Romance tips!

i basically am trying to expand my writing ability and would like to work on a romance. What are some rules/obvious thing that need to be in a Romance novel.
(except for a romance of some kind. that's too obvious.)


Abel24.

Here's a rule. The romance should actually develop. "True love" and "love at first sight" are big cliches and rather lazy. Romances in real life don't just start in a day.

If there's going to be a love triangle, make both people just as likely to get the boy/girl.
Let's take Twilight as an example. Classic love triangle. Bella has to choose between Edward and Jacob. While both have good and bad qualities, Edward is just so perfect, and amazing compared to basic, average Jacob that the reader knows that Bella will choose Edward.
The two people in competition for the boy/girls love should be similar in terms of looks. Not like they both have to have blond hair and blue eyes, but if one is unhumanly attractive, then the other should be just as attractive. Because lets face it, if you had to choose between some unbelievably hot person and an average joe, the unbelievably hot will have the upper hand.
The two people going for they boy/girl should have the same amount of good and bad characteristics and should have an equal chance of winning over the boy/girl. The reader should genuinely not know who the boy/girl will choose.

Carlito wrote:If there's going to be a love triangle, make both people just as likely to get the boy/girl.
Let's take Twilight as an example. Classic love triangle. Bella has to choose between Edward and Jacob. While both have good and bad qualities, Edward is just so perfect, and amazing compared to basic, average Jacob that the reader knows that Bella will choose Edward.
The two people in competition for the boy/girls love should be similar in terms of looks. Not like they both have to have blond hair and blue eyes, but if one is unhumanly attractive, then the other should be just as attractive. Because lets face it, if you had to choose between some unbelievably hot person and an average joe, the unbelievably hot will have the upper hand.
The two people going for they boy/girl should have the same amount of good and bad characteristics and should have an equal chance of winning over the boy/girl. The reader should genuinely not know who the boy/girl will choose.

THIS. HARD.

Although, I've never written a love triangle. I plan to include a minor one though. It ends when one of the men involved (it's for the love of a woman) sets the other one up to be killed.

A love not based solely on looks, like it is in Twilight, will be a lifesaver, thanks very much. Hey, who's against this idea? Didn't Bella fall for Edward because he was, as them fangirls say, "INCREDIBLY SMEXY AND HAWT"?

Also, try not to go for a love triangle plot. Or a love at first sight plot, at that. Think of your own new ways to find love. Be spontaneous. Love is spontaneous. And I sound SOOO CHEESY!

Also, be witty about dialogue. Don't make the girl stammer for the guy or anything and make her sound brain dead or something... just... be witty. It's so hard to find tasteful romance novels nowadays, you know? ((sighs))

I do the teasing thing though, when it comes to romance. Both trying to tease the other and sees who can restrain themselves longer. The one who succumbs loses, of course... but I don't know WHAT that has to do with your question. XD

Well, anyway... hope that helped. Even a little bit.




Ta-ta~

PM me if you need anything else, mmkay?


~Kate

Branch from the cliches.
Love letters, foreign lovers, new kid moves in, deaths in the family, saved from a tragic accident. All of these things gross me out. When you are writing a romance novel, it is alright to include these things, but certainly not alright to base an entire story off of them. You need to find your own spice.
What I find to be the most romantic thing is displayed in the movie "The Breakfast Club." I love it when two highly unlikely characters come together: a rich and a poor, a high class and a low class, a boss and a low-level worker. Something like that I think is very cute and very interesting.

The guy
I love it when the boy it the abnormal one. I love it when the boy can't talk to girls, when he is a nerd, the outcast, the weirdo. I think it is much more romantic because, lets face it, girls care much more about their image than boys do. (in most cases at least)

The girl
Make the boy cute, make the girl mean, popular, and someone who has to change and hide herself to get the boy.

(the boy and the girl traits can be switched, this is just the way I like better)

Setting
I love romantic settings. Lets say a woman goes away to Hawaii for her friends wedding and she meets the boy of her dreams. Sure, it's cliche, but it's more magical than someone falling in love in New York City. Make sure you know the place your story's in so you can mention specific places. You can't have a love story based in a park the entire time. Make sure to think ahead. What year? What place? Weather? People? Ages? You need to plan ahead because with love stories, everything in the beginning of the story should affect the rest of it.

The plot
You need something to makes your story different. Like in the movie "Untamed Heart," the boy dies because he has a failed heart. Something like that is cliche, but it is in a way different than just two people falling in love. Make it your own. Take things from you life and make it a story. When you are walking the streets, look at couples and how they act, imagine how they got that way.
Have you ever seen a boy/girl across the crowded hallway and thought about all the things that could happen if you just went and talked to him/her?

You should take things from every day life and incorporate them to your story, because, though people want to read a beautiful and cute love story, it still needs to be realistic.

Hope I helped! If you have any other questions, PM me.

Classy

How about a love pentagon. I say that and not a square because I've already got dibs on that. Hands off

You might find it helpful to read this article about pitfalls in romances. It's specifically about romantic comedy films, but I'd apply it to any romance. The article identifies three key elements of a romance:

1. real conflict between the lovers;
2. gifts - each person must be missing something that only the other person can give to them - they should complete each other;
3. choice - the lovers have to actively choose each other by rejecting the more appropriate, safe, boring choice.

Hippie wrote:How about a love pentagon. I say that and not a square because I've already got dibs on that. Hands off

why not upgrade that to a love dodecahedron? If we have anything worth doing, it's worth doing right hahaha...

Besides, I've been in a situation where at least fourteen dudes were after one girl on my campus. The competition was intense. I will say no more of what happened.

14 guys and 1 girl hey. A pentadecahedron. Might be hard to make a book with that many characters work, but you never know.