Writing Romance (More specifically how to write an emotional scene)

[NuttsnBolts]

Here's an odd query on my behalf.

Romance isn't really a genre I particularly enjoy reading and don't necessarily really have a real desire to write an entire story about it, but sometimes while writing there comes a point where you have to put down the swords, guns and masses of action in order to write a scene that conveys a lot more emotion than normal. Perhaps it's a scene about two people finally meeting, or a point when a couple realise that they have deeper feelings for each other—I do not know, it's not something I'm experienced with—but how would one word an event like this in such a way that it sounds pleasing and enjoyable to read?

My biggest concern is the possibility of creating a scene that comes across cheesy, forced, and without the impact that was desired. Personally I know I can write scenes that deal with depression and loss seeing as I have maimed characters in the past and watched other players respond with surprise and sorrow, but I know that this type of written emotion is very different to one that's more personal and touches a different aspect.

Any tips, tidbits and even examples would be greatly appreciated. I'm not entirely sure what info I am really looking for, just hoping if someone can offer some reliable responses.
(Also gonna place this out there as a forewarning but I'm not talking about the writing of a scene containing smut or graphical sexual content.)

[Dion]

It's useless to write these scenes if the characters don't have a history. If you're writing it in the first page of the RP, it'll probably feel forced regardless of the way you write it simply because there'll be a lack of a real connection between the characters. In my humble opinion.

[Lady Absinthia]

Romance - how I both love and adore it. I know many don't like the cheesy romances and I can't blame them on a lot of levels but for me they hold a special place. My mother was a romance author for those types you see women reading on the beach that they picked up at the drug store. So I grew up surrounded by that world. I find them difficult to write, the scenes that is, from time to time, but there are ways around it.

The main one is having an actual attachment to the character you are Rping on some level. So for me the first step is really taking the time to develop my character and her back story and that starts in the CS. The most I work there the better I know my character. After that, it is just seeing how things unfold in the Rp, not pushing for romance, but letting it unfold naturally. If it does, then it becomes so much easier.

To help I would suggest that if you want to practice you will probably benefit from doing a 1x1 with one of your closest Rp friends or take the plunge and see if someone you know can pull off romance wants to run a 1x1 with you so you can test the waters as it were. It comes down to practice. If you can already do death scenes, depression, and darker heavy feels I can say you are already more than half way there. It is really just putting a spin on these emotions and drawing from them to make the brighter end of romance come through.

If you would like some examples of heavier feel romance - even if they are cheesy to some - hit me up - I can link you to plenty of examples lol

[Mateotis]

As with all other writing scenarios, romance writing can also be divided into two sections: inside feelings and outside actions of your character. These two make up most of your scene and it is entirely up to you which one you prefer. Personally, I like to take the former approach and look inside - you see, most people are a hot mess when it comes to love. :) A thousand thoughts race through the mind, each shouting louder than the last as they have a hell of a time trying to choose what to believe in and what to really think. People's state of mind can tell a lot about their personality, and either give them a defining attribute right away or give space to character growth: some might regard the stammering, awkward guy as 'cute' or they could learn and grow into a suave charmer with some experience!

I've also written with people who are big on writing out the character's surroundings and actions, often subjectively. For example, an otherwise completely ordinary café can very well turn into the seventh heaven when 'tinted' with love. This also applies to any other emotion - everything is relative, after all.
Also, the five senses each give a unique perspective on the events playing out, and leveraging them effectively creates, in my opinion, an incredible scene. You can start out with an objective description which twists and turns as new impulses register with your character, or you can focus on something distinct: be it the fragrance of a perfume, the touch of a hand or the pierce of a gaze... Think about it, what is the one aspect of the other that would grab your character's attention immediately?

Of course, moderation is recommended whichever way you take. Writing out feelings, actions and words in great detail can work out well for even the smallest gesture, just make sure not to make it look like your poor character is having an orgasm because the potential loved interest smiled at them.

...unless that is the type of people they are!

[Ruby]

Two tips.

1) Don't be overly sentimental: there's different kinds of romance, and every romance scene doesn't have to read like a romance novel. Maybe the two in your scene are a tad awkward, a tad unsure--happens IRL all the time. A look between two people in a crowded room can have a neon bright emotional affect if you've set it up right.

2) Make sure it's what your character wants: every character should WANT something. If your character doesn't want the romance strongly enough, just don't do it. That'll help you avoid the 'forced' issue.

2A) Make sure it's what YOU want. Got a RPer you crush on? Ask her to RP some romance with you! Make the romantic scene exciting for you, personally, and watch the sparks fly.

Need any more help? You know where to find me. <3

[BrokenPromise]

I had one of my characters fall in love with someone else's character, and we actually got to write the end of that RP. Sometimes it turned out really good, other times it was bad. But before I get into that, a word of warning...

Love is cheesy. I got to watch someone close to me fall in love, and now they are happily married. They laughed at unfunny jokes, refused to see each other's faults, and did all that luvy duvy stuff that just turns your stomach. As someone who's fallen in love a small number of times, it doesn't feel cheesy to you. So that's important to keep in mind.

So back to my character, Dedra, and the one she fell in love with, Louis. A few details: She was a baker/militia who had a fear of vampires, he was a vampire that despised his kind. She was serious and stout, he was funny but determined. They both had dark pasts they wanted to escape. They had good chemistry together, and both players wanted to see them together.

I honestly felt all of the scenes where they just kind of hung out were really cool. Dedra overcome her fear of vampires bit by bit, and Louis... didn't really change, but you discovered why he was the way he was. It was also cool to see how the characters behaved apart. There's a scene I remember fondly that I wasn't even a part of. Louis was offering some soldiers (other players) bread that Dedra made, claiming it was the best he ever had.

...then came the dramatic parts.

Dedra and Louis's first kiss felt forced. they just kinda felt like good friends when it happened. I did like how they were both forced to go on different paths afterwards, and you really got to see how their bonds affected each other. Then Louis turned evil for some random reason, appeared before Dedra as this evil person, and it got kind of out of hand. Thankfully, Louis didn't do anything especially evil, and was able to return to his old, goofy self. That was much easier for Dedra to forgive.

The best part was the climax of the roleplay, which was a battle against Satan. He created these illusions that took the form of the character's past sins. Dedra was chased by all the people she ever let down, and Louis was ambushed by all the woman he had whored around with. With their sins clambering around them, Dedra and Louis had to focus on helping the other one. So as soon as their hands intertwined, the illusions dissipated. That wasn't the only part of the last battle, but it was a nice touch from the GM that showed how far these two characters had come as people.

TL;DR: It's okay to be a little cheesy, but you need to pick characters with good chemistry and work on those bonds to the point where it feels like something could actually happen.

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For general emotional writing, it always helps to write about something the reader might be able to relate to. In that sense it's not that different than writing about loss and sorrow. Like in Dedra and Louis's case, their love became more apparent when they were separated or forced into hardships. Despair is a catalyst for many things.

[Shoryu Magami]

A few of the people who got here before me have (from what I can tell -- I haven't had time to read each post beyond a skim over, nor do I have time to) brought up a lot of the points I would've made, so I'm probably going to repeat a few things while offering some my own thoughts. I'm multitasking and need to keep this short anyway.

I suppose be warned in advance -- my posts are pretty long-winded, so read at your own discretion.

Some of the people here have suggested you get into the feeling of actually relating to your character -- honestly, this applies to pretty much all forms of role-playing, not just with romance. Of course, if you've never experienced deep feelings of romance before then it could make using this particular piece of advice difficult. Simply being sexually attracted to another person doesn't count as personally understanding either -- lust doesn't equal love, though naturally feelings of love will likely include sexual attraction; however, sexual attraction alone doesn't mean romance. Confusing a one night stand for romance is a fool's delusion. Since you've mentioned you're not talking about writing sexual scenes though, I probably don't need to go into this. It's just a common mistake for people to think smut by itself equals romance, which can bleed over into how people write 'romantic' scenes even if they don't include sexual content.

With that semi-diatribe out of the way, I'll get to my main points.

I'm in agreement that understanding the difficulties born from love (separation, loneliness, sorrow, loss, et cetera) will allow the quality of the romance to be improved -- there's a reason people say that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder'. I've been in a long-distance relationship with another member of this site for over five years now. They're in America; I'm in Australia. I can promise you that enduring this hardship has given our relationship worlds of strength that you will simply never see in a conventional couple. Getting the audience to see the struggles the two have to go through together will make their happy moments more endearing.

Out of everything I have to say in what I consider to be a post offering only a very limited amount of my thoughts on this subject, this is probably what I consider the most important -- you've discussed fearing that the writing will seem cheesy or forced. The best way to avoid it being 'forced' is to establish the characters' relationship well or don't bother at all, but it's the 'cheesy' part that I want to address specifically.

I'll be perfectly blunt with you -- I'm in disagreement with anyone who thinks you should avoid being sentimental when it comes to romance. As someone who is personally in a very deep and powerful relationship, I can tell you that a romance isn't realistic, compelling, or believable to me at all if it lacks very strong emotion. If you avoid being sentimental for fear of melodrama, I'll be more likely to read your story as people just being sexually attracted to each other and lacking real love, or if you're lucky I'll just think of it as an adolescent crush instead of a mature relationship. Long story short -- an absence of sentimentalism and melodrama will make the characters feel soulless to me. Real love is an incredibly powerful and overwhelming emotion. Anyone who suggests you don't portray it as such probably hasn't experienced love.

Also, this ties into another problem with criticisms that are directed at romantic pieces of writing. You've mentioned being afraid that you won't get the desired impact on people, but it's not possible to please everyone in the first place. Everything is entirely subjective when it comes to literature -- for every person who thinks that sentimentalism and melodrama are bad things, there's another person (such as myself) who thinks these things are required if you don't want the characters to feel like robots, regardless of whether the situation is romance or anything else. Ultimately, avoid hesitating to do something just because you think it might be 'cliché' -- nine out of ten times that's the most realistic option. Classical ideas - done correctly - are classics because they work; they are relatable.

Love - true, pure love - is a powerful, beautiful, compelling thing -- one of the greatest in this entire world. It might sound 'cliché' (not like I fucking care about idiots who toss out words like 'cliché' anyway) for me to say that, but it's true. Like was mentioned in the post prior to mine, there's nothing actually wrong with being cheesy because that's what love is. Criticisms directed at sentimental romantic stories often come from people who are superficial anyway, or people who hate love due to bitterness. At least, when not coming from someone who doesn't understand or relate to love in the first place.

On the other hand, it's very important to make sure you portray both sides of love, as my post and the previous one have emphasized -- nothing makes love more compelling than a little bit of realistic hardship or tragedy. I will point out - however - that this doesn't mean writing characters in a relationship who don't get along -- everyone has their bickering sure, but if the couple doesn't actually feel compatible then it'll just look like they're sticking together out of fear of being alone (which is, sadly, realistic, since many people do settle -- this doesn't make a good romance though).

Honestly, there's a lot of other things I could add to this thread as additional thoughts or advice, but I don't have the time. Perhaps I'll post again if no one else goes into them.

Edit: I noticed a typo, and I'm a perfectionist.