How To Write A (Good) YA Romance – Part 2, Falling In Love

Okay, so in Part 1 of this series about YA Romance, we talked about the two most important ingredients in any YA novel, which are the main character and the love interest.  These are the foundation upon which the swoon-worthy romance you’ll be crafting are based on.  If you have a great, non-Mary Sue, main character and a ridiculously, ridiculously attractive love interest, you should be ready to proceed.

In this essay, I’ll be discussing what an author can do to begin building a romantic relationship between their main character and their love interest.  This article will be focusing on having the characters fall in love with each other, and having the audience fall in love with the characters as they are falling for each other.

As always, I’d like to preface this by saying I do not consider myself an expert on writing YA Romance, just a reader with very strong opinions on how things should be done.  This article is meant to help inspire other authors to take a closer look at their writing, in the hopes of helping them to craft strong novels which enhance the YA genre.  So if you don’t agree with my opinions, feel free to ignore them.  I’m not the final say on how you should write your book.

Now that that’s out of the way – LISTEN TO ME I KNOW OF WHICH I SPEAK!!!!! *ahem*  Moving on…

Part 3:  Create Sexual Tension

All the best romances are built on tension between the man and the woman.  This is why you see so many characters start off hating each other when they first meet, and slowly realize they’re perfect for each other.

If you look at Twilight again, there is sexual tension from the moment Bella lays eyes on Edward.  She sees him at lunch and is attracted to him.  Then, she finds out she has to sit next to him in Biology, and is nervous.  She’s then horrified that he seems totally appalled by her, so much so he has to leave the class.  She then frets over how much he dislikes her, until he eventually comes around and makes an attempt to be nice, at which point the tables are turned, and it seems as though Edward likes her, and Bella is the one who isn’t interested.

This is an age-old trope you’ll find in romances again and again.  Just look at the TV series Moonlighting, which is the purest example of sexual tension I can think of, and you’ll see what I mean.  Sexual tension just creates natural conflict and angst which audiences can get sucked into.  Audiences love to see sexual tension, which is why it is used so often in romantic dramas, and even comedies.

Now, when I talk about “sexual tension,” I’m not actually talking about the type of tension of “will they have sex?”  Sexual tension is when two characters are attracted to one another, but they do not know if the other person feels that same level of attraction, and that causes conflict.

Think of it this way – you’re a gawky, awkward, teenage girl.  You’re forced to sit next to the hot jock in your chem class.  You’re immediately attracted to him.  While you work together as lab partners, you start to get the sense that he might be into you.  He makes jokes, flirts, and you two have a good time together.  But then, you notice he acts the exact same way with other girls.  Does he really like you?  Or is that just part of his outgoing personality?  Oh no!  Does this mean he really isn’t into you at all, so you better protect yourself from heartbreak?  But what if he is into you, and giving up now means you miss your chance???  Time to lock yourself in a dark room, listen to an Adele album, and contemplate the pointlessness of life.

That is an example of sexual tension – the ambiguity that comes from not knowing if the person you’re attracted to is attracted to you.  When you discover the answer to that ambiguity, sexual tension is broken.  If enough of that tension is built up, when it finally pays off, it can not only be a big moment for the characters, but the audience as well.  It’s like a climax after foreplay.  Sexual tension is all about emotional foreplay.

If you look at Twilight once again, almost half of that book is devoted to the sexual tension between Bella and Edward.  At first, Bella thinks Edward is repulsed by her, but then it seems like Edward likes her, and Bella is unsure of his intentions.  She becomes fascinated with his attempts to stay away from her, and yet his constant overtures of interest baffle her.  She doesn’t know how Edward feels about her, until the moment in the woods where he finally reveals the reason why he’s been trying to keep his distance.  From that point on, the sexual tension is broken, and the romance begins.

This is where the “mystery” of the love interest comes into play.  The sexy, yet “mysterious” man is only mysterious insofar as the female protagonist does not know how he really feels about her.  Readers love this mystery, because the more tension is built up, the more satisfying the experience is when it’s finally released.  Lots of YA books start off with the heroine and the love interest hating each other for this very reason.  How many times have you seen the female protagonist lay eyes on the love interest, think “OMG he’s so hawt!!!”, then the love interest acts like a complete jerk, and now the heroine has to reconcile her physical attraction with her emotional repulsion, which only becomes harder as the love interest slowly reveals his more charming personality traits?  This is a simple trope that is able to build the sexual tension to the point where the audience is begging for some type of release.

The mark of a truly great “romance” writer is how well they can construct sexual tension between characters.  In your story, you should always devote some time to the building of sexual tension.  If you leave it out, or don’t put enough into the story, the moment your characters finally admit their feelings won’t have as great of an impact as it potentially could.

Imagine a pressure cooker.  The sexual tension of your story should build up like the steam in a pressure cooker.  The gage on the cooker should go all the way into the red, making the audience feel like it’s about to explode, before you finally hit the release and allow the steam to escape.  This is what audiences respond to.

And you can continue to layer in sexual tension throughout your story.  Once the romance starts, you can introduce obstacles that make the heroine question the love interest’s feelings for her, which will create new sexual tension.  You can literally re-introduce this as many times as you like, and audiences will eat it up, because this is the type of thing they read these books for.

What you want to be careful of is taking this to the extreme, to the point where you make it seem like the love interest and the main character actually hate one another.

I’ll often see YA books where the “sexy bad boy” love interest just acts like a complete jerk, and the heroine is all “OMG – he’s so hot!  But he doesn’t like me!  Waaaahh!”  And the reader begins thinking “Girl, are you really that hard up that you’d pine over this guy who’s a complete a-hole?  Self-respect, go get some.”

Creating sexual tension does not translate into making your primary love interest a jerk.  Can he be a jerk?  Sure.  But that should be a part of his personality, not a cheap excuse for creating sexual tension.  Remember that there has to be a reason WHY your heroine is attracted to your love interest in the first place, and it must be something beyond just his looks.  I don’t care how good looking someone is, if they are mean, condescending, and disrespectful, they’ll become ugly real fast.  Everyone knows this.  So if you insist that your main character continue to be attracted to a jerk, no matter how bad he treats her, she’s going to come off as unrelatable to the reader.

And worse than that, you’re going to turn off a certain segment of your readers to your love interest.

Make both your characters real.  You can layer in mystery and uncertainty to create sexual tension without turning your characters into cheap stereotypes.  Sexual tension is not hard to create.  Just establish why your main character is attracted to your love interest, and then have her and the audience try to figure out if he feels the same way.

Part 4:  Make The Romance Believable

To quote The Princess Bride:  “Wuv.  Trwooo wuv…”

This is what YA is all about, isn’t it?  Finding that one true love?  Living that fairy tale fantasy romance every little girl dreams about?

Well, keep in mind there is a fine line between a romance for the ages, and a “you gotta be kidding me – *gag*.”  The romance portion of YA novels is usually where things start to fall apart and you begin seeing Mary Sues emerge.  So it is important to know how to do them well.

Typically, you’ll want your romance to occur AFTER you’ve established enough sexual tension and then released that tension.  Once that happens, you’ll want to develop the relationship of your characters in a way that is true to your story, but also true to the experiences of your readers.

What you DON’T want to do is throw reality out the window in favor of fantasy.  Everyone has experience with human interaction.  Most of your readers will have gone out on dates, been in relationships, and maybe even gotten married.  They’ll know the reality of what it means to be with someone.  If you go too far out of their experience with your romance, you’ll begin to alienate them.

So what kind of things make a romance not believable?  Things like:

Love at first sight.  It rarely happens in real life, and worst of all, it skips all the great angsty parts of falling in love that readers crave.  Go for the slow burn instead of jumping right into the deep end of the love pool.  Your readers will thank you.

Attraction comes too easy.  If your heroine is a “Plain Jane,” and she has men fighting over her constantly and wanting to be with her and falling head-over-heels in love with her, that often goes counter to people’s experiences.  Have your “Plain Jane” work for the attention she receives from guys.  Make her an active participant in achieving her goals.

Unwavering devotion.  When characters fall in love with your heroine and instantly become devoted to her and only her, people begin to wonder what it is about the heroine that warrants that kind of devotion, because it’s something that most people never experience.  Make your characters earn that type of devotion, instead of just having it handed to them.

Crossing social mores.  There are some things which the majority of readers can’t approve of when reading romances.  These vary depending on the reader.  They can be anything from incest, to rape, to harassment, to abuse.  When a character loves another character despite the crossing of these social mores, you run the risk of losing the vast majority of your audience.  For instance, the relationship between Clary and Jace in the Mortal Instruments series turned many readers off because these two still struggled with their romantic feelings for one another despite discovering they were “brother and sister.”  Though it turned out they were not ultimately related, there were two books where they thought they were, and yet had almost uncontrollable attraction for each other.  This made it hard for some readers to stick with the story.  You never want to venture too far when crossing lines of convention in your books.  Otherwise, people question the validity of the romance.

Shallow Love.  This is where two characters “love” each other for no apparent reason than they’re both attractive and the plot requires it.  Shallow love does not ring true to the reader, and they’ll quickly become bored with reading about it.  They want to see the depth of emotion your two characters experience for one another, and watch as they struggle to make sense of what they are feeling.

I see authors make these mistakes time and time again.  I believe this stems from them not fully thinking through how relationships are actually formed.  An author must always consider real-life experiences, audience expectations, and benefit to an over-all narrative when crafting the relationships between their characters.  Though it could be argued that everything I just listed occurs in real life, that doesn’t mean it’s satisfying (or fun) to read about.

If you really want to craft a romance your readers will obsess over, you need to make the romance believable.  What I mean by this is you must layer in things your reader will be familiar with, so that they can identify with the romance.

Here are some things you can include in your romance to make it more real:

Jealousy.  Let’s face it, we all experience jealousy at one time or another.  Adding some jealousy in among your characters not only creates an obstacle they must overcome, but it’s something readers can relate to.  Have you ever felt jealous?  Have you ever dealt with someone who’s jealous?  How did that affect your relationship?

If you look at the Twilight series, there is a great deal of jealousy between Jacob and Edward over Bella.  This created obstacles that Edward and Bella’s relationship had to overcome, and fans ate it up.

Keeping up appearances.  When we like someone, we want to try and impress them and put our best foot forward.  Sometimes this can be endearing, other times it can be funny, and still other times it can be disastrous.  What happens when your heroine wakes up one morning after FINALLY kissing the man of her dreams to discover she’s had a breakout of acne on her chin?  How does she react?  Does she try to avoid her love interest because she’s embarrassed for him to see her?  And does her avoiding him make him think he did something wrong and she’s not interested in him anymore?

I once had a friend who met a girl and had a wonderful date.  Things seemed to be going well, they were making out, and the girl suddenly freaked out and said she had to leave.  He was confused and upset, and thought he’d done something to scare her off.  As it turns out, she admitted to him the next day that she hadn’t had time to shave her legs before their date, and she was afraid if he felt how stubbly her legs were, he’d be grossed out and never want to see her again.

Though that’s a real life example, it’s also a perfect one about the things people do to keep up appearances in relationships.  This is yet another thing we can all relate to.

Trying too hard.  Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we end up trying too hard to make things “perfect.”  They guy gets a dozen roses, rents a limo, and takes the girl out on a lavish date – only to find that the girl would have preferred to go to McDonalds and chat all night long.  There’s something endearing about seeing a character try really hard to impress their partner, and seeing that partner let them know that they don’t have to go to those lengths to make them happy.

If you look at Twilight again, Edward tries really hard to suppress the vampire aspects of his life for Bella’s sake.  But Bella lets him know she accepts him for who he is, and he doesn’t have to hide the part of his life he’s ashamed of.  This is a great way of communicating love and acceptance, when a character prefers their partner “as is.”  It is something we can not only relate to, but dream about finding.

Discovery.  Once the romance starts to blossom, this is when two people really start to get to know each other.  And it is the perfect time to start revealing details of the past of your characters.  That dark secret your sexy bad boy is harboring?  Yep, now it’s time to reveal it.  That tragic past?  Let’s have him tell her all about it!  We can all relate to “getting to know” the person you’re falling in love with.  It can’t just be “all attraction, all the time!”  There has to be substance to it, and that substance comes from DISCOVERY.

Remember that strong relationships are built upon two things:

Trust
Commonalities

When you discover things about the person you’re with, you start to trust them.  The same is true about readers.  The more they discover about the characters you’ve created, the more they’ll grow to like and trust those characters.

Similarly, when two people discover things they have in common, bonds are formed and strengthened.  Two people who are physically attracted to each other but have nothing in common will not last long.  You need to create these connections to establish a believable relationship.  Do your two love birds have the same sense of humor?  Do they both enjoy baseball?  Are they both passionate about literature?  What are the things they (and your audience) can discover that lets them know they’re right for each other?

The Golden Rule Of Romance:  Always remember this rule when it comes to “Love, true love.”  And that is – true love doesn’t just happen.  It must be made to happen.

You can still have fairy-tale elements to your romance.  But the key is to have your characters make that love work, as opposed to just having it magically happen the moment they meet.  Characters in your story should be active, otherwise they will be boring to read about.  If you want them to find true love, then make them work for it.

True love is “true” because it perseveres no matter what comes between the two people who are in that love.  Never allow your characters to have it easy.  Constantly throw obstacles in their path and give the reader an opportunity to see how their love conquers those challenges.  A romance that just happens is boring.  A romance two people have to fight to make work is enthralling.

To Be Continued…

See how smart I am?  See?  SEE????  I’m so smart, that I have a bajillion (it’s a number) times more things to say on this subject.  However, I’m going to hold off until the next post to do so because these are freakin’ long.  In the next article, we’ll go over four more guidelines for writing YA romance, such as emotional description and the creation and use of angst (if you’re writing YA, ya gotta know how to do the angst!).

I hope you enjoyed this article.  As always, if you have thoughts, feedback, or ideas, please feel free to post in the comments section.  I love hearing from you!  All two of you who read my blog!  (Hi, mom!)