For example, your list for your protagonist may include stubborn, intelligent but not street-smart, slow to trust but incredibly loyal once trust is earned, overcoming a rough past, and outspoken. Use these traits to inform this character’s dialogue and actions in the scenes you write. Think about traits that help the development of your story, not just your romance. Your protagonist may be a strong woman overcoming emotional scars, but don’t make her that just so her match can break down her walls. Use her emotional past to develop a holistic character. [1] X Research source Think about Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Their love story has been chronicled in literature and film. In the most lasting depictions, Cleopatra is a strong leader with political ambitions that extend beyond her love. The love story is engaging, but so is the character.
For example, your characters may both be neurosurgeons at the top of their game, but 1 of the characters might be extremely high-strung and serious while the other character is laid back and makes a joke out of everything. Marie and Pierre Curie, for example, had a shared interest in their scientific work. The politics of the time, though, meant that Marie had to push a lot harder to get recognition and support for her work. Their love story is remembered along with their science because of what they shared and what they had to fight for.
A character sketch should include the basics of each character’s physical description, their personality, information about their background and transformative life events, and some details about how you want your character to progress in your story. A character sketch is a guideline. You don’t need everything you sketch to be in your story. You’re also allowed to change your character if your original sketches don’t fit the progress of your story.
Think about everyday relationships. What you are and are not willing to accept in a partner likely different from your friends or neighbors. Write the partner that works for your protagonist, not for all your readers. Write a partner that is right for your protagonist, but not so right that your conflict seems forced. Consider real-life relationships. People in love often disagree, butt heads, and question their relationship. Your lovers should be a good match, not a perfect match.
The too-tough-to-handle protagonist who only opens up when a foe makes them need a hero’s rescue. The evil-other-woman (like former lover or ex-spouse) that tries to ruin the protagonist’s chance of finding true love. The too-busy-to-notice protagonist that doesn’t realize when the love of their life enters the picture. The I-never-believed-in-love-until-you paramour that was hardened to love until the protagonist entered their life.
Framing a love story as part of a larger story can create a more realistic, relatable feeling to your writing. Focusing primarily on romance can be sweeping, epic, and more escapist. Neither is inherently better or worse, they’re just different styles. For example, Love in the Time of Cholera is driven by its love story, but it also deals with themes of social strife, warfare, disease, aging, and death. It’s also defined not just by its love story but by its magical realism, making it part of a strong Latino literary tradition.
To get an idea of how love stories are framed across genres, read books and short stories from the genres in which you’re interested. Noir, sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, and comedic writing are some good genres to explore. Pay attention to how different authors in these genres develop different conventions of a love story.
You can change this as you progress with your story if find that a different ending fits how your plot and characters develop. This should be a guide, but it doesn’t need to be a rule.
There is no right or wrong answer to this, but it is important to consider the message you’re putting out. Love stories commonly deal with topics like social inequity, body image, gender equality, sexual orientation, class difference, and ethnic identity.
Outlines can be minimal or more fleshed out. Play around with the amount of detail to see what works best for you as you’re writing. Outlines, like character sketches, are guides rather than rulebooks. Your story is allowed to progress outside of what you’ve outlined if that feels natural for your plot and characters.
You don’t want to introduce your lovers too soon, you don’t want them to fall in love too soon, and you don’t want them to be too happy together too soon. Love stories should explore a full range of emotion. Put obstacles in place that make your lovers happy, angry, sad, conflicted, jealous, etc.
Think about a book like Pride and Prejudice as an example. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are brought together and separated multiple times. During each encounter, their feelings change and they think of one another a little more.
An example of a common, overused misunderstanding is one lover getting upset when they walk in on a former love interest kissing their new lover. It’s dramatic and irrational to have your protagonist fume over an action their paramour couldn’t control. Instead, think of an obstacle like a partner getting a job on a different continent, or one partner really wanting kids and the other not wanting them at all. These are commonly used, too, but they create a sense of real emotional conflict.
For example, “He missed his love like the shore misses the gentle lap of the sea foam as the tides go out,” is a romantic-sounding simile, but it doesn’t offer clarity. “A sharp pain overcame his chest as his lover faded into the sunset,” is familiar to your reader, since most people understand some level of chest pain. In this case, the latter is more relatable. When in doubt, ask yourself, “Will this help my readers better understand what’s going on?”
For example, “When Jessie left, Jordan was filled with a sense of despair and dread that overcame her so completely she never went anywhere or did anything again,” is an unsatisfying ending. Instead, make it bittersweet. When Jessie leaves, Jordan can absolutely be hurt and afraid. But she should also look out with nervous optimism about the new opportunity in front of her.
Don’t use flowery language just for the sake of it. Unless your adjectives and adverbs directly help your reader understand what’s going on, or the emotion and intention behind an action, cut them. Don’t use words without understanding their connotation. If you have a naturally fair-skinned and generally healthy character, for example, you wouldn’t call them “pallid. " While pallid does mean pale, it’s most often used as a medical term in association with illness and poor health. Instead, “fair,” “ivory,” or “porcelain,” would all work.
