The Romance Genre is huge! Doesn’t matter is one is a fan of it or if they find it cliche’. If it’s not a romantic novel which is either a chic lit or a historical romance; a romantic relationship can be found in a lot all Young Adult or even adult books whether it is the main focus of the novel or just a subplot. Though how can we make a romance work? How can a writer create a realistic and good romantic relationship between their characters. The Untitled Chapters Team shares with you some of their opinions on what make a good romantic relationship

1. Each partner has to be their own independent character

   We see this done incorrectly in many novels that are published these days. The guy or the girl are just there to be the love interest of the protagonist without having any other role in the book. That person’s character will only weaken because they don’t have any other purpose in the book except be the love interest that would even weaken the book in general because there wasn’t enough effort put in making each character their own independent person. Let them have interests or be interested in other things other than the partner

   Give both characters flaws. Many authors make the mistake of creating a love interest that is so PERFECT in every possible aspect that it ends up making the character one dimensional and unrealistic. Flaws add depth in characters so don’t be afraid to make your characters not perfect

2. Don’t use the “I can’t live without you!!!” Statement 

   Loving someone so much is very good, don’t get us wrong  However having a character literally say that they can’t live without their significant other is not that appealing, especially if they want to commit suicide should their partner die or leave them. It shows weakness in a character and it is the type that readers don’t usually enjoy; especially if it’s the heroine. Female leads who cannot live without a man are some of the few types of heroines that readers are sick off and will not enjoy reading about, especially if the guy is everything that is important in her life. After all; it would be unrealistic for a character to not have cared about anything until they met their partner

3.  Physical Attraction

   Yes, being physically attracted to your significant other is essential and it is often shown in books that the two characters are at least find themselves attractive but it’s not everything. However too much of that could result in readers seeing your characters as shallow people who only want to be in a relationship with the other person because they are attractive. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see a relationship blossom based on common interests and friendship and not necessarily have the physical attractiveness be the initial phase of the attraction?

4. Show us why they care

   This is extremely important in building any romantic couple in a book. Show how feelings were developed between the two characters. Show the readers why your characters fell in love with their partners and how the progression from being acquaintances to the events that resulted in developing romantic feelings. This will help in making the romance more believable and if the reasons are good enough, it will not only make you avoid you having shallow characters but chances are readers are gonna fall for your characters as well

5. RESPECT

   One of the biggest flaws in many romance novels these days is the lack of respect that one partner shows the other and yet it is seen as being okay. Other than passion and love, respect for the other person in the relationship is extremely important to have and a writer must show that in the novel. We see male characters be “Alpha”s or become extremely bossy over the female and tend to want to control her indirectly by stating that he does the things that he does to her for her own good. This should be avoided completely. If a person loves you, then they should respect a) their partner’s space b) their decisions that they take c) don’t get mad if the partner doesn’t want to do the things that they want

   Having none of those and creating a character that pushes their partner around creates a douche and a jerk that readers will never tolerate, especially if their partners allow themselves to be bossed, pushed or abused by the other while making excuses for their partners as to why they do the unacceptable things that they do to them

6. Conflict

    

    

   Even if your book is a romantic one and your characters are suited with each other, every relationship has conflict, even after they get involved with each other so show us some conflict between the characters. This will help in making the relationship realistic because no relationships is perfect and is without any disagreements. Besides it’s always fun to see how the two people will recoil.

   Happy Writing!

    

    

   – The Untitled Chapters Team