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So, I have decided, that for the sake of appealing to my audience, my current WIP should have romance. Also, because I would ship my couple anyways. Does anyone have any tips for writing romance? I’ve never had so much as a crush on anybody before, but I have read lots of romance books. Let me know if you want more details about my story.
Also, if anyone else had any questions about writing romance or anything, they could post it here.
@princessfoo Righty. Well, I don’t really read romance and I’m not an expert on it, but I have written it just a bit.
My point is based on a principle I’m going to call Daeus’ principle just to stroke my vanity. This principle states that if you know at a certain point in your story you can get a reaction out of your reader, do not have any of your characters react at that point or the reader will not react. For instance, if you think you can get your reader to gasp when the villain is revealed, do not have any of your characters gasp.
This applies to romance. People who read romance want to feel warm and fuzzy inside, so you need to deliver. This means that when you think you can get your reader to feel warm and fuzzy, you can’t have any of your characters feel warm and fuzzy.
But don’t completely abandon gushing emotions, because then…you wouldn’t have gushing emotions.
So there.
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@daeus That is a really interesting principle. How did you come about thinking of that?
Currently reading Les Miserables
My point is based on a principle I’m going to call Daeus’ principle just to stroke my vanity. This principle states that if you know at a certain point in your story you can get a reaction out of your reader, do not have any of your characters react at that point or the reader will not react. For instance, if you think you can get your reader to gasp when the villain is revealed, do not have any of your characters gasp.
@daeus This is the reverse psychology all over again….
@princessfoo My main thought about romance is that you don’t want it to be like most cliches in literature. There is no gushing in real-life. Make it real, please. Like the Princess Bride, that’s a good romance because it is realistic. The thing I don’t like about romances is that they are fake. They make them too emotional. People aren’t like that.That’s my three cents.
☀ ☀ ☀ ENFP ☀ ☀ ☀
@perfectfifths. Hmm. I just noticed one day that it was true because…I noticed it.
The thing I don’t like about romances is that they are fake. They make them too emotional. People aren’t like that.
They are so totally fake, but I don’t actually think people are any less emotional. They’re just less cheesy about it. …Except when they’re not less cheesy about it.
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@daeus Fair enough.
Currently reading Les Miserables
I’m writing a romance…I’m not sure if I’m following the rules, @daeus. But it’s going ok in my brain. So. YEAH.
#PANTSING!
ENTP, Aether-borg Hero with cape obsession and fascination with swords.
https://forums.theaetherli@PrincessFoo very solid advice so far. I’ve never written a full-on romance novel, but every story I’ve written has had at least one romantic subplot, so I’ve been doing this for a while. 😉
My one piece of advice kind of ties in to what @Daeus said, but takes a little different spin on it. The most intriguing, engaging thing about your characters’ relationship will be, not what brings them together, but what threatens to keep them apart. If you’re planning on using just the ‘adorableness’ of their love story to carry the relationship, you’re going to fall flat on your face.
It’s a basic rule of contrast. The reader appreciates more what he fears will be taken away from him.
So don’t just dwell on the ‘mushy stuff’. Mushier is not better. Mushy is fine in small doses, but if that’s all their relationship consists of, then it gets insipid really fast because there’s no conflict and no reason for us to worry whether they’ll make it or not.
Does that make sense?
@daeus Thanks. I can do that. So what would I have my characters do when I want my readers to gasp. Have them act surprised in another way? Or rolls with it? Or reveal that they secretly figured this out pages ago?
I actually think I have heard of “Daeus’s principle” before, in an Orson Scott Card book on writing. XD
@dragon-snapper The thing is, I have absolutely NO EXPERIENCE with romance in real life. Everything I know comes from books or movies. Are people really as clueless on whether the other person likes them in real life? What is flirting? I DON’T KNOW!!! Hence this thread. But I will try remembering that. No cheesy-ness. *Nods.* *Explosions.* *Glitter* *Melts chair*
@kate-flournoy Conflict. Right. I think I could do a lot of that, because they are from vastly different worlds. (Literally, he isn’t from earth. He’s an orc.) So I can have a lot of misunderstood gestures, and the fact that she will return to earth after the adventure.Thanks guys!
@princessfoo You heard of the name before or you’ve heard of the principle?
Well, you the goal is to keep your characters from reacting with the same emotion your reader will react with. So if your reader is probably going to laugh at a joke, none of your characters should react to the joke in any hysterical way. If your reader is going to feel gushy at some sentimental romantic point, the characters should feel calm, or shy, or up-beat, or something that is not gushy.
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@princessfoo Kapow! Wikipedia probably has a better answer than I do. At least I hope so. I didn’t actually read the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flirting
Btw, do you have The Emotion Thesaurus? If so, look up “love” in there.
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@daeus I heard of the principle. Thanks for the advice, I get it now.
I do have the Emotion Thesaurus, and it is the bestiest! I expect to be using it a lot.
I should probably clarify, I do know what flirting is. 😉 I just don’t know how to do it. Or to have a character do it. Everything instance where I have seen flirting, it’s so subtle I don’t recognize it, or so blatant that I would consider whoever was doing it a creep, and should be avoided. Unsocialized homeschooler here. ;P So I don’t know if/how my characters should do it.
Also, the porn-blocker on my computer is blocking the wikipedia page, so hopefully it wasn’t very helpful anyways.
reads through this thread and is glad it exists since my latest WIP is a romance…
redemption, forgiveness, and faithfulness.
~I don’t know what I’m doing~
@princessfoo Gotcha. 😉 I did think that sounded a little too isolated. 😛
The nice thing if you have access to your character’s head is that it will make it easier to write subtle stuff because you’ve got the character’s internal monologue to add to the equation.
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@princessfoo I’m kind of like you, in the fact that I wouldn’t know flirting when I saw it, let alone realise if someone was flirting with me. However, being a writer, I study people. When I watch my friends with their boyfriends, I tend to see them laugh a lot, more than other people who may be in the conversation, blush a lot, smile a lot, look down at their feet, stand very close to the person (closer than you would stand for a normal conversation, so they’re standing in that person’s personal space), maybe hold hands, or make physical contact, such as pressing themselves up against the other person (that is something I wouldn’t do at all, since i’m a very personal space kind of person for the most part, so if your characters are, say, one of them like touching and cuddling and the other doesn’t–I don’t imagine orcs would enjoy that sort of thing?–that could be something interesting for them to work out. I don’t know if that necessarily classes as “flirting”, but those things are all definitely signs of affection.
Anyway, that ended up really long, but I hope its helpful.
INFP Queen of the Kingdom commander of an army of origami cranes and a sabre from Babylon.
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