Hey! Probably a hard question to answer because everyone's proccess is different, but, how do you develop a plot from a character? Or better yet, from two character's relationship with each other? I love fantasy, but I love fantasy with romance. I find myself creating the characters and plotting the romance, leaving the, well, "real" plot for last. Another question: how do you organize ideas and key points to connect the plot? I never know how to do that, even when I have a plot lol. Thank you!
Okay, so the thing is, you've forgotten that books and stories are completely made up out of whole cloth. Even if you're basing it on something else, your choice to do that is totally free. Unless, say, you're writing something to assignment. But, actually we can learn something from that.
Because the thing is, an assignment is just telling you what needs to be done and then you do it.
If you don't have the assignment, then you just... eenie meenie miney moe, pick what you want to do. And then you write your plot.
So, like, if you find it easier to write a story based on romance and the relationships between the characters, and the characters themselves, then you already know how to do this. Your goal is to have that romance/relationship, and so your romance plot is built around your characters and that goal. I'm guessing that you build your romance plot around some of your favorite tropes. Enemies to lovers or only one bed or fake dating or princess and rogue or whatever. Or maybe more obscure tropes. Or more basic-- boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl... or variations on that.
What you need to do next-- or maybe also-- since you want to write a different genre than romance, is to look at the conventions and tropes of your intended genre. Whatever it is that you want to write. Dragon riders? Evil sorcerer? A quest? Chosen one? Hidden princess? Honestly, whatever you want.
Here's a hint. Pick the tropes and conventions that will enable your characters to face their fears and grow. Does your protagonist just want to belong? Put them on the outside of society and, idk, put a price on their head. Does your romantic couple have a true love? Give them a prophecy that gets in the way, or make them from two separate warring people, or perhaps she's a princess promised to marry the evil sorcerer... IDK, go crazy, honestly.
But you want to find ways to make things DIFFICULT for your characters where their relationship to each other is both tested and... I think it's a nice concept if their relationship makes them stronger and better able to conquer their obstacles, also. That's if you want the romance subplot to be more than just something minor, anyway. You can make it as important as you want to the main storyline, but it seems to me that since you LOVE the romance, and find that to be the kind of backbone of your story, then just go with that. It's okay if the "main" plot is built up around the love story. There are a LOT of stories with the main point that love saves the day, and they don't even have to be romances.
To put it more concisely, to build your main plot around your characters, you want to chose obstacles that ensure your characters are challenged in their fears and goals, so that they can overcome their difficulties and fight to achieve their desires, and GROW as characters. That's what stories are, imo. How characters grow. How the challenges in the story impact them and change them. How do you want your characters to change? Pick obstacles to get them there. Make sure it's not an easy road, and add in some failures before they get to the end.
Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this. I started my answer before I came down with covid and then couldn't finish it. Then my computer crashed and I lost what I'd written. lol. So here I am back, mostly better, with your answer. Oh the second question is going to get it's own ask, to keep things simplified.
