PJO & HP for Dummies

Romance 👁 👅 👁

THIS IS ONLY FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO WRITE ABOUT ROMANCE IN YOUR FIC.

So! You've made your OC and now you want to pair them up with someone. That's great. I'll leave you to pick the love interest (don't ask me for any advise on this part, it literally took me a whole year to decide on who to pair my OC with, I'm so sorry to my readers  😭).

But you're having trouble writing their love story?

I can help you with that (maybe)!

The most I can really do is give you tips... BUT I'LL TRY MY BEST!

Tip #1: LoVE aT fIRsT SiGhT

That shit ain't real. It's physical attraction, not love.

Do not write about Character A meeting Character B for the first time and thinking "oh man, I barely said a word to them, but I'm already in love! Lemme go grab the marriage papers!"

No.

Do not do that. You can have them acknowledge how good looking the other person is, but do not make them fall in love. You can make your character think they're in love if they're supposed to be that naive, but "love at first sight" is not real.

Tip #2: Make the romance gradual

Related to the above tip.

Don't make them fall in love at... chapter eight or whatever unless your chapters are like 10,000+ words long I guess.

If you wanna write a kiss scene on chapter five, then fine, but there shouldn't be any genuine romance between the pair. If they kiss just because they wanna have fun, they're drunk, they're physically attracted to each other, or whatever then that's fine. JUST DON'T MAKE THEM FALL IN LOVE SO EARLY ON!

Build it up! Develop your characters first! Have them learn about the other's backgrounds, their personalities, their flaws, and maybe they slowly fall in love because of them.

If your romance is just based on physical attraction, then it's not gonna last long. If it does last long, then you're writing it unrealistically. Let the characters learn about each other and build up the romance.

Just... don't do the fucking "love at first sight" bullshit, please.

Tip #3: Development

Before you get to the romance, you should probably work on developing your characters.

It's gonna be hard for your readers to give a shit about them if they barely know who the characters are.

If the only pieces of information the readers know about the characters are simple things like what their favorite color is, their favorite foods, fashion styles, and other lame shit, then that's barely scratching the surface of who your characters are.

Plus, if that's what the readers know about your characters, then that's probably the only things your characters know about each other. Go back to Tip #2, your characters need to gradually learn about each other before they gradually fall in love with each other.

Show the readers what kind of personality they have, show them their backstories, how they think, feel, and work, etc. Because if you show the readers that, then the characters are learning it too and then they can start falling in love.

Tip #4: Warnings

If the type of romance you're writing about isn't the cute, clean, healthy kind, then leave warnings about it at the start of the book. Tell your readers beforehand that the book contains trigger warnings and then list them out.