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Jan 2022

Basically, when you go to write a romance, even just a background one, what's your strategy? How do you build your characters' personalities to prepare them for it? Or conversely, what kinds of established personalities do you try to bring together?

Personally, I usually pair up characters that already exist in the story-- 99% of the time I don't care enough about romance to have it planned from the start. ^^;
But when I do decide to put it in, even I have one go-to strategy:

Use characters that seem different, but are secretly very similar!

...Or, in my case, take characters that are different and add details to their personalities that make them similar. It's a little hard to explain, so I'll give an example.

Character A began as a funny, sweet, but self-effacing character. You know, the kind of person who thinks everyone is better than them, but they're so positive and 'cheerleader-y' about it that it takes a while before you realize how little self-confidence they must have. He was always like this, and still is.

Character B began as a...well, as a basic 'psycho killer' character. He did have a little depth; it was implied that he acted like that as some kind of extreme rebellion against the life he used to have, which just bored him. =/ Not much to look at there...in the early drafts he was more of a side antagonist, who A barely interacted with.

Anyway, dozens of drafts later, they are in love (kinda...)! How did this happen, and what did I do to Character B to make this work??

Well, like I said: I fleshed out his personality to match A's. He's still a bit of an insane killer, but now he has reasons for it that are deeper than 'it's fun'...reasons that hint at his own lack of self-worth.
To give an extremely condensed psychoanalysis: due to some horrible childhood trauma, he has developed a sort of 'destructive' personality. He spends most of his time trying to ruin people's lives one way or another, and this is way of making himself feel safe/dominant...while at the same time, reaffirming his belief that he is a bad person.

BUT, all that is under the surface. Character B may be destructive and manipulative...but people usually don't realize it at first, because he is also extremely skilled at becoming whatever kind of person other people want him to be. If they want a ruthless killer, he can be that, and if they want a kind and protective friend (as A does~), he can be that, too.
On just a few brief occasions, the masks slip to reveal his 'true' personality...which is little more than a well of empty bitterness; pure spite without all the fun parts. You might say that he doesn't really have a personality outside of whatever he's pretending to be at the moment.

Now that I've explained all of that, maybe you can see some of the parallels:
-At heart, both A and B hate themselves. At the very least, they are dissatisfied with who they really are.
-On the outside, both A and B put on 'performances' for other people. A does this to make others comfortable and distract from himself, and B does this for personal gain (and to toy with his victims)...but both of them are constantly engaged in this behavior.
-Both A and B spend a lot of time thinking about others, and thus becoming sensitive to their strengths and weaknesses, needs and wants. Again, they have wildly different motives, but nonetheless their activities basically revolve around other people (and eventually, each other).

So despite one being a hero and the other a villain, they secretly have a lot in common, and it's through peeling away the outer layers and discovering this that they grow closer as a pairing. ^^

...Of course, they're not necessarily a 'good' pairing. ^^;;; A is essentially the perfect victim for B, and if B is ever to heal the gaping wounds in his soul, he needs someone who will challenge him to be better and expect more of himself, not someone like A who will defer to him and enable him. Unfortunately, they are attracted to each other to their own detriment. :[

But this is fiction; it doesn't need to be wholesome, it just needs to be interesting. :9 And I think this 'pseudo-opposites attract' dynamic is both interesting to write and to read.
TL;DR You get to use the revelation of common threads to develop the characters as they fall for each other (while giving them additional reasons to do so~), and challenge yourself to transform the same personality traits into different life outcomes, especially if they're both negative/both positive, just in different ways.

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    Jan '22
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I just write best friends and then mash them together like a kid with barbies, including kissing sounds

My first go-to is what each character does which makes the other character laugh. Humour plays a huge role in relationships for me. It keeps them light, it keeps and fun, and it keeps people falling in love with each other over and over for decades.

So, what does one character do which the other one finds charming and funny? Are they a bit of a goofball? Or are they more straight-laced, but with a razor-sharp wit and a wry smile? Or are they a person who doesn't think they're funny at all, but the person falling for them sees humour in their little reactions and expressions? That's where I start with a romance between two characters, and everything else builds from there.

And that's just how romantic relationships start in reality most of the time.

To be honest, a lot of the things I had for romantic relationships are unplanned when writing. I normally improvise when I update.

My stories are based on relationships, love interest & sex,
so I have a different view on this.
When I don´t care about something, I don´t write and think about it,
this means that I care 100% about everything that´s in the story.
If I don´t feel that way I leave it out

Tbh when I write stuff, I normally consider almost everything else before writing in romance :sweat_02: . I mainly just focus on which characters have actual chemistry after they've been fully written/developed so it doesn't feel forced or unnatural. I kind of made the mistake of forcing a ship in the first version of my comic, and I'm definitely going to put the development of the characters before any romance this time lol

I've found it helps to establish early on that something is missing in either character, a thing that the love interest has. So, as they get to know each other, the audience has a nugget of something to hope for--they know the piece of the puzzle, the characters don't know the piece of the puzzle, and it slowly gets merged together. Otherwise it may come off as kind of random.

Hahaha, thanks. But in all seriousness, I do usually come up with characters who are romantically involved together/at the same time, as I kind of consider them one unit.

Depends on the story for me. I tend to avoid them because I don't want fans reading for the relationships. I want them reading my comic for the dialogue, the world, the characters, the message, and the humor (although I do have characters hitting on each other or have them talking about their interests to make them more human).

That being said, in rare instances where I do write romance and the relationships are main the appeal, it's because I have an important message hiding behind a door, getting ready to sucker punch the audience.

So what I do to make romance effective is showing characters struggling together while bringing their flaws to light. Basically to show that most relationships aren't even perfect. On top of that I'd have the main character break up with other characters just so we can see him/her mature and make the relationship they end up in feel earned.

But most importantly, I don't give in to what my fans want. If fans want a relationship that I'm going to do anyway, then so be it. BUT I won't give in to fan demands when they want me to change a relationship just because THEY think a character is better off with another character. I'm fine with fans shipping, just don't force me into changing story plans, y'know?

I don't mean to pick on you specifically, but...shouldn't 'relationships' be part of all those things, and vice versa...?? ^^;

Really, the tone of this whole thread has been a little dismissive, and it surprises me. I thought the fact that romance is such a popular subject to write about would mean that people would be eager to talk about that process...but in many cases it seems like people (on this forum) just see romance as equivalent to 'shallow, fan-pandering shipping' and thus not even worth thinking about seriously. =/

Personally, the fact that I don't use romance very often means that I try to pay special attention to it when I do. Any subject can be written well, and the fact that romance is often written badly/for superficial reasons doesn't mean it isn't worth writing well (and this should go without saying, but it has nothing to do with what 'fans' want unless you let it).

I mean...a large part of the reason why fiction is littered with bad romance is probably because people treat it like an afterthought; make characters kiss, make the fans happy, done and done.
But adopting that mindset because the genre 'deserves it' doesn't help anyone. The only way to get better quality stories is to make the effort, and help others to do the same.

I meant ROMANTIC relationships lmao. I'm a little more focused more on family/friend relationships than anything in my other comics.

Also you didn't read the rest of what I didn't say. When the romantic relationships are the main appeal (usually because I have an important message I have to tell), I can't afford to be dismissive. I have to put in as much effort as possible.

Yeah, I was talking about romantic relationships. Any well-written romantic relationship should concern at least some of the things you listed: there should be good dialogue, it should be used to explore the world (choosing locations for dates is an easy vehicle for this), it should be an integral part of the characters involved, it should send a message about those characters, and why shouldn't it be a little humorous? Romance is supposed to be fun, after all.

If the rest of the reply didn't seem to apply to you, it shouldn't have; like I said, I didn't really want to pick on you specifically. Your reply was one of the better ones, actually. '_'

Personally, for the romantic relationship I'm developing I'm trying to make sure that they are pretty close friends first before putting them into the relationship. That way I feel like the chemistry during the relationship would be a bit more believable. Then their relationship is supposed to get developed further while they're together as opposed to them getting together being the goal of the story or set up at the end or something. I just find that a bit more interesting (and I'm not a huge fan of the....at times ridiculous ways some writers prevents two characters from getting together).

And it should also be clear that they complete each other or they support each other as contrasts. Like Character A generally tries to help Character B think more highly of herself and with any of her issues (along with other people). But Character A is a bit hypocritical in that front and keeps the majority of her problems to herself while trying to put up a front for everyone else which bothers Character B and causes a bit of a rift between them due to it clearly being detrimental to Character A.

I know that there's a bunch of other methods to make a relationship but this is what I'm going for at least so far.

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closed Mar 9, '22

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