Reading romance is a favorite pastime of mine, especially on Archive of Our Own. While best friends to lovers remains a trope unmatched for me, rivals in love is a close second. But when it comes to angst, forbidden romance delivers. There is excitement and mystery as well as immense extranl conflict that fuels internal conflict or passion between the characters. The question of will they get together becomes central and heightened, even if we logically know in this day and age romances are meant to end happily due to market forces. Or so Elizabeth Wheatly says.
Literature could argue that romances can end sadly but I suppose, you would today have to market that as a tragedy or have readers come after you. Or write fanfiction. Moving on.
Now, most of what I know about writing romance is a mix of intuition gained from reading such romances as well as lessons I have learnt in my genre fiction class. Today, though, I want to honour the adage of “write what you know,” and talk about what love feels like to me. Given that this is subjective, I am going to try and present a variety of potential feelings alongside mine to help you craft character motivations and thoughts for your romance writing endavours.
Love is one of the feelings that I feel brings me closet to divinity. The peace of existing with someone without question, without doubt alongside the same adventurous feeling that writing brings all come together when I am with my partner. We balance each other, question each other, test each other… and yet we try our hardest to hold faith in one another- unless proven false. We hold each other accountable, and more important, we hold ourselves accountable for how we treat the other. We learn from our mistakes and we prioritize our love. We try to be honest with our flaws and limits and respect the other’s honesty in turn.
But those aren’t the feelings I want to share per se.
I want to talk about what love feels like when you have been forced to hide it from some for a long time. When you feel like it makes you walk among the clouds.
What a character may feel after they can accept their forbidden love in front of the world
When you are in love, there are conflicting feelings, especially when a hidden love can finally be in the open, of wanting to scream about it from the rooftops and share your joy with the world. After all, you couldn’t do it for so long.
And yet, love feels like a precious fragile thing- not because you feel it will break, you know it won’t, it hasn’t in all your trails- but because you love it so. Thus, you want to keep it close to your chest and smile to yourself knowing you are feeling something beautiful. You are scared of someone harming it because that fears takes a long time to settle.
A side note, some characters and people might not be very happy with love or even want it, which to each their own, but this piece is for those characters who want and have romantic love.
In such characters who have romantic needs, some might crave a quite sort of love, in forbidden romances even they will want to either hold it close or share it with those they trust. Now, this is just my opinion. Even if it is in the forms of poems that they never let anyone read, these characters will attempt to share their love, and leave a mark of it beyond themselves when safe, even if the only way to do is coded. Because in secrecy we feel uncertain and love thrives in certainty. That whose tales are shared is love and while memory is all some forbidden lovers have, the urge to share it, to have it survive beyond themselves, can be a strong emotional point for your character.
Hence, when characters who have been rivals like in Old Love or those who have been on opposing ends of a war, come together finally, there is respect and joy. Being in the open is one of the joys such a romance can face, and some might even say it feels like an adventure. Or if they aren’t the type to scream their story to the world, then knowing now they can exist together, not being forcibly separated, that they can go somewhere and live in peace without scrutiny, without fear of having to run, and without danger is the joy that needs to be highlighted.
But what do I know about writing romance? I am just a psychological realism writer who now wants to write climate fiction. Yet, if I had to write a forbidden romance, I would write about the peace of knowing no one can come after you because no one knows about it and yet the fear of discovery. The urge to be in the open, and yet the caution of staying in the shadows. The conflicts of being a person in love but bound by something else- a fear or a duty or just danger. Sometimes, they can do this to protect themselves or their partner- like Will did in The Infernal Devices- or they can do it because they are oath-bound elsewhere. This push and pull between what’s important to the characters makes the dynamic engaging and the moment of closure, when the characters finally become one, so satisfying. After all, the forbidden fruit tastes the best.
Such romances also have ample space for covert flirting or just longlining. Characters seeing each other across the room but unable to say anything. A sentence whose true meaning only they know. Not quite there touches. Or simply, downcast eyes knowing what you longed for isn’t on the cards for you, but boy if only you could have it. Once.
But just remember, if romance readers find your characters cheating, it is immediate hate for them. No second thoughts.
What do you think? Will you be writing or reading a forbidden romance now?
Or perhaps you want to see what parental forces opposing romance can look like and what it can do to a character’s psyche who is healing from this and other trauma in my New Adult novel about therapy titled Siya: A Su*c*de’s Argument. Do heed the warnings and the age requirements.
Author’s Note: Thanks for being here! Do share and let me know your thoughts in the comments.
