Hey guys what's up welcome back to
another video. Today we are talking
realistic relationships in writing. Now
quick disclaimer I write sci-fi and I'm
going to be branching eventually into
fantasy. The things I write involve wars
and stabbing and killing and running for
one's life so when I say realistic keep
in mind I'm saying realistic within the
context of fiction these tips apply to
romances that are designed to be
subplots to a larger plot not for
romance books specifically. With that
being said these are my top nine tips
and I'm gonna count the list down so tip
number nine no whoa I don't know how to
count my fingers I didn't plan that out
before I put my hands up and then I just
kind of panicked. Number nine
make them real characters. You wouldn't
think I'd have to say this but I have to
say this because there are some
characters out there that are just
pretty cardboard cutouts and they exist
for no purpose other than for our main
character to fall in love with them.
They don't exist off screen.
They have no outside goals or motives.
They exist purely to be the love
interest you don't want that kind of
character in your book. If you imagine
cutting the relationship out of the book
and you find in the absence of the
relationship the love interest is boring
and useless then the love interest is
boring and useless and should be burned
with fire on page or off page. Number
eight compatibility. Now compatibility
doesn't mean that they need to be the
same type of people. Your characters can
be vastly different as long as they
share some key components that they can
bond over or relate to or talk about. For
example 736 and Jason from my book
Aletheia, they both have completely
different approaches to conflict. 736's
instinct
is to attack and kill and mistrust
whereas Jason's instinct on the other
hand is to hide protect and unite but
they share the struggle of PTSD and the
wait influences them and their decisions
and some of their differences are things
that interest each other so for example
736 is vastly interested in Jason's
artistic inclinations whereas she has no
artistic inclination at all Jason is
really interested in 736's
down to earth no nonsense no denial view
of the world around her even though
that's something that's more unfamiliar
to him because he's more of an optimist.
Basically give them something about each
other that they can like if they have no
reason to like each other we can't
really root for the relationship as a
reader. Number seven give the
relationship conflict and for the love of
ceiling cat do not use the inability to
communicate as the main source of
conflict. You don't want your readers to
spend the entire time just counting down
the pages until they freakin talk to
each other and figure it out instead try
to tie the conflict into the overall
plot arc and themes of the entire book
if you can because that will make it
resonate more with your readers. In
Aletheia the main conflict between 736
and Jason once they're established as a
thing comes from them having to face
the fact that 736 has kidnapped and
even killed people that Jason could have
either known or even grown up with and
she had to do this to survive but for a
long time she's been in this category of
people that to Jason was the enemy and
then on Jason's side Jason struggles a
lot with his instincts to protect women
and this ties into his childhood so this
comes to a head when they're faced with
the conflict of Jason trying to protect
an innocent woman who he cares about
where the attacker is the woman he loves
the attacker is 736
and what makes this work so well is the
conflict is then woven directly into
their character growth and the themes of
the book which gives it depth and
and that leads us to number six make the
romance relevant to the story. Readers
who love romantic subplots might not
care about this one but you know who
will care? All of the other readers. There
are a lot of readers out there who will
just tune out and gloss over any romance
that has no clear tie to the plot and if
you weave in any important information out
of the blue in a romance scene they're
gonna miss it because they're not paying
attention. The way to fix this is to make
the romance impact the characters growth
and decisions and how they handle the
core conflict of the book. If you could
take your book and cut out every romance
scene and you find that at the end the
core plot of the book progresses exactly
the same you might have an issue where
your romance isn't tied in enough with
your main plot. For example in Aletheia
Jason exposes 736 to bits and pieces of
his world and although that contributes
in large part to the romance and them
getting to know each other it's also
relevant because it exposes her to the
people she's been kidnapping over the
years and killing and it forces her to
view them as people and not just
depraved and that makes her come to
terms with the fact that things she's
done to survive division seven over the
years are a lot more horrible than she
had previously seen them as and this
changes how she handles conflict as the
plot progresses. As humans we're most
like the five people we are around the most.
Odds are one of those five characters is
gonna be the love interest. Number five
romantic edging. Basically tease your
readers. They should be dying to have
your characters kiss by the time your
characters actually kiss. But don't you
dare end the book without giving your
readers release. No. *If your characters
are clearly into sex and sex is teased
throughout the whole series and then you
end the series without it happening your
readers are gonna be slightly annoyed.
Now this can be achieved by having your
plot keep your characters apart and that
way your characters can want each other
with increasing desperation and then
when you're finally ready stars can
align and they can get together this is
something that should apply to all of
the different stages of the relationship.
Make your readers want it to happen
before it happens. The worst part about
insta-love
is that it basically guarantees that
we're faced with pages and pages of the
exact same romantic scenes just in
slightly different locations because
there's no escalation. They start out
there. So try to up things a little bit
each scene and remember if things get
too high up you can always bring it down
a notch with conflict or some other plot
event. Remember this also applies to a
slow escalation of what they would do
for each other in the context of the
plot. By the end they might take a bullet
for that person where as in the beginning
they might not risk so much as a paper
cut for each other. Also keep in mind a
lot of readers lose all interest in the
ship the second it docks into the port.
One second we would give anything to
have the characters be together but as
soon as their relationship reaches what
we view as the highest potential their
relationships gonna reach within the
series all we can imagine is it sitting
there and slowly gaining barnacles and
barnacles aren't sexy. Sorry guys I'm not
going to edit a sexy barnacle this time.
Or am I? No I'm not. The sexy leech is
still haunting my nightmares.
I almost regret making that leech sexy.
Almost. Number four make the characters
flawed. Yes in relationships people are
generally wearing rose tinted glasses
but you can let your character see
through the rose tint to notice a flaw or
two in the love interest because this
will make them feel more real. The love
interest should never be described as
the most handsome person ever in the
world. The character hasn't seen everyone
in the world they don't have enough data
to make that sort of comment. Again in
terms of subplots in fantasy and sci-fi.
I'm not talking romance books. The love
is gonna generally come almost entirely
from what they experience together. You
don't need to say that they're the most
handsome person in existence to justify
the love growing between your characters
because if that's the only thing keeping
them together you have a lot more issues.
And you can make these flaws be things
that aren't technically flaws but are just
things that your main character isn't
generally into like maybe she's normally
into really tall girls but she meets
this short girl that's super charming
and she doesn't care that she isn't tall
she wants to be with her because that's
what love is. It's fiction and we get a
little bit of leeway here but if they
check all of the marks on their list
then that's gonna read too much like it
was written and it's gonna break your
readers immersion. Number three dialogue.
Romantic dialogue is always like half a
centimeter
(yes I said centimeter the metric system
makes way more sense than whatever the
hell we use here in the US I don't why
are we like the only country they choose
us to use a different form of
measurement I don't understand)
anyways romantic dialogue is always like
have a centimeter away from cringe.
Banter is cute but banter and inside
jokes can only get your characters so
far. For them to fall in love with each
other they have to actually know
something about each other otherwise it
isn't really love it's more like
passion or lust.
Now you can't dedicate pages and pages
to them just getting to know each other
if you're writing again a fantasy or
sci-fi book but you can lead up to it
and kind of start the conversation and
fade to black or you could use the
conversation as a good excuse to weave
in important plot information. Number two
make sure there is an arc. I get that
some people are into pantsing but you
should have kind of in the back of your
mind a plan for where this romance is
going and what's gonna happen between
point a and point B. The romance has to
change over time and although your
characters don't need to know where it's
headed you as the writer do and you
should probably know this for the whole
series because if in book one the book
ends with
their relationship all waffles and
butterflies then when you come to book two
there's gonna need to be some sort of
conflict and the romantic arc needs to
be different in each book because your
characters are different their
relationship is different. And last but
not least thing to consider number one
remember that your characters influence
the relationship the speed the way it
plays out the conflicts. You can't make
this cookie cutter. Pacing is gonna be
vastly different based on your
characters also age and experience have
huge influences on the way the romance
is gonna play out.
If you're writing YA then the romance
needs to be relatable to the young
adults who are reading this in which case
you may actually need to introduce some
forms of conflict that for adult readers
might be frustrating but if your niche
is young adult that's the kind of
conflicts that they're going to relate
to more. Also a YA characters will
generally move a lot slower on the
sexual side but a lot faster on the
emotion side of things whereas if you
have characters in their late or
even mid 20s it's gonna be flip flopped
and that's kind of a generalization of
course some people reach their 20s
without having had any romance
experience again this depends 100% on
your specific character. And that was it
for my tips for this video. If there's
anything
that you think was missing from this
list let me know in the comments down
below. Is there anything on this list
that surprised you? You didn't really
expect? If you liked this video please
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channel grow and it helps me keep
bringing these videos to you. If you are
interested in Aletheia and seeing how I
handled the romance of Aletheia you can
purchase it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book
Depository. And thank you so much for
watching! As always I will see you in the
next video!
