Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Romance

I have spent many years reading and writing romance that there are a few mistakes that writers, including myself, have made in our novels. Fortunately, as society progresses we are coming a bit more aware of what is considered a healthy romantic relationship and what isn’t.  For me, I can see the difference in my writing between the first time I wrote a romance novel to my recent romance novel.  These tips are not just for novels that fit in the romantic genre, they are also for novels that are in any other genre such as YA or Fantasy and include a romantic relationship between a couple. The tips are also important to remember whether you are writing a novel, a play or a screenplay that has romantic elements in it. 

The Mistakes:

Glamourising abuse

Most people do love the stereotypical relationship between the bad boy and good girl, and sometimes they are done well and aren’t glamourising abuse. However, there are certain books, movies, t.v. series that create a relationship and makes it seem perfect even though there are major red flags.  It is important to remember that abuse isn’t only physical, abuse can be emotional and affect a character’s mental state. This abuse can be overly jealous. Being jealous is normal, but when that trait is used to stop a character from seeing friends or not being able to even talk to a person who is serving them coffee because their partner will get jealous, then that isn’t right.  Doing this can be extremely bad for any reader especially the younger ones, as they will believe that love is what is being portrayed. They will think overly jealous is sweet because it means their partner cares when we all know that it doesn’t mean that, in fact, it means they love to be in control and make the other person in the couple have no freedom.  And we have to remember this is a cycle, the readers who enjoy writing will see these types of relationships and write them in their stories and might ending up sharing their story on Wattpad, that means showing even more readers that the ‘perfect’ relationship is with this sort of abuse when we all know it isn’t. However, showing abuse in a relationship can work if you state this is wrong and toxic. I read the book The Flat Share, and there we witness one of the protagonists learnt that their previous relationship was actually really toxic and learnt how wrong it was. 

Instant romance

Think about it. Who here has read a book or watched a movie and the leading couple fall in love the moment they lay eyes on one another? I have, and I am sure that many of you have as well. Of course, growing up we’ve learnt that this is not how love actually works because we’ve experienced some sort of romance in real life. However, at a younger age, we believe this is how romance work because we are naive and don’t know anything about it. Having instant romance makes it unrealistic and gives the reader false expectations. 

Romance with nothing in common

Every couple will not have every single thing in common, but their values should be the same. Not doing this will make the reader question this relationship and wonder why this couple is together. For example, if one person in a relationship doesn’t want children, while the other person does, it’s no point keeping them together. Having their relationship prolonging in the hopes that one of them will change their mind is not right because it will affect their relationship in a negative way.  Other values that a couple should share are: finance and how they will raise their child. Not sharing these values will put a strain on their relationship and make it hard to understand why they would be together if they go towards things differently. 

Not having any vulnerability

Everyone has emotions, no matter if they are born as a male or female. Therefore it is important to show these vulnerable moments when the couple can show their emotions as not only does it create their relationship as realistic and healthy, it also deepens their love for one another. 

As stated above, sometimes it is alright to include these mistakes if shown to the reader that this isn’t right. It is also important to remember that showing disagreements between your couple does create their relationship to be realistic because in real life everyone views and perceives things slightly different. What you have to remember is the disagreements shouldn’t make the reader think, no they should break up, but more I can see where they both are coming from and know they will work it out.  To avoid these mistakes just think about what you would love in a partner, and look back into your relationships, current ones or past ones, whether they were bad or good it will help you create a couple that readers will root for. And remember to think about what kind of message you want to give your readers, especially the younger ones.