Topic of the Day: Did your OCs' relationship start with friendship or butterflies? : The romance/relationship writing thread (all romance, all the time) (but sfw tho.)

[Animal508]

I don't. The very few romances I have portrayed in ANY of my stories depict already established relationships.

[Leyelle]

up until this point i hadn't either, my first series stars an already married couple, so there was no confession to write. (it was also a comedy, so corny would have been acceptable)

[KevinReijnders]

Well I can confidentally say that I at least got one part nailed. Their feelings become very clear haha.
How the audience will react? No clue, still waiting on my proofreader to get back to me.

But yeah how we're conditioned to deal with it in the world fucking sucks. We all (or at least most of us) want love, in whatever form that may be, but we all have to kinda pretend we don't really want it, or aren't actively chasing it.

[Leyelle]

because if you do actively seek, even friendship, too quickly, you seem weird or over-eager to 90% of people, and that scares everybody away.

And i'm pretty sure we all want love. That's what it means to be human, and what makes us whole.

That has lead my male lead to lie to his best friend for 15 years, and it's taught me to try to treat legitimate requests as a joke, so that if people get uncomfortable, they'll think i didn't really mean it, smh. I'm not proud of it, but it's the reality of being afraid to scare people away.

And i get you about the proof-reader. my (unpaid volunteer) editor always has so much on his plate

[Leyelle]

I'm not about to assume that I did, but I will say that my secondary male lead, Shannon Carmichael, avoided that trope where you're rejected and then become a stalker. He also avoided that cliché of being the awesome lifelong best-friend who gets rejected in favor of a hot stranger female lead met three days earlier.

I tried to add depth to his character and complexity, things that hint at his mindset, though she never has any deep conversations with him where he explains what exactly he's thinking, so that he can make sense as a character. People were talking about how much they liked him as a character and he wasn't just thrown in for no reason, or so the girl could have to make "a decision" and then still choose who we knew she was obviously going to choose anyway. He added a change to the course of the story, legitimate conflict and emotional support.

That being said, I'd love to see a story someday where the secondary male lead type best friend character actually got the girl.

[Animal508]

If anyone here has read Surviving Romance, I think that was an interesting take.

[Leyelle]

is that a story of yours, or a comic or novel you read somewhere?

[Animal508]

It was a webtoon that I read last summer and fall. It was fantastic. Essentially, the main character is reincarnated as a romance novel character, but the story quickly turns into that of a zombie apocalypse.

[joannekwan]

The secondary male lead can definitely get the girl too if the story ends in poly!

For my extraneous love interest, I usually try to give them a goal that isn't to end in a relationship. That way they can have a complete arc as well even if it's not related to the romance in the story.

[Leyelle]

That makes sense too, I'm not sure I've written any with other arcs like that atm, but I do have two that revolve around the secondary male lead, and while I have yet to give him the female lead (because if she fell in love in two days, i tend to find that an immature character trait) they find love with another lead.

[Leyelle]

Realized I hadn't covered many of these questions in regards to Aaron and Eliza. As they start the story as a couple, most of these aren't very applicable. But...

1. Aaron likes Eliza because she's so open, passionate, cheerful and whole hearted. She's as devoted to jumping into a crazy business endeavor that will most definitely bankrupt them as she is in loving on, hugging on kissing on her husband, and while it can be a lot to deal with, that sort of dedication and heartfelt attachment to anything she cares about is beautiful in his eyes.
2. Eliza likes Aaron because he's smart and steady, always there and ready to fill in the gaps and cover for her weak points. And while she knows he thinks she's crazy, she also knows he's there to support her every step of her unhinged out of pocket way.

Healthy couple arguments?
1. Well, Aaron is incredibly gentle. He never ever yells at his wife, preferring to plead with her to be reasonable. Eliza isn't the best listener when she's set her mind on something, but when he's on her side, she's willing to take his advice on what's the best way to achieve her goals.

Lion Proof | Episode 1: Aspiration Killed the Cat

[Leyelle]

Alright long short of it, trauma.

but to break it down, there's really nothing keeping Kattar and Alicia from becoming a couple in the literal sense, but when you think about the fact that relationships exist in the emotional, rather than the physical realm, then the struggles keepign them apart are very real, and valid.

Kattar has been raised to believe that men are useless. As a man, he doesn't want to accept or believe that, but feels like he has to prove that he deserves the chance to waste any portion of Alicia's time, otherwise he'd just be dragging her down, getting in her way, altogether being no good for her. Unfortunately, he spent 15 years working towards this goal, but the hole of trauma says that you'll never feel "good enough" unless something manages to change your mindset. This is a long process, and can't be corrected just by someone telling you one time that it's not the case.

And on Alicia's side, she is bitter and extremely angry that he's hurt her intentionally for years just to try to keep her from finding out how he feels about her. No, he didn't want her to hurt, but he knew it hurt her, and yet kept lying, and refusing to admit that he found her beautiful because it would open a can of worms he didn't know how to address. He's trying to address that now, but he's not great at communicating, and their both too good at brooding. She in particular has a bad habit of overthinking and coming to her own conclusions why people do what they do, based on the gaps in her understanding of them. But thank heavens, they are finally starting to push through all that mess.

*

But that was forever ago. I was just sixteen - and hurt and angry…

I’m 28 now - angry and hurt.

If he does love me, I wish he would have just said so instead of fighting against my happiness - with him and without.

Do you want me or not, idiot?! If you love me then say so - instead of trying to keep me in a little box - a princess in a tower - just in case -

Just in case he ever does decide to condescend to say something.

*

(Art by Mariel Leister)
https://tapas.io/episode/3043956.

[KevinReijnders]

In the case of Zack, insecurity.

He's afraid that the feelings aren't mutual and that by confessing his, he runs the risk of making things "weird" between them and inevitably losing the friend he already has. So he'd rather settle for what he has than risk losing it all, even if it means he won't be any happier for it.

As for Kyara, unresolved guilt.

Some events in the past, I will not delve into deeper for spoiler reasons, caused a lot of harm and she feels responsible. She fears that growing closer with the person she likes will end up causing them more pain, because she believes she has hurt them before. Now while she claims to keep her distance, she has done pretty much the opposite of that, and as events unfold in future chapters this guilt will flare up immensely! Especially as things go less and less her way and is less in control.

[Leyelle]

He's afraid that the feelings aren't mutual and that by confessing his, he runs the risk of making things "weird" between them and inevitably losing the friend he already has. So he'd rather settle for what he has than risk losing it all, even if it means he won't be any happier for it.

Sounds like he's going through something rather similar to Kattar

[KevinReijnders]

Yeah It's kinda in the same vein as Kattar, but with less focus on him feeling 'not good enough' for them, but more with a fear of rejection. The accident that cost him his arm saw him getting tossed aside like yesterday's trash by his factory caretaker.

[Leyelle]

yikes, that's gonna do a number on your self-esteem, but wouldn't that sort of being along the vein of not considered not good enough, or not worth a lot?

[KevinReijnders]

Yeah I guess you're right on that, it all does tie into a similar feeling.

[NickRowler]

I am going to mention Crow's Worth because I did sort of leave a lot of loose threads.

Throughout the story there is a strange dynamic between Miss and Blake. They used to date as kids/teens but at one point they broke up and ended up dating new people. Miss mentions that Blake cheated on her. Later on, Blake mentions having a kid in his early 20s and being pressured to marry young. And despite it seeming they still might have feelings for each other, Blake doesn't want to abandon his kids.

As for Crow and his date, I guess I never figured out 100% what I wanted to do with that plotline but also that I felt like people lost interest in the series in general. In very early drafts, he ended up with Dai. But after some rewrites, I thought it would be better if Dai was rejected. Crow mentions he has a crush on someone else but it's never revealed who it is.

[Leyelle]

were you/are you planning to tie up the loose threads or did you decide not to finish the series?

[NickRowler]

were you/are you planning to tie up the loose threads or did you decide not to finish the series?

I guess I sort of finished the main plotline of the series but there are small details that I never fully addressed. There was more planned for the series, including a new plotline about another demon who shows up. But the last chapter took a lot of effort to draw and really underpreformed. It wasn't really worth the effort.

I think I sort of decided to just put my energy into my newer series.