Long Story Short- A day in the life of a writer

Sipets of stories I've thought about in mostly condensed form. Plus little writing stuffs. Anything that's on my mind. What ever mood I'm in.

[liprairian]

James Patterson books are an invasive species humans brought into library shelf environments because we wanted fast-reproducing, easily-digestible food. But at the time, we didn’t know as much about their natural airport environment, which has very few available nutrients. This environment greatly favours the genericalist species like Patterson, so there’s very little bibliodiversity compared to the more specialized library or bookstore environment. This means that each species in an airport has an enormously expanded niche compared to just about anywhere else books can thrive - in their natural habitat, Patterson books may be one of only 3 or 4 species competing for available nutrients. In these low-density, low-nutrient environments, Patterson books occupy vast swathes of territory without bothering other species. This history makes it extremely easy for them to outcompete the more specialized inhabitants of the library shelf, who have often been carefully selected to fill ultraspecific subgenre niches.

Left unweeded, Patterson books will expand their territory over multiple book bays, crowding out or even straight-up eliminating space for competitors and sending contributor-author runners out to other shelves. Contained to a single, planned set of shelves and kept strictly pruned, Patterson books can contribute to a healthy ecosystem. But many curators don’t know or don’t care to do the planning and maintenance, leading to the nightmare of overcrowding and loss of circulation.

[dduane]

Fortunately the forces of airport bibliodiversity in recent decades appear to have been attempting to balance these tendencies by supporting the increased presence of @neil-gaiman​ works. These propagate by employing both much-enhanced multimedia presence (which the B. pattersonis species and subspecies notably lack) to co-opt and redistribute shelf ecosystems, and also a unique author(!)-instigated reader attraction mechanism based on random ink signatures (”autographs”) which act in the idiosyncratic manner routinely associated with negative reinforcement to atypically increase reader interest in such works when visiting the airport bookstore environment. 

Due to the recent cross-media increase in the range and spread of the numerous B. gaimanii subspecies (presently most notably B. gaimanii sinefini and B. gaimanii omeniboni-duum x Pratchett), there is good hope that the more invasive aspects of the encroachment of B. pattersonis may become less of a danger to the bibliosystem in years to come. We have no choice, of course, but to “wait and see”. 

[neil-gaiman]

I wish this were true. Alas, on my last tour of the USA in April and May I discovered that post Covid, bookshelf space in airports has shrunk to an extent I found hard to believe. (Shelf and display space is always finite. Right now there are lots of things for sale that weren’t for sale pre-Covid. They occupy space that formerly belonged to books.) I stopped by places that I’d always previously ninja signed books of mine, and saw that they were only selling current top 20 titles. Or not even that. I did secretly sign books here and there. But it was always in actual bookshops that happened to be in airports, and not in Hudson news style “airport bookshops”. (And I nearly wrote this as an ecological-sounding paper, but realised nobody would actually know what I was talking about if I did. You are welcome to remedy this.)

[writeouswriter]

Look, if I introduced a WIP on here excitedly and then promptly never mentioned it again, it doesn’t mean I’m not working on it, it means I’m slowly rotating it in my mind like a rotisserie chicken and then went out to the grocery store to buy several other rotisserie chickens while I wait for it to cook and then slowly started rotating those rotisserie chickens and repeat

[thankskenpenders]

Let’s talk a little more about what I meant by “straight writers being straight writers”

Now obviously, I don’t think that ALL straight writers are bad at writing romance. Anyone who genuinely believes this is what I meant is just looking for reasons to get mad and confirm their biases against ~mean Tumblr SJWs~

But in general, many straight people fail to critically examine their views on gender, relationships, sex, etc. They might be a little more progressive than their parents, but they’ll often still believe much of what they were raised to believe. This means that many straight people who write fiction (straight men who write genre fiction in particular) bring a lot of this cultural baggage into their writing, and end up parroting harmful or just plain boring romance tropes that have been around forever and ever. It’s usually not even intentional–it’s just what they know

Some of the common ones include, but are certainly not limited to:

Stories where the central couple’s relationship and why they like each other is barely fleshed out because “he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious”

“These two bicker constantly, it must be sexual tension!” (see: literally every romantic subplot in Stranger Things)

Manic pixie dream girls

Girls being treated as little more than romantic prizes to be won by the male heroes

Married couples with an obnoxious slob husband we’re supposed to sympathize with and a nagging wife (see: like 90% of all sitcoms)

In general, couples where the woman is way too good for the man

Harry Potter-style endings where the surviving characters are all arbitrarily paired off into straight marriages with kids, regardless of how much or how little the paired off characters even interacted in the series

Similarly: important female characters getting paired off with a guy and being reduced to little more than his housewife

Also, married couples where the husband has tons of friends but the wife has no life outside of being a mom (see: “Does Marge have friends?”)

Stories about how men and women “can’t really be friends” and can only be lovers

Cheating! SO MUCH cheating

“Born Sexy Yesterday” stories, especially in sci-fi, where the male lead falls for a naive and childlike yet also hypercompetent and sexualized woman

In general, men being expected to go after younger women, but usually not the other way around

Men struggling to show their girlfriends genuine emotion and say “I love you” even if they’ve been dating for a long, long time

Keep in mind all of these things pop up in fiction I LIKE. Some of my all time favorties, even! But these things are all so common because many straight people don’t think critically about their views on relationships, and take these for granted as “how couples work.” These stories then reinforce those ideas instead of challenging them and help perpetuate the cycle

[aquestionofcharacter]

Quick (maybe obvious) addition: using these tropes in your work in order to deconstruct or subvert them, and/or using them in order to show the toxicity present in real-life relationships of this nature, can be a good thing.

But incorporating these tropes uncritically with no examination of the negative aspects and no awareness of the social contexts they exist under is bad.

[snazzycookies-blog]

How to write a kiss

Rebloggable version, as requested by davrosbro. :)

Oooh!  Yes!  I love kisses.  Kisses are where it all starts ;).

Okay, first, remember that a kiss is much, much more than just lips.  It is lips, but also tongues, teeth, eyes, faces, hands, noses, bodies, heartbeats,  breath, voice- and most importantly, a kiss is emotions.  A kiss without emotion is just wet mushy lips stuck together.  Ew.  Gross.  The most important part of a kiss isn’t the how, but the who- because of the emotions between the two people.

Okay so:

lips- Lips can slide, glide over each other smoothly, or they can be chapped and rough and dry and get stuck on each other.  They can match, top-to-top and bottom-to-bottom, or they can overlap, with one person’s top or bottom lip captured between the other person’s lips (yummy).  If there is lipstick or chapstick there is lipstick or chapstick flavor, otherwise, lips don’t have a taste (can you taste yours?).  Lips also can smack- the sound of two of them coming together or pulling apart, because they’re wet and warm and soft. 

tongue- Tongues are always wet, and always warm.  They’re very versatile.  They can trace over lips, teeth, or another tongue.  They can be smooth and graceful or teasing and flicking.  When tongues are involved, there is drool.  It’s only sexy when you like the person you’re kissing, or else it’s kinda gross. :P

teeth- teeth can clack together awkwardly, or teeth can bite down sensually.  A person biting their own lip is cute, a person biting another’s lips is sexy.  A person biting gently is sensual, a person biting roughly is sexual. 

eyes- Eyes can be wide open with surprise, half-lidded with desire, fully closed with pleasure.  Eyes can gaze lovingly, lustfully, wistfully, hungrily, seductively- it all depends upon the emotions of your characters.  Have them do whatever you like, but don’t leave them out- give them at least a mention!

faces- Faces are what the lips are attached to.  Noses bump, cheeks flush, ears turn red, foreheads either wrinkle or relax.  Kisses can leave lips, quite easily, and become kisses on chins, cheeks, noses, foreheads, ears, necks, throats.  Kisses on noses or foreheads are cute and adorable, kisses on cheeks are sweet, kisses on chins, ears, and throats are very sexual.  And a kiss on the lips can be all of those! <3

hands- Hands are super-important.  In order to describe a kiss, usually you want to also describe the hands.  Where are they?  Does one character have their hand behind the other’s head or back, holding them close?  Are they on someone’s shoulders pulling them near, or pushing them away?  Fingers brushing someone’s cheek or palms grabbing someone’s ass convey two very different kinds of situations, even if the kiss itself is exactly the same.

noses- Noses are annoying.  They easily get in the way, especially for first kisses!  People have to tilt their head to one side or the other, and if they don’t, noses bump.  I’d only mention noses if a kiss is supposed to be awkward or uncertain or nervous.

bodies- bodies are either close together, or far away.  Someone can be surrounded comfortingly by someone’s arms, or terrifyingly trapped by them.  Bodies are warm or hot, they are calm or nervous, relaxed or tense.  Body language says a lot.  Is your character pulling away, or moving closer?

heartbeat- Hearts can beat fast or slow, and that’s about all they can do- but there are lots of reasons why they do!  A heart can beat fast with fear or excitement or nervousness; a heart can pound with lust or race with terror or sing with joy.  Hearts can glow, cower, or shatter.  When you really want to drive the emotions of a character home, mention the heart.

breath- To me, the most consuming part of a kiss is the breath.  The air that someone else has just breathed going deep into your lungs is very intimate.  Lips and tongues don’t have a taste, but breath does.  Each person’s breath tastes different, smells different, and surrounds a person differently than anyone else’s breath.  Breath can be warm and sweet, breath can be hot and sexy, breath can be hot and frightening.  It is something that is very present and should not be left out.  A lot of writers leave breath out.  And it’s so important; it’s the most intimate part of a kiss.  Someone else is breathing into your lungs, and it’s either heaven or it’s hell.

voice- Voice conveys much, even without words.  A voice can groan, whimper, gasp, moan, catch, whine, scream, sigh.  Voice can convey emotion powerfully, and while some kisses are silent, usually they’re not. 

emotion-  Emotion is the most important- and the thing you try not to say.  You want to describe it, through all of the things above, so that it’s perfectly clear what your characters are feeling, without you ever using the “feelings words”.  If they’re in love, their bodies will lean close, their eyes will smile, their voices will giggle softly.  If they’re nervous, their palms will sweat, their noses will bump, their voices will shudder.  If they’re afraid, their muscles will be tense, their faces will grimace, their lips will not open.  Emotion is the color that you keep inside your mind as you write; it’s the base line that drives the description behind everything else you say.

Wow, that was a lot!  Gosh I hope it wasn’t too much!  Keep in mind not every kiss has all these things- this is just a list of things to consider when writing a kiss, and based on how long of a kiss you want to make.  Keep in mind that typing “they kissed for a long time”…that’s six words, it takes half a second to read, so that’s a short kiss!  If you want a long kiss, you need long sentences that make the reader linger. 

So maybe to start off, pick three things on the list to describe in your first kiss.  Don’t try to do it all- that would be too much for even the most epic kiss.  Just pick what’s most important to this particular scene, to these particular characters, and describe those parts along with the lips, and you’ve got yourself an awesome, emotional kiss. <3

[arahir]

use comic sans to write

i hate this so much but this knowledge is too powerful to keep from you all.

last night @phaltu discovered that setting your font to comic sans in google docs improves writing speed and creativity by an insane amount. “no” i said and “die” but then i tried it and god. i wish it wasn’t this way. i wish it wasn’t true. i wish i could protect you all from this but it’s real. 

something about this font is so disarming. something about this font lets you look past the shape of the words and into their soul. i’ve never written so much as i did last night, on my phone, at 2am, in comic sans.

if you have writer’s block. if you lack inspiration. if you need this. don’t be afraid to use it. sometimes the things we find most horrifying are also the things we need the most. trust me. let comic sans into your life.

[arahir]

it’s true

[lorddio]

This is because comic sans is a dyslexic friendly font, and was designed for ease of reading. It’s disarming and supposed to help! But, it’s still..comic sans and if you don’t want to use that, there are other fonts that should give you similar effects, like OpenDyslexic 

Comic sans is just more available so this is still good advice for writers.

“writers always know exactly where they are going with their work!”

r u sure

“no writer does anything by mistake, it’s all very strategic”

r u sure

“they use symbolism in everything. for example, a simple sentence symbolises directness and-”

R U SURE

[entropyalarm]

The best moments in writing is when you discover you did something absolutely genius by complete accident.

[queerrussetpotato]

A miscellaneous world-building detail from ten chapters earlier accidentally saved a character’s life once

[noahwyles]

“Omg this line is genius and the best reference!” “Thank you I did that entirely on purpose!!” *sweats*

[oldschoolvillageidiot]

READER: “(points out symbolism and foreshadowing and depth)”

AUTHOR:

[seananmcguire]

I once literally flipped a coin to decide which character was going to die in a multi-award-nominated novel.

[unforth-ninawaters-deactivated2]

I was once rereading a manuscript before editing it and discovered that in an early chapter I’d put in a line without any forethought that ended up aligning perfectly the plot and is now my favorite line in the entire book even though when I wrote that sentence I hadn’t even come up with that plot point yet.

[sirikenobilegends-2005]

In my book series, I have done various things on accident and then, looking back, yelled BRILLIANT and went with it. And, often times, my characters just DECIDE things, like one character was in love with another and I was “WHAT?” but went with it because it was actually a VERY good story and made some of the plot stuff that much more interesting. 

[ryntaia]

If you ever wanted to know my creative process for writing, congratulations, this is it. 

[claricechiarasorcha]

Writing a story like

[keybladewyvern]

There’s an author’s note in an Isaac Asimov short story collection - Isaac Asimov, mind you - and I can’t for the life of me remember which it was because my mom has a billion of them, but basically he went to a lecture on his books where the teaccher was lecturing on all the symbolism and themes and such and Asimovewent up to him and was just like “Uhhhh…. I didn’t put any of that in? It just…. no? Not really?” And the lecturer legit looked ISAAC FUCKING ASIMOV straight in the eye and said, “What do you know, sir? You’re just the author.” And Asimov described it as being a fairly profound moment in his career.

[kristina-meister-deactivated202]

This is all completely true.

[whimsicalitywheee]

this is all very very true

[nyokoko]

I can’t believe they killed Isaac Asimov like that 😂😂😂

[amuseoffyre]

My trouble is, as a writer, my brain is smarter than I am. It will put in totally random things that strike me as completely irrelevant and then suddenly, much later, what I thought was a pointless McGuffin turns out to be a key, already-established plot-point. You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve ended up screeching in shock at my own writing :D

[circeswife]

writing is weird because sometimes I’ll have no ideas and everything in my head is kind of quiet but then something will happen and it’s like there’s these goblins living in my brain that just start shouting little phrases at me until I sit down and finally write the poem or story or whatever

[circeswife]

ancient greek and roman poets:  sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

me, banging pots and pans together:  wake the fuck up goblins!!  what the fuck is up!!

[operativesurprise]

Elizabethan poets: and so! like breaking dawn I am struck by sudden inspiration! Me: jesus fuck this phrase has been rattling around in my brain for a week but it’s only not coalesced into actual words and not “the sound that !!! makes overlain by that certain shimmer of muddy water on august 3rd at 2pm”

[circeswife]

writing is weird because sometimes I’ll have no ideas and everything in my head is kind of quiet but then something will happen and it’s like there’s these goblins living in my brain that just start shouting little phrases at me until I sit down and finally write the poem or story or whatever

[circeswife]

ancient greek and roman poets:  sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

me, banging pots and pans together:  wake the fuck up goblins!!  what the fuck is up!!

[emperor-oj]

The houses as.... Writers

Gryffindor: 

the hemingway’s of the world

their writing is full of angst and personal experience

can often come across as anecdotic- they take what has happened to them and apply it to a broader spectrum

there is an underlying current of passion in everything they write

many late nights w/ coffee because they were suddenly inspired at 2am while nearly dreaming

Ravenclaw: 

the fantasy writers

create whole worlds bc they aren’t satisfied with the one’s they are in

stories often make a statement on real world issues in a creative way

prefers to use a typewriter/hand-write their stories

shares their ideas with very few

almost never finishes a story bc they have so many half-finished ideas swirling in their heads

Slytherin: 

the realistic writers

creates painfully authentic, multi-faceted characters with abundant flaws

their writings aren’t meant to teach a lesson; simply to share a story

draw inspiration from those around them; MAJOR people watchers

their writing is highly sophisticated and not easy to digest; you have to pay attention to every detail

prefer writing in the 3rd person; like to take an omnipotent view as a way of removing themselves from the piece

take great pride in their work and don’t reveal it until it’s at a standard that they approve of (and that bar is HIGH) 

Hufflepuff: 

the poets

a lot of YA authors are hufflepuff

create beautiful imagery in everything they write

their attention to detail is impeccable; they want to ensure that what they imagine is what the audience also envisions

their writing is raw with emotion and makes the reader feel for the characters

1st person stories

very open/receptive to criticism; seeks out ways to improve upon their creation

their stories always have a moral that they want the world to know

everything they write is a piece of them

[letswritesomenovels]

The Strength of a Symmetrical Plot

One of my favorite studies of Harry Potter is that of the ring composition found both in the individual novels and overall composition. To me, that very composition is what makes Harry Potter such a satisfying story. In my view, it’s a large part of the reason Harry Potter is destined to become a classic. 

And it’s an integral part of the series many people are completely unaware of. 

So what is ring composition? 

It’s a well-worn, beautiful, and (frankly) very satisfying way of structuring a story. John Granger, known online as The Hogwarts Professor, has written extensively on it.

Ring Composition is also known as “chiastic structure.” Basically, it’s when writing is structured symmetrically, mirroring itself: ABBA or ABCBA. 

Poems can be structured this way. Sentences can be structured this way. (Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.) Stories of any length and of any form can be structured this way.

In a novel, the basic structure depends on three key scenes: the catalyst, the crux, and the closing. 

The catalyst sets the story into the motion. 

The crux is the moment when everything changes. (It is not the climax). 

The closing, is both the result of the crux and a return to the catalyst. 

In Harry Potter, you might recognise this structure: 

Voldemort casts a killing curse on Harry and doesn’t die. 

Voldemort attempts to come back to power

Voldemort comes back to power.

Harry learns what it will take to remove Voldemort from power.

Voldemort casts a killing curse on Harry and dies.

But all stories should have this structure. A book’s ending should always reference its beginning. It should always be the result of some major turning point along the way. Otherwise, it simply wouldn’t be a very good story.

What’s most satisfying about chiastic structure is not the basic ABA structure, but the mirroring that happens in between these three major story points. 

To illustrate what a more complicated ABCDEFGFEDCBA structure looks like, (but not as complicated as Harry Potter’s, which you can see here and here) Susan Raab has put together a fantastic visual of ring composition in Beauty and the Beast (1991), a movie which most agree is almost perfectly structured. 

source: x

What’s so wonderful about ring composition in this story is that it so clearly illustrates how that one crucial decision of Beast changes everything in the world of the story. Everything from the first half of the story comes back in the second half, effected by Beast’s decision. This gives every plot point more weight because it ties them all to the larger story arc. What’s more, because it’s so self-referential, everything feels tidy and complete. Because everything has some level of importance, the world feels more fully realized and fleshed out. No small detail is left unexplored.    

How great would Beauty and the Beast be if Gaston hadn’t proposed to Belle in the opening, but was introduced later on as a hunter who simply wanted to kill a big monster? Or if, after the magnificent opening song, the townspeople had nothing to do with the rest of the movie? Or if Maurice’s invention had never been mentioned again after he left the castle? 

Humans are nostalgic beings. We love returning to old things. We don’t want the things we love to be forgotten. 

This is true of readers, too. 

We love seeing story elements return to us. We love to know that no matter how the story is progressing, those events that occurred as we were falling in love with it are still as important to the story itself as they are to us. There is something inside us all that delights in seeing Harry leave Privet Dr. the same way he got there–in the sidecar of Hagrid’s motorbike. There’s a power to it that would make any other exit from Privet Dr. lesser. 

On a less poetic note, readers don’t like to feel as though they’ve wasted their time reading about something, investing in something, that doesn’t feel very important to the story. If Gaston proposed to Belle in Act 1 and did nothing in Act 3, readers might ask “Why was he even in the movie then? Why couldn’t we have spent more time talking about x instead?” Many people do ask similar questions of plot points and characters that are important in one half of a movie or book, but don’t feature in the rest of it. 

Now, ring composition is odiously difficult to write, but even if you can’t make your story a perfect mirror of itself, don’t let story elements leave quietly. Let things echo where you can–small moments, big moments, decisions, characters, places, jokes. 

It’s the simplest way of building a story structure that will satisfy its readers.

If there’s no place for something to echo, if an element drops out of the story half-way through, or appears in the last act, and you simply can’t see any other way around it, you may want to ask yourself if it’s truly important enough to earn its place in your story. 

Further reading:

If you’d like to learn more about ring theory, I’d recommend listening to the Mugglenet Academia episode on it: x

You can also read more about symmetry in HP here: x

And more about ring structure in Lolita and Star Wars here: x and x

And about why story endings and beginnings should be linked here: x

[knaveofmogadore]

I just wanna let y’all know that you do fanfic tropes all of the time, we just don’t describe them like beginning writers do. You:

Push your shoes off with your toes or with the tip of your shoe, most likely. Props for drama if you yank your converse or your vans or your boots off like a soldier in a scyfi drama, but otherwise, you’re “toeing your shoes off”

Humans are much better at dissecting scents than we give ourselves credit for. If you sit there long enough, you could dissect how your friend smells. I smell like “old, beat up cars, the sour citrus he isn’t supposed to have, and something musty and natural and unique to him that clings to all of his clothes.” In order that’s old flannel, three day old hair mousse, and fish tank water. Smells like cigarettes and oils cling to your clothes, stuff like fishtanks and the food in your kitchen seeps into your belongings. Don’t feel bad about describing scents, people carry our houses with us everywhere. 

Have you ever pet someone else’s hair? That’s “carding your fingers through.” That’s it. It’s the same thing.

Ever walked around barefoot? Its three am and you’re trying to make Dark Lunch? You’ve padded around. You signal to other people nonverbally whether its coughing or sighing that you’re there so that you don’t scare them. 

Smirking is a thing most of us do with our face. Grinning, looking cheeky, and raising our eyebrows are also all things your face does. Sorry :/

You might not get this if you’re a straight girl whose never had sex, but sometimes that little strip of skin between ya shirt and ya hips? The mouth can go there. That’s an intimate place to touch and its a vulnerable place to be exposed. Overused maybe, but a valid way to show a shift in the situation. 

We all sigh!! Are some of y’all really saying that sighing isn’t a thing you do ten thousand times a week?? You don’t sigh when someone says something stupid as shit?? You don’t sigh when you gotta get up?? 

SAID IS A VALID WORD

Everything on your face casts shadows, I’m sorry you have weak eyelashes, or that somehow your brows are flat with your eyeballs

People laugh silently! I’m sorry you’ve never laughed that hard!! People giggle! People snort! People double over and move and flail! Have you ever fucking laughed?

For that matter how do y’all not blush and can you teach me

I’d also like to say sorry if: your heart has never skipped a beat reading something terrible, or when you saw someone you liked even platonically, or if you’ve never been so surprised all you could do was blink, that you never looked at someone like you loved them, and that you somehow never fucking show any emotion in your voice or your posture at all

Tl;Dr: Some of y’all are dragging people for shit you don’t know how to describe and damn if you ain’t still reading things and then telling beginning writers that they’re describing impossible things and writing weirdly when y’all don’t even write shit, its obnoxious as hell. To y’all that do write and are aggressively against this post, I bet you sure as hell use EPITHETS INAPPROPRIATELY ANYWAY, DON’T YA?

[circeswife]

writing is weird because sometimes I’ll have no ideas and everything in my head is kind of quiet but then something will happen and it’s like there’s these goblins living in my brain that just start shouting little phrases at me until I sit down and finally write the poem or story or whatever

[circeswife]

ancient greek and roman poets:  sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story

me, banging pots and pans together:  wake the fuck up goblins!!  what the fuck is up!!

[elexuscal]

Talking with writers online

Their stories: Amazing grammar, soaring vocabulary, beautiful imagery and prose which flows like a river.

In chats: no capitalisation or punctuation, swears like a sailor, misspellings everywhere, acronyms and abbreviations every five words, idek

[alwaysboth]

#listen #listen do u know how much braining it takes to make the words go? #it is a lot #it’s like wearing fancy clothes all day #and then when you’re at home and comfy #u just put on ur pj’s ( @feynites)

[insomination]

I have never related to a statement more than “do you know how much braining it takes to make words go?”

[daily-writing-tips]

Writing a Relationship Your Readers Will Ship

Relationships, especially in beginner writer’s works, have a tendency to feel forced. Even in some popular and famous works of fiction, the relationship doesn’t feel natural. It seems like a boring afterthought which the writer added in at the last minute. Far too often, I find myself completely indifferent to a character’s romantic life. A good romance in a story will give the reader a bit of second-hand infatuation. They’ll root for the relationship, beg for it. If the romance is well written, you can make a reader smile and blush just by reading a few sentences. When done properly, it can even compensate for a weak and cliché plot.

But first, decide whether the romance is needed. If you’re adding a character to the plot simply for the sake of being a love interest, it’s probably not a needed romance. You can still add it, of course, but it will be much harder to keep your story focused on the central plot.

Step One Make sure the characters have chemistry.

The characters should compliment each other’s personalities. If he’s loud, stubborn, and aggressively opinionated, a more tranquil and soft-spoken love interest would suit him well. Two headstrong people wouldn’t be likely to have a lasting relationship in real life, unless they (impossibly) agreed upon every subject. But, there should be some similarities. While opposites do attract, polar opposites will not and the whole relationship will feel forced. The characters should have something in common. It could be morals, a parallel backstory, the same motivations, whatever. As long as there’s a reason for them to be drawn to each other, there’s potential.

Step Two Slow burn ships are fantastic.

Don’t make your characters fall in love right off the bat. There can be attraction, of course, but genuine feelings of true love don’t happen instantly. Your characters should become closer as people, feel at ease around each other, and truly know the other before they fall head-over-heels. The readers will crave the relationship far more, like dangling a treat right in front of a dog’s nose, but keep pulling it away. Teasing is a beautiful thing.

Find ways of showing (NOT TELLING) the characters are falling for each other. Have them stand up for one another, be protective. Have them break their own normal routine for the other. For example, a callous, guarded character could lower their walls for a moment if their love interest needs emotional support. These scenes can be awkward for the character changing their typical behavior and that discomfort can demonstrate how much they care for the other, altering their own selves for the other’s benefit.

Howeve, make sure that you combine these cute emotional moments with distance. Make the characters deny their true feelings or even distance themselves from their love interest upon discovering their feelings. The more the characters long for each other, the more the reader will long for them to be together. Build barriers between them for your characters to have to work to knock down. Keep them close, but maintain that distance until the moment is right.

Step Three “_____” translates to “I love you”

The first example of I think of when I think of this is The Princess Bride, where the male protagonist tells his soulmate “as you wish” when he really means “I love you.”

This falls under the category of show, don’t tell. Hearing a character say “I love you” has become so boring. Unless it’s done in a surprising confession or unique way, it’s boring and stale.

Come up with a phrase that you can repeat in moments throughout the story until it has a meaning of love for the characters and both know exactly what the other means when it’s spoken.

Step Four Taking a break can help create tension.

You know you loved someone if you leave them and feel awful. Apply this into the writing. Your characters can break up, then get back together in a joyous reunion.

Step Five Not every couple has a happy ending.

Sometimes, things don’t always work out for different reasons. An ending that leaves readers craving more can be a good move.

[writingonthesly]

For the first time in 5 years, I am not attempting NaNoWriMo due to school obligations and life. I almost don’t know what to do with myself. Which means I have all the motivation to write, but not the real time for it.

[rhiannonmcgavin]

kinda disappointed that i’m not already a reclusive beekeeping novelist who lives in a cottage in the french countryside, only interacting with other people when i call my annoyed editor and sell honey and honey-related products to local villagers

[writingbox]

So true!