Aragorn & Arwen: The Greatest Untold Romance
Romantic leads are difficult outside of romance, but they are one of the most popular and accepted subplots. Everyone loves a good love story or tragic love story. The whole trick is to make the characters believable. Unfortunately, not everyone is going to agree with you on this. Love is one of those things that people view differently.
First, I’m going to touch on the aspect of working with a cast of characters instead of the two character system. Fans will want certain characters to hook up even if that isn’t what the author has planned. Think Harry/Hermione or Aang/Toph (Last Airbender), neither of which happened. Part of this is because people have their favorite characters and want those to get what they perceive as the big happy ending. This isn’t to say people are right or wrong. It simply happens, so try not to let it get to you.
Now, here are some aspects to pay attention to when designing romantic leads:
- Chemistry– Like in real life, your characters need to click and be believable as romantic interests. Too perfect or too flawed and you can lose the audience. This takes some delicate work and patience to design. Again, you might see the chemistry while some readers won’t. Eye of the beholder is a big thing here.
- Connected Characters– The characters have to get along to some extent for the romance to work. I’m not saying perfection, but they aren’t always fighting. They can start that way and work up to a solid relationship. If they fight to the point of hate from beginning to end then it makes for a rather sad romance. Do this only if you’re aiming for people to pity the lovers.
- Don’t Force It– I’ll be honest that a romantic subplot might not always work. You can try to work it in, but never force it. That will come across. If you can retool the story to make it click then go ahead. Otherwise, accept that your story has no love interest until a movie is made and the scriptwriter adds a female elf.
- Perfect Male– In many romance novels, the guy is a mountain of muscle with perfect hair and perfect everything. That can be done for other genres, but you might not get the same result. Remember that romance in other genres tends to be a subplot or milder in its perfection. In fantasy, you can end up with a hero who is flawless, which can be a mistake.
- Perfect Female– Not even sure this exists because it female characters can get more variety than males. Beauty is always the key here, which tends to jump to other genres. Still, there is a fragility and need for rescue that gets put into a romantic lead female. Many authors make a mistake of weakening their female characters when they enter a romance. For some characters this might work because they have established a tough exterior, but there are other ways. A tough female character lashing out at a romantic gesture or sputtering in embarrassment can work just as well as girlish twitters.
- The Courting– You can go the ‘love at first sight’ route, which many people roll their eyes at. If working with an ensemble cast then you can do this and the more entertaining courtship. Ease into a romantic subplot by having the characters get to know each other and enjoy the ride. Flirting, gifts, a first date, kiss, failed date, jealousy, and everything that you can think of from relationships can be used to make the romance feel more organic.
- The Ending– Here’s where things can get the stickiest. The ending of a romantic plot has to make sense. Happily ever after needs to be earned. Don’t shy away from a tragic end to the romantic subplot of a story. It doesn’t have to be death of a character, but the simple dissolution of the relationship. One character can fear the commitment or the brewing finale can have them not wanting to have the weight of love on their mind when they enter battle. For example, Buffy and Angel did not have a happy ending. In fact, watch most of Joss Whedon’s work to see how romantic subplots can end in tragedy.
Legends of Windemere 
Evidently, those scriptwriters can even rewrite nonfiction to introduce a romantic partner that didn’t actually exist. They sure seem to have a lot of freedom. 🙂
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That should be a crime. At least with fiction, you can argue creative license. If you’re rewriting historical events to include a romance then it’s just odd. Unless it’s a satire or something.
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Excellent post. One area that I personally wish I had spent more time on is developing the romance between Nathan and Sybil…when I reread, it sort of comes across as a summer fling rather than a deep and committed relationship. There were after effects to the fling, angst and longing concerning issues between them, but I feel I could have cultivated their relations a bit more meaningfully during their summer together. Hindsight.
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Do you think it being a fling with repercussions might be a benefit to the book? Some people might see it as something stronger because it comes off as more instinctive instead of cultivated.
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That’s possible…nobody has really commented on it in reviews, just something I myself have observed. Their relations have been referred to as an affair…which I found puzzling since neither was married and my mind always thinks of affair as somebody cheating. Perhaps it did add to the overall character of the story to have been something regrettably superficial.
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Some people put ‘affair’ on anything that’s a romantic relationship beyond dating to the level of marriage. It’s odd. I know the love triangle in my story gets me in trouble because it goes against that mentality.
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I recall a patient once claiming her husband was having an “affair” because he hugged a lady in his Church. There was no more to the story, just that. Geez.
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Some people are very uptight and sensitive. I knew a girl who claimed that a boyfriend looking at an attractive woman constituted cheating.
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Good advice! 🙂
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Thanks 🙂
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I’m awful with romance. This will be helpful.
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Glad to be of help. I’m terrible too, so I figure it out as I go along. Probably use more corny stuff than I’d like to admit.
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Great thoughts and advice. (And I’m glad you mentioned Aragorn and Arwen. :-)) I’m working through this very issue in my novel. I’m not a fan of insta-love, though so many books have it. The tension of the book severely decreases for me when I know that the characters already love each other. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of those romances where the hero and heroine squabble over issues they can resolve in five minutes. I like roadblocks to romance. But yeah, chemistry is everything. I certainly don’t mind a hot hero. But I can see how irritating a perfect hero might seem.
I wanted Zuko and Katara to get together in Avatar. But I wound up accepting the actual outcome.
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I try not to weigh in on character romances. It saves me from disappointment. I think the insta-love can work as a beginning if done correctly, but it shouldn’t be a smooth journey. I’m playing with an insta-love romance right now in my books. Thought, it’s a bit one-sided with one character unsure of their feelings.
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Yeah, romance is tricky. You have to strike just the right tone. My epic fantasy “The War of the Moonstone” is half big war story and half love triangle, so I spent a lot of time wrestling with this issue. I don’t know what advice I could give, but I would say pacing is critical — how fast do the relationships develop/unravel vs. where are we (the reader) in being invested in the characters. Don’t have your romance build to a climax just when your lead has done something rotten.
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Interesting combination. Though, your last sentence makes me wonder about an alternative: Villains in Love.
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I always end up with a romance somewhere in the plot, even when I don’t intend it in the beginning. But there’s not always a HEA involved.
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They seem to slip in there. I think because relationships are such a major part of life that it tends to organically appear in stories. I think I’ve got at least one romance that isn’t going to have an HEA. It’s realistic that it doesn’t always happen.
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