Writing Words: On Romance

When writing a romance, the main points to keep in mind are pacing, empathy, conflict, and payoff.

Conflict is important for nearly every story and romances are no exception. There is a term I started using to describe shipfics that contain little to no conflict: February Fiction. A typical FebFic starts with one character reflecting on their love for another. Then they meet that character in an unexpected place to time. Something happens--usually it's a random event; seldom is it character driven--and that character admits their love, which is always returned immediately. These tend to be very short, usually a single scene. While these stories can be fun, they are ultimately forgettable. The level of conflict is so low that the payoff, the sense of relief and/or satisfaction the reader experiences, is nearly non-existent. The only dramatic tension in the story is typically the PoV's worry about whether or not the object of their attraction returns their feelings. Once those feelings are out in the open, they are returned without issue. This creates a very low sense of "worth" to those feelings. Value isn't given to them, because they came so easily. On the other hoof, a fic where the character has to battle demons, inner or literal, and push themselves right to the very limit of their endurance, and then beyond, for the sake of their love, has a lot more conflict. They went through more to win their love and so it has a far higher value.

Another thing that is very important to a number of readers is the personal payoff they get from completing the story. If the end of the romance doesn't make people want to smile like idiots or hug random objects, you're probably doing something wrong. A personal sense of fulfillment is very important to any work, but in something where the main story is all emotional development, the lack of a daw-inducing ending can kill a story regardless of how well written the rest was. While different people feel differently about how long an epilogue should be, you need something after the affirmation of love to help prod reader from "I am ok with this" to "Oh my gosh, I want to hug this so much." Typically this part of a fic is dedicated to showing what the characters have achieved. It's time to be cute and sappy. Depending on how low-key the ship was, it can be as simple as a kiss or other sign of trust, all the way up to and including marriage and/or sex.

Of course, the amount of struggle the characters go through is moot if the reader can't empathize with them. Your reader need to connect with your character before they care whether Rainbow Dash ends up snogging Fluttershy. This is usually done by playing up and showing emotions. Without getting into "show, don't tell", all I can really say is that having realistic emotions that seem genuine, in character, and justified is extremely important. If you rewrite Rainbow Dash to be a super sensitive, emotionally fragile, introspective parody of herself, people are not going to care. If she goes from "not interested" to spouting poetic nonsense about true love without some sort of reasons, people will not care. If she says "I love you" but ignores the other character and/or treats them like "just a friend", the "love" seems fake, and people will not care. If your reader stops caring about the characters, the fic is over.

Pacing is a thing a lot of shipfics fail to get right. Canonically, none of our main characters are romantically interested in each other. As a shipper, you have two options: One, develop that interest (or an alternative reason for shippy-shenanigans); Or two, start past that and attempt to show why the character is already interested in the other. If you can make it seem real and integrated into their life, people will accept it. But developing that sense of realism requires time. If you're going down the fall-in-love route, you must show us their love. Just saying they love each other, or showing us one scene of them being lovey-dovey, isn't enough. We need to see them doing normal-ish things and being in love. The same goes for starting from already-in-love. There needs to be events that allow you to showcase their feelings. It can be during a date, it can be during a formal dance, or a racing across Equestria. The main thing is, they have to act like they're in love, not just say it.

By forcing characters to overcome barriers to realize their love, you can give emotional weight and a sense of value to it. The reader will feel elated as the characters "win" love instead of being handed it. If the reader is able to feel what the characters feel, then when they win, the reader does too. Finally, if events and key emotional points are spread out of a realistic timeline, the reader is more easily able to buy that two ponies want to do more than hug. There are millions of tiny little points, but these are the three big ones I think apply to almost every shipfic/romance.