With Valentines Day around the corner, it’s a good time to consider how romance in storytelling is written. Romance in stories is both quite simple but also very difficult to write. The simple aspect is the notion that it’s usually two characters falling in love with one another. The complicated part is making that romance feel believable to the reader. It’s quite challenging as everyone’s opinion on romance and romantic pairings can have quite a lot of variations to it, especially in this day and age when several different forms of love are being explored. Despite the complexity that comes with writing romance, there are a couple factors to always consider when planning out a romantic subplot within a story.
[That being said, I do not and cannot condone depictions of unhealthy and abusive relationships being portrayed in a positive light. In my opinion, especially in this day and age, it is irresponsible for writers to romanticize any dangerous, abusive, and/or violent relationships as perfectly fine. It sounds ridiculous to say, but it has been done before.]
As with most concepts in writing, one of the easiest and usually best ways to make something believable is to have it take time to come to fruition. Most stories that successfully create believable romantic relationships usually have the characters slowly build up to that connection organically through the story. A lot of that, almost all of it really, is dependent on how the characters develop through the story as the plot progresses. As you can probably guess, with it being so closely connected to character development, it is a very critical aspect of the story to think about when planning out plot points in the story. Something to always consider is how does this affect character A and character B and especially how that affects the way they feel about each other. Does it bring them closer together? Does it make one view the other in a new light? Do they now hate each other now? It’s a critical thing to consider when planning out a romance as having several of these moments help the reader feel like its believable. My favorite example of this is Yumeko and Tatsumi from The Shadow of the Fox series by Julie Kagawa. It was pretty clear from the start that the two would get together but it was because of all the moments they shared together that helped make it so believable.
While time to establish the relationship is vitally important to make it believable, there is another challenging factor that a lot of writers can struggle with. The chemistry that characters have with one another is fundamental to making their relationship feel believable. How do they know each other? How do they interact with one another? How do they show affection? Do they have the same values and beliefs? Do they compromise to find common ground? A lot of what makes a romantic relationship feel believable is how the characters can bounce off one another in a way that shows, while they might not always agree, they do care about each other at a very core level. Yumi and Nikaro (I smiled as I read that name at first) from Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson make for one of my favorite examples of a couple with great chemistry. As the two work together to solve the mystery of what binds them together, they slowly come to know each other and help solve the problems they face. Sanderson does a fantastic job showing the evolution of how they interact as they slowly come to understand what the other’s life is like and it helps the reader believe that they would make a great couple by the end of the story when it’s clear they really care about each other.
One of the core aspects of making a compelling relationship is to make the characters involved be fleshed out and interesting characters on their own. There are many stories where the love interest is a very bland and more like a trophy for the protagonist to win at the end of the story. Modern stories often don’t go down this route anymore as it’s honestly quite boring and makes the relationship feel more like an afterthought. Often it’s more satisfying to see the two characters grow and develop throughout the story and slowly fall in love with each other. It’s often difficult to pull off as typically most of the character development falls on the shoulders of the protagonist who is also typically the main character so the love interest often ends up being a very important character as well, though often not out shining the main character. A great example would be Caitlyn and Vi from the Arcane series, particularly in season 1. While both Caitlyn and Vi go on their own journeys throughout the story, their relationship developing felt like a core part of their development without overshadowing what each of them were going through. The way they complement and contrast one another as the story progressed helps the audience believe their relationship as they’re each their own character on their own journeys but together (for most of the story at least).
There are many ways to approach writing romance subplots and several types of romance dynamics to explore that trying to boil it down to a simple formula doesn’t quite capture the complexity that can come with it. Each character goes through their own changes throughout the story and with each story being unique in its own way, it makes the relationships also face their own unique challenges. But making the romance feel believable and earned will make the story feel so much more impactful for the reader.
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 