Writing Romance Tropes: Belated Love Epiphany
Description: A confession of love or a couple getting together right before one or both of these characters die.
Ideas:
Person A and Person B pining over each other for the entire book/series and not getting to tell each other until the very end, when they realize it's now or never
Person A dying and telling person B that they love them. Person B never having loved them back, and feeling the guilt of that, never getting to move on because Person A is now dead.
Person B just realized that they love Person A right before losing them.
In a situation where they're both going to die, Person A and Person B kiss/hold hands/confess. Die knowing that they loved each other.
Person A about to sacrifice themselves, Person B begs them not to because "I LOVE YOU," person A does anyways.
Person B promising to always love Person A, no matter what happens to them.
Person B screaming Person A's name when they won't respond to them.
Person B cradling Person A and crying.
Person A and Person B feuding the entire book and then when Person A dies and confesses, Person B feels like they should've stopped being such a jerk.
Person B hurrying to confess their love as Person A is running out of time.
Person B whispers that they love Person A as they're dying.
Any other characters present either:
In shock over the love confession
Understanding, having known and feeling deeply sorry that the lovers didn't get to know themselves
Person A not being able to finish their love confession before they die, Person B never truly knowing if they were going to confess their love.
Tips:
If you're writing a romance novel: do. not. use. this. trope. If you do, it is not a romance novel, it is a tragedy. If your romance is a subplot, carry on.
Please don't let the person being confessed to be the only person affected by the character death unless they are the ONLY character that knew the one that died.
Make sure to develop the relationship and hint at romance before killing off one or both of them. A sudden confession of love will not seem real.
Don't just kill them cause you want a sad love story in your book. If you want sad romance, make them break up! That's sad! You don't have to kill a character to stop a romance.
This can be kind of cliche, but don't worry! Any way you twist it will turn it into a fun and original trope.
I suggest using the big L word if you're going to end a characters life. After they're dead, there's no more development (of course unless the person that died was not able to finish their sentence).
Allow. Your. Lover. To. Grieve. Please! They will not get over it in a chapter! It will take a long time to move on, even if they have stuff to do.
Make sure the death keeps up with the pacing of the scene. It's very important that the death is not super slow if the rest of the scene is very fast. Don't make it super fast if the scene is very slow. Syntax matters!
Be VERY careful doing this with suicide (unless it's like an action sacrifice scene, that's not what I'm talking about). A belated love epiphany can be a very touching thing, but putting suicide in the mix can put a very bad taste in someone's mouth.
If this is the last event of your book, the big climax before the resolution, don't skip straight to them being happy years later. If you don't show that the main character cares for a long time, then the character death will not matter as much to your readers.
Example of this trope:
Reddie (RichiexEddie, IT): These two, in both the book and movie, start out as close friends. They bicker constantly, and Richie "Trashmouth" Tozier endlessly teases Eddie, but they always show deep care for each other. As Eddie is dying, in the book, he is stopped before presumably confessing his love for Richie.
"'Don't call me Eds' he said and smiled. He raised his left hand and touched Richie's cheek. He was crying. "Richie you know I... I..." Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was thinking he died.
"'Fuck you, bitch!' he cried suddenly, and kicked the door shut with his foot. It made a solid chukking sound as it closed and latched.
"Why'd you do that?" Beverly asked.
"I don't know," Richie said, but he knew well enough.
(Disclaimer: some of these may be non canon romances but all have heavy subtext or a form of confirmation by the author/creators)
