THIS IS ONLY FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO WRITE ABOUT ROMANCE IN YOUR FIC.

So! You've made your OC and now you want to pair them up with someone. That's great. I'll leave you to pick the love interest (don't ask me for any advise on this part, it literally took me a whole year to decide on who to pair my OC with, I'm so sorry to my readers  😭).

But you're having trouble writing their love story?

I can help you with that (maybe)!

The most I can really do is give you tips... BUT I'LL TRY MY BEST!

Tip #1: LoVE aT fIRsT SiGhT

That shit ain't real. It's physical attraction, not love.

Do not write about Character A meeting Character B for the first time and thinking "oh man, I barely said a word to them, but I'm already in love! Lemme go grab the marriage papers!"

No.

Do not do that. You can have them acknowledge how good looking the other person is, but do not make them fall in love. You can make your character think they're in love if they're supposed to be that naive, but "love at first sight" is not real.

Tip #2: Make the romance gradual

Related to the above tip.

Don't make them fall in love at... chapter eight or whatever unless your chapters are like 10,000+ words long I guess.

If you wanna write a kiss scene on chapter five, then fine, but there shouldn't be any genuine romance between the pair. If they kiss just because they wanna have fun, they're drunk, they're physically attracted to each other, or whatever then that's fine. JUST DON'T MAKE THEM FALL IN LOVE SO EARLY ON!

Build it up! Develop your characters first! Have them learn about the other's backgrounds, their personalities, their flaws, and maybe they slowly fall in love because of them.

If your romance is just based on physical attraction, then it's not gonna last long. If it does last long, then you're writing it unrealistically. Let the characters learn about each other and build up the romance.

Just... don't do the fucking "love at first sight" bullshit, please.

Tip #3: Development

Before you get to the romance, you should probably work on developing your characters.

It's gonna be hard for your readers to give a shit about them if they barely know who the characters are.

If the only pieces of information the readers know about the characters are simple things like what their favorite color is, their favorite foods, fashion styles, and other lame shit, then that's barely scratching the surface of who your characters are.

Plus, if that's what the readers know about your characters, then that's probably the only things your characters know about each other. Go back to Tip #2, your characters need to gradually learn about each other before they gradually fall in love with each other.

Show the readers what kind of personality they have, show them their backstories, how they think, feel, and work, etc. Because if you show the readers that, then the characters are learning it too and then they can start falling in love.

Tip #4: Warnings

If the type of romance you're writing about isn't the cute, clean, healthy kind, then leave warnings about it at the start of the book. Tell your readers beforehand that the book contains trigger warnings and then list them out.

Character A is abusive physically, sexually, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, etc? Then leave a warning.

Character A and/or B are obsessed/possessive/protective of each other to the point where they'll literally kill or harm anyone for them? Leave a warning that the couple starring in your book(s) isn't ideal.

Character A and B start out normal at the beginning, but something happens to the both of them that leaves them completely fucked up? WARN YOUR READERS BEFOREHAND!

There is nothing wrong about writing these kind of stories. There's tons of stories and fanfics about them, so it's perfectly fine. Plus I'm a huge fan of these kind of romances because I just love fucked up fictional people. Just do your research and write them correctly, AND LEAVE WARNINGS.

Don't romanticize it either. DO YOUR RESEARCH ABOUT THE TOPICS SO YOU WRITE THEM CORRECTLY!

And make sure it's shown in your books that what the characters are doing and what's happened to them are WRONG! Do not write it in a good light! Even if you plan to give them a somewhat "happy ending" where they stay together, grow up, marry, and have kids, even if the characters themselves think it's okay, SHOW THROUGH YOUR WRITING THAT IT ACTUALLY ISN'T!

Don't give your readers the idea that you actually condone what's happening!

Tip #5: Obstacles

Every relationship has obstacles! Throw whatever obstacle you want at them!

Physical obstacles could be:

- a sickness

- someone trying the break them up

Mental obstacles are:

- one is falling out of love with the other

- one might not like something about the other's personality

Here are the most common obstacles I keep seeing:

- the bitchy ex-girlfriend

- a fucking car (which usually leads to amnesia, another common obstacle, lol)

- disapproving (future) in-laws

- character c, if the book contains a love triangle

- someone getting kidnapped (usually the female lead)

- their romance is just forbidden in some way

I don't really like the overused tropes, but if you have to write about them, then fine. Just make it realistic and don't make it so painfully stereotypical then it already is.

Tip #6: "i'M brOKeN"

If one or both of the characters are suffering through a mental disorder, trauma, etc. do not have it all disappear once they meet the "love of their life".

That's just unrealistic and shitty. Don't give your readers the idea that "love" is what they need to "fix" themselves. No. Fuck anyone who does and says that.

The couple can HELP heal each other. But they cannot actually HEAL the other person. It is up to the person to heal.

If Character A is suffering in any way, it's always good to have people support them through their journey of healing, but remember, it is THEIR journey. They have to be the one to reach their destination and they can have help getting there, but nobody can fucking teleport them to the destination.

No, that's not possible. So stop with the "Character B fixes Character A and they're cured :)" bullshit. Have them support each other. That's more realistic.

Tip #7: Acceptance

Your characters should have flaws. And they should love each other because of their flaws, not despite them. Flaws are a part of who they are and if one character can't look past one flaw, then it's not genuine love.

And for fucks sake, DO NOT MAKE ONE OF YOUR CHARACTERS TRY TO CHANGE THEMSELVES TO SUIT THE OTHER CHARACTER'S NEEDS.

"He's more into the sexy and provocative type... Guess it's time for me to get a wardrobe change and a boob job!" NO!

"She likes blonde guys with six-pack abs... Time for me to dye my hair and hit the gym!" NO!

"They like those who are fancy and classy... Time for me to start pretending to be rich and drink my tea with my pinky sticking out!" NO!

"They like those who are confident and outgoing... Time for me to start forcing myself to socialize with people despite my crippling anxiety!" NO!

If your character wants to change something about themselves for themselves, then that's fine. But it's not okay to have your character change themselves because of someone else. 

Tip #8: Tension

The tension guys 😩 It's everything. While you gotta work on your story's plot, you also gotta make sure the tension is there as well. 

Show the audience intense and deep emotions between the two characters. Do it either through the angst scenes, fluff scenes, or ✨spicy✨ scenes. 

Don't make them get together so quickly. Make them flirt, make them argue and put some sexual tension in the air (lol), put some minor kissing scenes, or touching. It keeps the readers on edge and excited for more.

(And I know that because of the amount of comments I get whenever I write an Ethan/Essie scene, lololol)

Tip #9: Don't do it like Glee

I love that show, but the romance was a fucking mess (the chaos was fun to watch tho). 

They kept going around and dating each other and then going back to their original love interest before dating someone else instead? What? I can't even give any examples right now because my mind's a jumbled mess just thinking about it. 

It's okay to have Character A have crushes on people and maybe a boyfriend or two before finally ending up with Character B. But pleeeeaaaase don't write it like this:

- Character A crushes on Character B

- Character C has a crush on Character A, so A dates C instead

- A dumps C, moves onto a different dude called Character D

- Character D cheats, so A breaks up with them and finally gets together with B

- But then A and B break up and Character A meets Character E

- Crushes on E, but then meets Character F and now A can't pick between them

- Chooses Character F and dates them

- Character F breaks up with A, and A comes running back to Character B and they finally end up together again

Just... keep the love interests minimal. Unless it's actually a crucial part of the plot, don't write a bunch of unnecessary filler chapters about your OC crushing on and dating other people. It's fine in real life, but you're writing a book, so your focus should be on what's important to the plot. 

Tip #10: Sex

I don't really care if you write about sex or not, but if you do, then you should probably warn your readers beforehand just like with Tip #4. Some people don't like reading about, so it's only right to caution them if your book contains any sexual themes.

If you want to be extra cautious for your readers' sake, then you can even make a little page divider right before and after a sex scene happens. That way, the readers will know what's going to happen next and they can just quickly scroll down until they find the page divider again that indicates the scene is over.

Make your divider however you want. The universal symbol for "sexual content" is a lemon so maybe you can do this:

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

[insert sexual content here]

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

OR you can literally just use words:

━━━━ SEX SCENE STARTS ━━━━

[insert sexual content]

━━━━ SEX SCENE ENDS ━━━━

Or just do whatever. It doesn't really matter how you choose to warn them, just make sure to actually do warn them. 

(also, this reminds me that I gotta put the "sexual themes" warning in book 5, 6, and 7 for my Essie series 👀 and yes, that means EXACTLY what you're thinking. Our babey Essie is gonna do the ✨forbidden tango✨ with a certain someone who you won't find out about until the end of book four, but I don't think I'll write anything too explicit tho)

This is pretty much all I got... I'm a newbie romance writer too, but I know that these are the basics that we'll need to learn of.