How to Write a Believable Romance Story

A lot of times they're pretentious, smarmy, generic, or all of the above. So how do you make a love story that's TRULY believable and doesn't make the viewer groan in disgust?

The absolutely crucial first step is to make the characters likeable or at least have a few attractive qualities (the audience may not like a character but still acknowledge that they have certain qualities that can draw others to them). This is especially crucial if a character has more than person interested in them.

Also, good chemistry. They shouldn't just be likeable on their own, but should fit well together. Scenes with them together in a room should be fun and/or compelling. A key thing in fictional relationships is to make the emotional investment feel earned - if their romance is important to the story, then we should spend time with them, become attached to them, and see what they see in each other before we can care about whether they get together/whether their relationship survives or not.

Basically, what the other two said.

Also, I personally feel that while romance as a subject is all well and good, you should not treat the story itself as a "Romance(TM)." Much like the huge discussion on how writing a "deep and meaningful story" is a Centipede's Dilemma where TRYING to make a story "deep and meaningful" will make you look like a paint-by-numbers Tolkien knock-off, consciously trying to write a romance novel will usually get you written off as another average/mediocre Harlequin writer who's good for nothing BUT romance.

I can't tell you how many of my characters have either 1) ended up together out of left field because their chemistry just meshed really well, or 2) refused to get together despite my best efforts and being "compatible" on paper. There's a reason I Just Write the Thing is a well-known trope among authors—while we create the story, it frequently ends up taking a life of its own and then all we can do is steer it along. That logically means that the characters stop being words on the screen and start acting like people. And that's a good thing, because it means we're doing our job and writing people instead of cardboard cutouts.

If you DON'T let a romance go in the direction it wants, you get a disaster like How I Met Your Mother.

I'm probably about to reiterate the above posts a few times, but...

The chemistry between the two is the key. They have to feel at ease with each other, relax when in another's presence, be capable of joking and having fun together. I'm not sure how popular it is, but I've encountered this scenario several times: A and B are our romantic leads, A being the POV. Whenever A is about to see B, they always feel uneasy, because A is fretting about their looks, worried about what's going to happen when B sees them, worried about B's opinion on them, teriffied that they'd say something that B won't like or appreciate. I always find it hard to stomach such a story. Two lovers meeting shouldn't feel like one is going for a job interview. B shouldn't terrify A. A should feel comfortable with B and vice versa.

The two should have something that would explain to us why the characters are so attracted to one another. It's not about looks, because you won't match all your readers' Pefect Other One types (not to mention that looks-only "love" is pretty shallow), but it's about personalities. For example, many romances have the Love Intrest who's "dark and brooding" type, and while those are often admired from a distance, I doubt they're much fun when in stable relationships. Likewise, a stalker or a possessive Love Intrest carries too many Unfortunate Implications. Ditto for the protagonist. The romantic leads should have qualities that would explain why anyone would like to be with them.

A short point connected to the above - don't try to force "great love", "made for each other" and "a perfect couple" rethoric down your readers' throats. Show, Don't Tell. Describe how the characters feel so that the readers will root for your characters' success rather than simply read a story-like tale.

One thing which may be just a personal preference of mine, but IMO, you should show how the two partners bring out the best out of each other. Your characters could start off as a Jerkass and an Ice Queen, but if they're meeting results in the former turning into Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Defrosting Ice Queen, it's so much sweeter and more heartwarming, and explains why the characters would want to stay with each other.

Last but not least - don't rush things. Infatuation is sudden, but love takes more time. The two leads throwing themselves at each other by their second meeting are not just unnatural, but also kinda creepy. Let things take their time.

I fully agree. If they are terrified of each other, it's not love - they're more likely to be codependent basket cases who're scared of being alone and will literally go out with anyone who says "yes".

I want to see that they enjoy each other's company, trust and respect each other, not treat each other like a prize to be won.

Personally, I don't set out to write a "romance" story, I write characters and their interactions. If they get together in the course of the story or form a lasting platonic friendship or part and never see each other again, then that's how it goes.

I won't actively stop characters from getting together if their interactions seem to be tending them towards it on the grounds that "this is an adventure not a romance, goddamnit" but I won't shoehorn in romance because "this needs sexing up".

How do you have a romance where the characters have enough 'chemistry' for their relationship to be believable, but also generate enough conflict for their romance story to be interesting?

I imagine the balance is rather difficult, and romances often end up on either end of the scale depending on the author's needs. Do you require a romance arc so that people keep watching your show/reading your story? Bring a Dogged Nice Guy to a Tsundere and make sure she keeps refusing until the very end. Okay, maybe that was a bad example since the author wasn't really trying to write a /good/ romance.

edited 6th Nov '15 2:04:11 AM by hellomoto

That is a False Dichotomy and common pitfall. You don't need for the romance to be the conflict itself if you already have something else be the conflict. A good example is Eureka Seven, while most of the story has the main conflict be the Unresolved Sexual Tension between the two leads and the alien subplot as a secondary conflict, once the tension is resolved and the leads become an Official Couple, their relationship becomes the secondary conflict and the alien plot becomes the main conflict.

The point is, if you have an Official Couple, don't make the relationship itself be the conflict, make the conflict something else and see how the relationship is affected by it and adapts to it.

Real Life has plenty of hurdles to a couple getting - and staying - together. With a work of fiction, not even the sky is the limit - the hurdles (as pointed out above) can come from off-world.

You can only go so far with UST before one twigs that the other is into them after all and then they're going to act on that and resolve the UST.

But that needn't be the end of - or only - conflict. It needn't be the conflict at all. They could both want to be together and know full well what the other is wanting but be hindered by numerous things outside their control that they have to strive to overcome - which they do willingly, knowing that they're not chasing a pipe dream of a romance that might not happen. The romance is REAL and they'd be doing something about it if it weren't for those pesky parents, aliens, minions of the Dark Lord or whatever.

edited 6th Nov '15 4:23:04 PM by Wolf1066

... and how does one show that kind of conflict without devolving into "we sooooo wanna be together but our parents like totally dont want us together waaaaaaaah!" or "we could've been together but the Big Bad and all these aliens keeps us soooo busy waaaaaaaaaaaah!"

edited 7th Nov '15 12:39:15 AM by hellomoto

I'd say by not having the romantic leads do any wangsting. Make the conflicts real, palpable, and have the characters striving to overcome the hurdles rather than pressing the backs of their hands to their tortured brows and moaning "alas, alack, woe is me".

Less "My mum and dad won't let us be together, that's suckful" and more "You're not leaving this house, young lady!" —> five minutes of stolen time because she managed to sneak around the restriction but can't stay long. (Recast as necessary for alien Overlords).

Five minutes of being blissfully happy in each others' presence then being sad at having to part and trying to think of ways to bypass the hurdles permanently.

Give the characters agency. All of them, the romantic leads actively trying to get together come what may and the opposition actively trying to thwart them at every turn rather than just saying "no, you can't see that person."

Make the hurdles credible: The aliens spend so much time bombarding the place that people scarcely get time to sleep, let alone "neck"; the parents get abusive or use emotional blackmail or threaten to cut off financial support unless they are obeyed; the boss says "be on the next train to New York/San Francisco or you're fired"...

Wangst is always optional and can be avoided by not making the characters be whiney-arsed dicks of the "Banished! Banishment is but death misnamed" variety.

Everything Wolf said, but also you may be missing one of the points I was trying to make before, that not only can the conflict be generated by something other than the relationship, but that it can exist without preventing the Official Couple from actually being a functioning couple. Think less "we could've been together but the Big Bad and all these aliens keeps us soooo busy" and more "we are fighting the Big Bad together as a couple and drawing closer together as we do so".

For instance, in the example I mentioned before (spoilers ahead), as soon as the two leads become an Official Couple, the male lead learns that the female lead is a Human Alien belonging to and was sent by a race of Starfish Alien to serve as a sort of ambassador to try to communicate with the humans to find a way to coexist. Meanwhile, the Big Bad wants to genocide the alien species. However, both of these conflicts don't really have a direct impact on their relationship until the very end, and their relationship ends up overcoming both of them.

edited 7th Nov '15 4:51:46 PM by shiro_okami

Another really important point to remember is that two characters ending up together doesn't have to be the end of their story. Ongoing relationships, where the characters have to overcome problems together and separately, can also be compelling. This shouldn't be as alien a concept as it seems - consider how many buddy shows/movies draw much of their appeal from a strong, ongoing central relationship.

Also there's this weird double standard. We don't think that the "best bros forever" friendship needs tension and fights and arguing. There are hurdles, but a lot of the story is just enjoying their friendship and the antics that result.

same with romance. Have the narrative enjoy them together.

That same double standard promotes the myth that we should choose our life partners by distinctly different criteria to that which we choose our friends and hold them to completely different standards.

A friend can have wildly different opinions to you and still be a friend but your life partner "must" agree on all matters and woe betide if (s)he doesn't. "No wife of mine is gonna vote Republican!"

We need more works in which the official couples have differences of opinion, enjoy different things and still get along immensely well enjoying what they have in common, overlooking the differences and facing life's hurdles together like "best buds".

I wonder how many Real Life relationships are buggered by people expecting the relationship to be like fairy stories and thinking it's "normal" for a difference in opinion/likes/interests to be a source of conflict in a relationship.

edited 16th Nov '15 6:41:10 PM by Wolf1066

On the other end of things you also get people who will accept stuff from a romantic partner that they'd never accept from one of their friends.

Let's say an author wants to write a story explicitly surrounding the romantic hurdles of a romantic relationship.

How is this done without going into cheesiness and melodrama?

edited 17th Nov '15 6:53:46 AM by hellomoto

True. People are pretty screwed up, really.

hellomoto: It helps to have been in a relationship. It gives you some context and grounding.

Now that's what I call research

Is it one of those "it's hard to explain in words" things?

It's more of the fact that you can capture a certain amount of nuance when you've been in a relationship. One of the major suppliers of nuance is that you realize your own personal biases, which is something few others can really tell you.

Also in general I notice that when people go from single to having their first relationship, they tend to shift a bit in terms of priorities, because our media romanticizes a lot of stuff, getting a (stable/healthy) relationship sort of provides an element of realism that strips away the "what is this mythical beast of a romance"

Another reason is the fact that it sorta works like animals. People with pets tend to have an incredible amount of knowledge on their pet and their subtleties, and will often write about animals way better. If you asked "how do I characterize a believable cat" while there could be lists and general advice involved, part of the advice would be "spend some time with a cat and watch what shit they get into."

In the same way, if you have not been in a relationship, observing the fights and issues other people have in their relationships can help, but it's kind of hard to do, since most of that stuff is private, which is why being in one tends to be better than just observing and studying. A lot of stuff goes on behind closed doors.

edited 17th Nov '15 8:42:25 AM by MrAHR