Hello my name is Griffin and welcome to my master class—

*Record scratch*

Sorry. Okay. So basically I felt like writing a how-to (Article? Thing?) on how to write romance from an aromantic's perspective.

DISCLAIMER #1: I'm only writing this because I feel like and didn't bother to do a good job.

DISCLAIMER #2: I'm an aromantic writing about how to write romance. By definition, I literally have no idea what I'm talking about.

Now that that's out of the way here we go:

The short of it is that I'm an aromatic (WTFromantic to be precise), and for the longest time I deliberately went out of my way to avoid writing romance in my stories because I figured I would suck at it. Then one day I decided "screw this", started writing romance, and sucked at it. But I eventually realized that I sucked at it, and got better enough to do a vaguely passable job of writing people in love.

So I'm writing this because there's probably a lot of other aromantics out there who deal with this hurdle in storytelling. It's hard to write about something you have no experience with. And aromantics can't get romantic writing advice from romantics, because they'll make references to feelings they'll just assume aromantics experience. So I'm an aromantic writing this to share my wisdom (ha ha) about how to write romance for people who just aren't that interested in romance.

Before I start: If you don't feel like writing romance don't do it. That's perfectly valid. For me, when I read or watch TV, romance doesn't do anything for me. You could replace "love interest" with "bestest friend", and I'd probably enjoy it just as much, if not more. So as a writer, if you don't want to put romance in, then don't. People will still read it and like it (assuming it doesn't suck).

That said, there are a number of reasons an aromantic author might want to write a romace. I'm going to use me as an example. I write romance in my stories for the following reasons:

1) I've learned how to write it in a way that I like and that doesn't detract from the more important things.

2) It creates interesting social dynamics and character motivations that are less frequent in friendships.

3) A lot of people, romantics and aromantics alike, specifically like reading romance, and if I can write something readers enjoy at no cost the the story then why wouldn't I?

Now onto the details of how to actually write romance based on the techniques I use. If any of you a-specs out there have other techniques you use, let me know! I'd be interested to hear.

Technique #1: Mercilessly plagiarize.

If you're like me, you've watched movies with romance in them and thought "Oh my god these characters are morons". You've thought the movies are highly unrealistic and no one in their right mind would make those same dumb mistakes.

Guess what? They do. When I got into high school and people started dating and falling in love they made the same dumb mistakes. Often times these are the same people who criticise characters in movies for making dumb mistakes, and then when they're the ones in love, they make the same mistakes. The lesson here: The movies are romantacized (pun intended) and often unrealistic, but they get more right then we give them credit for. Often times, they acurately show human behavior.

So as writers what do we do? Cheat and steal! Shoplift emotions out of how your friend describes being in love. Recycle romantic trends and patterns you notice in the media. Basically any book has some romantic pattern worth analyzing and using (except twilight).

That said, don't actually plagiarize. I'm more saying look at the patterns that appear between plotlines and in real life and use those. Don't steal specific plotlines from specific books.

Technique #2: Pretend they aren't in love.

This is one of my favorite techniques. In basically any of my stories you could wordsearch "romance" and replace it with "bromance" and the plot would be the same. I treat romances like I treat strong friendships. I make it about people who want to hang out together or care about what each other think or find someone they can trust and talk to. Then I toss in something like hand holding or maybe even kissing (ewww) and call it a romance. Nobody's caught on so far.

The first book I wrote romance in was coincidentally also my first zodiac story (the really cliched 270 page one I said I'd put up some chapters from (but haven't gotten to yet sorry)). The romances there grew out of the best friend pairs I had designated prior to deciding to add romance. Aries and Gemini bickered a lot, so now there was like chemistry or something. Taurus and Pisces were really sweet friends so now there was a crush involved (although that one later changed). Libra faceplaming at Leo doing dumb things also had a crush added in. You get the idea.

Technique #3: Use personal experience.

Yeah, I know, you've probably never been in love, but there's a lot that's comprable. Maybe you've had a squish, which behaves similarly in a narrative sense. Maybe you were your friend's confidant when they were in love, and you can write about love from an outsider's perspective. Maybe there's an aromantic character in your story who voices their confusion. Maybe you had this one really good bag of doritos and you think that was kinda like love. Whatever. The point is, romantic love isn't just romantic love.

Technique #4: Capitalize off of the other types of attraction.

Fun fact: Most of you probably already know this, but there are like five different types of attraction: Sexual, romantic, aesthetic, sensual, platonic. In short, who you want to have sex with, who you want to date, who has a cool face, who you like to hug, and who you want to be friends with. I'm going to use me as an example again here: I'm asexual, WTFromantic, homoaesthetic, asensual, panplatonic. Odds are, as an aromantic you get 2-3 of the other types. Maybe you can describe platonic or aesthetic or sensual attraction for your protagonists as your main way of showing how they feel.

Technique #5: Fake it till you make it.

A great author once said that to write you do three things: Lie, cheat, and steal. We've already covered the cheating and stealing bit, so now we get to the lying. Don't know what it's like to be in love? Make it up! Love is a highly subjective experience anyways, so it'll probably ring true for someone. Your first attempt will suck, but your second attempt will suck less. And so on. And eventually it will be good.

Now to the final part of this master class—*cough* essay-thing. I'm going to list a couple obvious mistakes that I actually made and that you shouldn't do them unless you have a good reason.

1) Don't make romance the surprise factor in your book. Either A) You'll be too obvious, the readers will pick up on it, and now you have no surprises, or B) You'll be too subtle, no one will pick up on it, and it will seem forced and out of the blue. ANY kind of surprise factor needs to be subtle enough that people don't pick up on it, but obvious enough that they'll say "ohhhhh" when you reveal it. It's tricky to get that balance right for romance, especially if you're aromantic.

2) People aren't that embarassed about being in love. They'll tell their close friends. I went through a lot of effort to write vague dialogue so the characters would avoid actually speaking about their feelings, and guess what: It sucked. It sucked less in my more recent stuff where the character talk about their feelings to their close friends. I mean, it still sucked, but it sucked less.

3) Don't be dumb. Speaking as someone who has been dumb, don't do it.

Yeah, that's it.

Oh, another thing I've noticed: Sometimes you can make the romance seem more realistic by having it ultimately fail. Most real-life romances fail. In my opinion, more fictional ones should. Not only would it make books more relatable and more realistic, but it would add to the ones where the romance does work out because the audience won't know for sure until the end.

Hope this was helpful to someone.  Most of y'all probably know a good deal more about writing romance than me.  But still, hope this was helpful.

Anywho, have a great day!