Writing Romance - How the heck...?

Hello YWS,

I'm having serious trouble writing a romance scene.

Spoiler

Ahahaha I bet you can guess.
SPOILER ALERT.

I literally can't do it without throwing up. I don't know what it is about romance, but I can handle it as long as certain, random triggers don't pop up. Some days it'll send me retching, some days I'll read without flinching. It's the same with writing it.

I have no idea where to start. I was imagining this:



But then my brain just:



I don't know how to get from normal conversation between the two of them to make-outage, as it were. Is there anything that can actually help me, because I know I'm hopeless.

I find my general lack of experience in such matters puts me at something of a disadvantage, but I tend to get around it by reading.

So my one piece of advice to you would be to read some romance novels. Teen romance, perhaps, or even Mills & Boon if you can read that without throwing up. It should give you some idea of the interactions between characters.

But if you don't like romance, you don't have to even put it in your story. Sometimes it's good to save it for the sequel, since you don't want your characters to fall in love too fast. Implied romance between the characters actually excites me more than canon romance. Why do you think us fangirls ship things so much? It's just not the same when it's canon!

Even aged 17, I often cringe and think, "I'll leave off writing romance until I'm older." Personally, I'd recommend cutting it out if you're uncomfortable with it, or else read up to try and work out how best to write a romance scene.

Best of luck!

Ew. Romance.

I would ask if you really need the romance scene, first.

If you do, I would then ask if it has to be explicitly "romantic".

And if that is also the case, I would then ask how you're defining "romantic".

There's a lot of different approaches to romance, and different people approach romance differently. A lot of juicy conflict arises when you have two people who are romantically attracted to each other even as they have completely different ideas on what it means to be romantic and how to show romantic attraction. What someone thinks will be romantic might be horribly un-romantic (and possibly even creepy or an outright violation of their personal boundaries, like that kiss in that first gif would be for me) and backfire spectacularly. Other romantically-intended acts may go completely unnoticed. And yet other acts may be perceived as being incredibly romantic even if their motivation was mundane.

Ultimately, it comes down to knowing your characters and how they approach romance. Or don't approach it. Or run away screaming from it.

Thanks to you all!

This isn't going to be romantic romantic - I doubt I could write that. I'll go pick up some books and look around the net. I'm getting ideas already!

Thanks again!

What Kyll said, basically.

Romance often feels like this very narrow idea of roses and chocolate and mush, when in reality romance takes on an incredibly broad view. Just like everything about characters, you have to build it into who they are and what they like.

It should come from the rest of the characters' personality, and when romance feels out of character— it probably is. Figure out what's within character and work from there.

I'll try and do what I do sometimes when I lose the plot a little - let the characters decide what happens. I should be doing that anyway, to be honest...

Thanks for all the feedback!

Romance <3

I liked this thread for your appropriate gif-usage.

Okay, I'm a big romantic. I love all of it. BUT there are things and clichés and tropes I hate in romance. Like in YA novels where they've known each other a week and they're just soooooo in looooooove. I mean, gross. Unsanitary, even.

My favourite trope is two friends falling for each other. But I'm currently writing a romance between a nineteen year old boy and a two hundred year old... giant spider.

Romance. Not always what you think it's going to be.

When it comes to the scene at hand, I'd look at your characters, their own opinions of romance and their own opinions of each other. Like if it's meant to be one of those relationships where they act-like-they-hate-each-other-but-they-secretly-love each other -- make sure they ACTUALLY secretly love each other. Otherwise you're smushing together their faces (I just assume they're kissing. Apologies for this assumption. I just LOVE kiss scenes. I make my friends write them for me all the time.)

Other than that - romance is meant to be part of your story. It either lifts the mood - look how happy and in love they are - or just makes the emotions run stronger - look how much they care for each other what will I do if they're torn apart? So as well as fitting with your characters, I would make sure it fits with your story. In terms of plot, in terms of tone. Like all story elements, it only works if it's natural. So let it flow.

You'll get the hang of it

-Stella x