resolution and you're gonna have a great like final ending to it for your good happy ending so to compare to Pride and Prejudice again that kind of dark night of the soul things getting in the way moment was aunt Catherine to discourage Elizabeth which also kind of gave her hope but then she's like she assumes everything is lost and over and she is definitely upset about it and then Darcy comes to propose and it's beautiful and wonderful and perfect I love that book it's one of the most famous classic Hermits it's of all time for a reason so yeah think about the emotions you have when you read a good romance and think about some of the stuff I've talked about what that kind of Arc feels like I know I didn't go into supreme detail about a lot of this and that's because as I mentioned it's really hard to do so without digging into the specifics of very specific romance stories and arcs if you want me to I can do for their videos about specific romance tropes so friends to Lover's hate to love etc though I feel such pressure at the it mere idea of working on videos like that and yet I know it might be helpful to you because that's the thing every romance story is going to be slightly different depending on the tropes that you're using the archetypes etc but these are basic big emotional beats that you're going to want to hit for your readers because romances good romances are about reading experiences for the readers you're creating an emotional art it's the all the feelings that you feel the pit of your stomach when you're reading a good romance that's what you have to figure out how to do it's way easier said than done I'm not convinced I've helped at all this is one of my like more like rambley one so I'm like I kind of know how to do a thing and I'm trying to articulate it for you and I really hope I hope I did okay I hope it helped let me know down below in the comments do you have questions do you have like your own like favorite moments in a romance things you always love to read or a short to always include in your own writing let's talk about writing great romance down below in the comments give this video a thumbs up if you liked it I will make more really long ramsley videos about how to write things where I hope I help you and don't sound like a complete idiot if you're not already subscribe to the channel go ahead and do that I post videos two to three times a week thank you so much for watching and as always guys happy writing

Channel: Alexa Donne

Views: 50,197

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Keywords: alexa donne, author tube, writing advice, how to write a book, publishing advice, romance writing, writing romance, how to write romance, romance arcs, romance writer advice, romance writer, romance writing tips

Id: fKwrGXkr95U

Length: 17min 38sec (1058 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 19 2019