Writing Romance: Some Tips and Considerations
- Jerrica Black
- 15 hours ago
- 10 min read
There are loads of writing tips and tricks out there that work for all genres, but I think it’s important to understand reader expectations of individual genres we want to write. And while, with minor tweaks, some of the following considerations can help you with other genres, we’re going to focus on some key story elements and genre conventions of romance.
I’ve been thinking about romance a lot lately from the Inktober prompts that led me to romance stories to reading romance for the first time to the obvious closeness of Valentine’s Day (which also happens to be very close to our anniversary and this was a big year,) and so I’ve been doing some research. Looking into what others say about romance and analyzing what I’ve been reading and what I have watched.
These are some of the key considerations I’ve come up with in terms of writing romance. Hopefully they’ll give you some food for thought. I know these romance writing tips have certainly helped my understanding for moving forward in writing my own romance stories! And hopefully it will help me on my way to a writing and a narrative Happily Ever After (HEA)!
Know the Tropes, Clichés, and Stereotypes (and when and how to subvert them.)
Knowing the tropes of romance will help you create a story readers are looking for while avoiding over-used (and unattractive) clichés and stereotypes. If it can be classified as a romance sub-genre or is something readers put in the search bar (like enemies to lovers, sports romance, forced proximity) you're probably looking at a trope and shouldn't mess with the formula too much, but if it's a character shorthand or common plot point (like nerdy girl becomes hot when she takes her glasses off) you likely have a lot of room to play around with expectations.
When we mess with a trope, we mess with emotional resonance. You can’t offer a significant power dynamic (like a Cinderella story) and then immediately reveal there isn’t one. You can’t show “stuck together” and then immediately have one character realize they can walk away. You shouldn’t explain how their love is forbidden and then immediately show us others that have defied it.
Now when I say “can’t” I don’t really mean “can’t,” but you can’t rely on those tropes anymore because you’ve changed them. If someone is expecting the familiar story of forbidden love and they don’t get it, they will be disappointed. Tropes are used as shorthand to your readers (and between readers.)
Clichés and stereotypes on the other hand, tend to come with less strings attached. Clichés are defined by their overuse and stereotypes sometimes come from problematic pasts (and also tend to be overused.) Both are generally smaller details, a type of character (the ugly best friend) or a minor plot point (getting stood up on a blind date) rather than the overarching conflict or relationship type like tropes.
It’s almost an expectation that you DO subvert clichés. We want gender swaps; we want well rounded characters; we want physical intimacy without silly thesaurus use. We’re going to talk about this idea more later, but we want to take clichés and make them personal to our characters. Sure, you can have a love triangle (though it’s not usually a triangle but that's a rant for another day) between a jock and a nerd, but what if you switched it up and used a STEM Nerd versus a Humanities Nerd? (Another reference for me and some very specific fans, just go with it.) It’s just different enough that it adds a little zest.
Stereotypes are best saved for side characters that you don’t plan on spending too much time fleshing out. The stereotype offers a shorthand to your readers and they can fill in the blanks. Using them for characters that are more integral to your story though? Boring. Straight up stereotypes for main characters leave them feeling flat; you have to make them unique. You can certainly start with one as a base but, you gotta do more. The other caution with stereotypes is to know where they come from and what they imply; some stereotypes come from origins in racism, sexism, queerphobia, fatphobia, etc.. And, we don’t want to bring that into our stories (unless it's purposeful commentary of course!)
Nail the Meeting and Nail the Dates.
We’ve all heard the term “Meet-Cute,” and we all have some sort of definition. But I want to share the one I came up with to kinda help along the idea of personal and specific details in your romances. The definition I've formed is this: A unique, serendipitous meeting that tells us something about the characters. I think most people focus on the “unique, serendipitous” part, or creating something steamy (and emotional resonance is important!) but I think, for writers, that second part I’ve added is key. Readers may not truly internalize it, but they will feel it.
A quick example, because I always lead by example (definitely always…): Your characters are at a coffee shop and bump into each other, she drops her books, he picks them up, their hands brush against each other… VS Your characters are at a games store, they bump into each other, he drops the cards he was looking at, she picks them up and notices its “Exploding Cats,” a game she’s been wanting to try.
This same “rule” applies to subsequent dates and outings. Coffee and a walk in the park is generic; lemonade, their favourite beverage, and a trip to their favourite landmark, the lake they used to camp at? Personal and specific.
These generic meetings and dates generally fall under the cliche umbrella, so give them a little extra something. Have them provide extra information about the characters. A little showing, rather than telling if you will. With our examples we learn something about the characters. With the meet-cute we learn they are both gamers with similar interests and the date shows something of a character's past and perhaps present (do they still enjoy camping?)
We want the most bang for our buck with every word and every scene, so give us something special. It doesn't have to be unique in the sense that nobody has ever seen it before, just specific to your story and your characters.
Why Love Must Happen Right Now (and Why it Can’t)
This is a bit of a tricky one. In most stories there is a reason the story must happen right now, but it’s a little odd to consider why love must happen right now. Many of these reasons are internal factors like feeling the clock ticking, feeling “ready” for love after heartbreak, loneliness growing, feeling like nothing else is going right but maybe love can fix it… Though there are certainly external pressures we can turn to like cultural or parental pressure, someone new entering their life, and environmental factors. Think about love needing to happen right now as a type of “right time,” even though we all know the “right time” for anything in real life is a myth!
It’s just as important to consider conflict and why this particular love can’t happen right now. This conflict can also be internal or external: a focus on career, forbidden love, physical distance, required character growth…
This tip is really to create the inciting incident and add tension and conflict to your story. The “has to happen right now” either is the inciting incident or very well lines up what it will be. If we look at the internal reason of a growing feeling of loneliness: this isn’t exactly a moment that incites a story, but thinking about that reason can help us come up with the thing that happens to spark the search or the meeting. The first thing that comes to my mind is the only other single friend of the group finds a partner. Now our main character is the only one unattached and is the consonant third, fifth, seventh wheel. They no longer have that one friend to commiserate with; they’ve lost their wing-man.
The tension and conflict come in when we consider what is stopping them from love. This can line up with one of our next tips, the clashing of a non-love related goal and/or a clashing between our main character and their love interest, but it can also be entirely related to love or internal to our main character. But if we set them up for love right now and they find and secure it with no conflict, is it really a story worth telling?
Goals Outside of the Romance
More. Conflict. You may get sick of the word, but it’s so important in storytelling! Goals outside of the romance, whether internal or external, add a more interesting layer of conflict to your story. Just how romance is a common subplot in other genres, romance benefits from a subplot too. This other goal can be in direct conflict, something throwing a wrench into the attainment of love and a HEA, or it can be more low-key and just offer some plot points outside of the romance of it all.
Consider other themes that may compliment love like familial and platonic relationships or ones that are generally viewed as sitting in opposition like career and fame. You don’t have to go so broad either, any sort of non-love related success works: travel, climbing a mountain, completing a passion project…
Basically this consideration is to make the story a little more complicated. In fact, this subplot conflict can even be something the characters are doing together! For example: A forced proximity romance where two small local theatre troupes come together to create a festival. Two of the participants are slowly falling for each other (the romance) but they’re also having to deal with the complications that arise as part of planning and executing the festival.
Alternatively, the outside conflict can put our characters in conflict. In a sports romance, two people have a meet-cute in a hotel lobby, they later find out they are there with opposing hockey teams. Where does their loyalty lie? Does it matter that they’re competing in sport but sneaking off together to get hot and steamy?
Love Interest with Commonalities and Clashes.
Two perfectly matched characters is boring just like a perfect character is boring. There has to be some sort of tension to overcome within the romance; it can’t be easy.
There’s something to be said for opposites attract, but that may be going too far in some cases. While there are some great tropes that lean into this like some forms of forbidden love, wrong side of the tracks and Cinderella stories, we don’t always need the clashes to be so drastic.
You can start simple and consider different hobbies or food preferences and what tension that may cause in a relationship. You can build up to something a little more integral to one's being with walks of life and daily habits. There are environmental obstacles like physical distance or power dynamics.
And on the other hand, we need something that brings the characters together too! If the couple doesn’t seem to match in any way, it will be hard to create a convincing story. Again, there is a huge spectrum here and even some tropes that often lean into few obvious similarities like arranged marriage and to some degree forced proximity or stuck together.
You can look at the same sorts of details, but I’d suggest having something deep be a commonality; value mismatches are hard to overcome (though that is a conflict option, so not entirely out of the question.) I think the easiest place to find similarities works well with the first meeting: some sort of interest or activity.
It is a balancing act that you have to play around with for your particular story, but having something that pushes your characters apart and something that draws them together is key.
Don’t Rush Physical Intimacy
This was one of the most interesting pieces I found through my travels, particularly because quite a few places mentioned the 12 levels of physical intimacy which originates from Desmond Morris in The Naked Ape (which is NOT about writing!) And I have some major thoughts on that from a real life perspective, but I think it’s still a great framework to consider for writing romance.
The key consideration here is to not rush things. Make the lead up to the ultimate physical intimacy just as exciting as the final act itself. Readers want to live vicariously through your characters; they want immersion; they want to be wooed just as your characters want to be wooed.
With all things there comes nuance. And different books have different timelines and different tones. It’s possible that the first horizontal encounter isn’t the ultimate physical encounter, perhaps your story focuses on exploring different bedroom vibes. And on the other hand, maybe your story never makes it to the bedroom; if you’re writing for a younger or simply “unspicy” audience, maybe the final physical intimacy is a kiss. In either story, that first eye meeting glance, the first words, the first hand brush, should all be just as emotionally resonant.
And maybe that's the more important piece of advice, make each level of intimacy emotionally meaningful. It’s not entirely about the timeline but not skipping those little electric moments of first encounter, first conversation and first touch.
You Must Have a Happily Ever After
This is the (a) difference between a romance and a love story. Your couple must end up happy: happily ever after or at the very least happy for now. You can write stories about romances that don’t work out, but don’t you dare call them romance!
This is a genre convention that deserves its own section simply because it is an unbreakable promise made between author and reader and is in every romance story. Or at least that’s what I've been told. I was told in school, I was told during my research, I've seen it plastered across social media: if it’s not a happy ending, then it’s not a romance book.
There can certainly be surprise in what that happy ending looks like. Maybe the love interest you thought you were meant to be rooting for isn’t the one that makes the main character happy. Maybe happy for now is cancelling the wedding because the desire to follow through was external, but the couple stays together. People that read romance want to be left with good feelings when they’re done. You may wreck them emotionally during the book, but tying up the loose ends and leaving them with a smile or some happy tears is non-negotiable.
So those are the seven considerations I think you should take when planning and writing your romance stories. It’s a romance focused look at conflict as well as a few important romance specific events and conventions.
Now go off and write your steamy stories! And let me know if this helps or if you have any questions. I’d love to discuss these ideas further!
Did I miss something that you think is integral to romance writing? Tell me about it!
Looking for someone to copy edit your romance when you’re done? Reach out!
Jerrica is a writer and editor who inspires up-and-coming writers to create compelling fiction and creative nonfiction works while providing them with the confidence to do it themselves or ask for a helping hand when they need it. She enjoys speculative fiction, horror and gut-wrenching emotion with a side of food & drink and the cozier things in life.
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