As you guys know, I am not the type of person who likes love-triangles or many other lovey-dovey type tropes in books. However, I’m not completely heartless; I still enjoy a good love story now and again in a book when it’s not completely contrived. So let’s talk about how I think a romance should be written.
First of all, when writing a romance, keep the audience in mind. If you’re writing for a younger audience, maybe keep the lovey-dovey scenes to a minimum. A kiss here and there is fine, but anywhere past that and I would recommend a higher age rating. If you’re writing for an mid/late teen audience, you can make it a bit more mushy as long as it adds to the story. However, if you plan on writing really steamy scenes, please save that for adult books. An example of this is the Divergent trilogy. Though it’s rated for an audience of 14+, I would rate it more along the lines of 16+ given how many pages are borderline if not implied sex scenes and were quite uncomfortable to read, especially with how crappy the love interest was, which leads me to my next point….
When writing your love interest, you need to give them more personality than, “OMG he has a visible six-pack and is emotionally uninterested in me!” I have seen this trope in so many young adult romances (especially in dystopian fiction) that it makes me want to gag every time I see it. While this type of romance is appealing to women, that doesn’t mean that its healthy, and it certainly doesn’t promote a healthy view of relationships. In fact, it actually has been known to destroy relationships because of the unrealistic expectations that it promotes. Instead, I would advise that you write a relationship that is healthy and traditional. You can still have a bad-boy, mysterious love interest if you want, but you need to give the reader a reason to like them. An example of this is Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. At the beginning of the book, he is a complete jerk and you really don’t like him, but as the book progresses, he gradually becomes nicer and we see how much he’s done for Elizabeth’s sake to earn her love.
Another way you could write your love interest is by making them a noble person who makes their love for their partner known through sacrifice. Take for instance Beren from Tolkien’s Beren and Luthien. Though Beren is a mostly flat character and doesn’t change much through the text, it is obvious how much he loves Luthien through how much he’s willing to sacrifice for her, including taking on a suicide mission to steal a Silmaril from evil incarnate. Both options provide a much better story that’s much more interesting and wholesome to read about other than a story where the girl ends up with the guy because he called her pretty once.
While I’m mostly talking about guys here (since most romances seem to center around a meet cute between a female protagonist and her male lover), I think that you shouldn’t neglect your female character either. Just like with the guys, she needs to be interesting and have a personality. Giving them the ability to read and dyspraxia does not count as giving them personality. You need to figure out what makes her stand out from the crowd that eventually draws the guy to her. This will make an interesting subplot/main plot depending on if you want your entire book to center around the romance or something else.
Until next time,
M.J.
The Tanuki Corner 
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