I think at one point or another, if we haven’t written romance stories, we’ve all included romance in our works. I know I have. And last night, I was thinking about romance in writing, and what it took to write romance. I hope you’ll forgive me if I go over this topic a little bit.
Now, some writers say you actually have to draw on personal experience in romance in order to write about it. I disagree; I’ve never been in a relationship before, and I’m also one of those types who doesn’t need to be in a relationship in order to feel fulfilled. So not a lot of experience there. And yet I’m pretty sure I can write stories with romantic elements, I’ve read enough books and seen enough movies to see how it’s done: two people meet (I’m not saying boy meets girl here, because that’s no longer necessarily the case); there’s the initial spark of attraction; some sort of obstacle keeps them apart; they get over said obstacle and get together; if the author wants to explore the relationship even further, there will be more obstacles between the characters and true happiness; and once they get over those, it’s supposed to be happily ever after (unless there’s a sequel).
And the elements that go into such stories are only limited by three things: how much romance plays into the plot of the story; the setting the story takes place in; and the author’s imagination. For the first, you have either your typical romances, where the whole plot revolves around someone (usually a woman, because that’s how these stories typically work) finding fulfillment with a man (because once again, that’s how those stories typically work), and the travails she goes through trying to reach that happy state (pretty much most of Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children books). Then there are other stories that, while having romantic elements, don’t focus exclusively on them. Instead the romantic elements are used to highlight the story and/or explain the motivations of certain characters (like the various romances in Harry Potter). Of course there are also stories that hint at romantic attractions but don’t have characters play on them or anything, but I’m not going to focus on them (though if you want an example, there’s Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud).
Next you have settings, and this plays more into a story more than you think. For example, if you want to have a character unable to be with their lover because of an arranged marriage, it makes more sense to have that in a historical drama (or in a country where that is still common) than in Midwest America where I doubt that sort of thing happens. In the same vein of thought, if you have a story taking place in Victorian England, it makes very little sense to have a montage scene or a musical number out of an 80’s movie unless your story is a musical to begin with. So as much as we tend to forget the setting, it plays a big role in how much you can do in the world of the characters.
Finally, you have my favorite part in this equation: the author’s imagination, and this is especially useful when coming up with obstacles for the characters to get over. Perhaps there’s someone else that is courting the character (I think this is what’s used in The Hunger Games and Twilight, though the main draw of the latter might just be sexy teen boys). Or perhaps the characters are from different social classes, and being together would be tanatamount to social suicide. Or perhaps the main character is leading a campaign and as much as they’d like to focus on love, that would be detrimental to the war effort. Or perhpas one character had a traumatic childhood experience and has trouble getting close to people. Or the romance is forbidden (religion, politics, orientation, etc). Or one character is still getting over the loss of a previous love and has trouble moving on. Or a thousand other options; it’s all up to the author to decide.
So, what makes a good combination of any of these? That’s up to the author, really; besides putting all these factors together, one has to write and write it well. Otherwise, who will be interested?
Rami Ungar The Writer 