Things to consider when writing about Romance!!!

⊹ Why do these two people actually like each other. "They're both hot" is not enough. What specifically draws them together? Shared trauma? They make each other laugh? They challenge each other? Similar worldviews or completely opposite ones that balance out? Give them actual chemistry based on personality not just physical attraction!!

⊹ What's stopping them from getting together immediately. External obstacles like war, forbidden love, wrong timing? Internal ones like fear of vulnerability, past trauma, thinking they're not good enough? Both?

⊹ How does the romance affect the main plot. Does it help or hinder the protagonist's goals? Create complications? Give them something to fight for? Romance subplots that are completely separate from the main story feel tacked on!!

⊹ What's the pacing. Do they fall for each other slowly over time or is it fast and intense? Slow burn is great but you need moments of progress. Instant attraction is fine but the actual relationship should still develop.

⊹ How do they communicate. Do they actually talk about their feelings or just pine silently for 200 pages? Can they have difficult conversations? Do they understand each other or constantly misread situations?

⊹ What do they disagree about. Couples who agree on everything are boring. What are their fundamental differences? How do they handle conflict? Do they fight fair or is it toxic? Can they compromise or does someone always give in?

⊹ How do other characters react to the relationship. Supportive friends? People who think it's a terrible idea? Jealous exes?

⊹ What does each person bring to the relationship. Is it balanced or does one person do all the emotional labor? Do they make each other better or worse? What do they each need vs what do they want?

⊹ What are their love languages. Physical touch? Words of affirmation? Acts of service? Quality time? Gifts?

⊹ How does their past affect this relationship. Previous heartbreak? First love? Trust issues from family stuff? Abandonment fears?

⊹ What's the power dynamic. Are they equals? Is one person in a position of authority? Does one have more experience? Unbalanced power dynamics need to be addressed not ignored!!

⊹ How physical is the relationship and when. First kiss timing? Is there sexual tension? Do they hold hands? Are they touch-starved and finally have someone? What's appropriate for your genre and audience??

⊹ What's at stake if the relationship fails. Just heartbreak or something bigger? Will it destroy the friend group? Ruin the mission? End an alliance?

⊹ Do they have lives outside each other. Friends, hobbies, goals that have nothing to do with the romance? Couples who only exist for each other are codependent and boring :(

⊹ What's the "oh" moment. When does each person realize they're in love? Is it dramatic or quiet? Same time or does one person know way before the other? Multiple realizations?

⊹ How do they support each other through the plot. Do they have each other's backs? Believe in each other? Or does the relationship become a weakness enemies exploit?

☆ You know exactly what they want and why they can't have it. The protagonist has no idea what they want.

☆ They make one offhand comment in chapter three and you're still thinking about it

☆ Their backstory is mentioned in two sentences and somehow richer than the main plot

☆ Every scene they're in is more interesting than every scene they're not in

☆ They have opinions. actual opinions. about things unrelated to the protagonist.

☆ You wrote them to be comic relief and they became the emotional core of the book. Congrats.

☆ Their relationship with the protagonist is more interesting than the main romance

☆ They die in act two and the book never recovers.

☆ Their one scene with the villain is better written than any scene with the hero

☆ Readers ask about them specifically. always them. you know the one.

☆ they have a life happening offscreen that you didn't plan but clearly exists

☆ Their flaw is specific and earned and costs them something real

☆ They disagree with the protagonist and they're right

☆ they want something from the story that the story never gives them (devastating)

☆ their friendship with the protagonist is more convincing than anything romantic in the book

☆ disappears for fifty pages and when they come back you notice immediately

☆ you know what their apartment looks like. you've never described it. you just know.

☆ they carry the theme of the book more clearly than the protagonist does

☆ the readers forgive them for things they would never forgive the main character for

☆ they make the right choice for the wrong reasons and it costs them everything and nobody notices but the reader

Your action hero just got shot in the shoulder, stitched it up in a motel bathroom, and is now running through a forest. I need you to know that a shoulder wound severs muscle, nerves, and sometimes bone, and the human body's response to that is not "mild wincing followed by full range of motion." here is what injuries actually do to peoplee...

⊹ Adrenaline is REAL and it does allow people to do extraordinary things immediately after injury, BUT it is a loan, not a gift. you borrow the function and you pay it back later with interest. Your character might genuinely be able to run for twenty minutes after being stabbed. and then the adrenaline drops and everything the body was delaying arrives all at once. the collapse is NOT weakness. it's biology collecting its debt. write the debt collection. it's more interesting than the heroic sprint anyway.

⊹ Blood loss changes cognition before it drops you. you don't go from "fine" to "unconscious." you go through a whole middle stage of confusion, poor decision-making, emotional dysregulation, a strange calm, tunnel vision, difficulty forming sentences. Your injured character making a bad call, saying something they normally wouldn't, becoming suddenly and inexplicably gentle--that's blood loss. use the middle stage. it's dramatically rich and almost nobody writes it.

⊹ Recovery has a timeline and the timeline is long and boring and inconvenient to plot. a broken rib takes six weeks and during those six weeks sneezing is a genuine emergency. a concussion means no screens, no reading, no bright lights, and symptoms can persist for months. a stab wound to the abdomen means weeks of infection risk, limited mobility, and a specific kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with sleep. Your character being sidelined and frustrated and useless for a long time is not a narrative problem. it's the story.

the electric mayhem (minus animal bcs hes their kid) arent a polycule, theyre monogamous. but specifically they break up and date each other one at a time. they have a chart.

animal is genderfluid. this is mentioned exactly once bcs kermit calls her he and she starts yelling "SHE/HER!" kermit corrects himself and the show goes on

rizzo made out with gonzo once but he still considers himself straight bcs gonzo is not a guy, he's a whatever. gonzo agrees with this

uncle deadly dated tim curry. it did not end well.

actual emotional scene of gonzo talking about how he feels abt gender. no jokes.

kermit: no matter what, gonzo is still gonzo, and we're always going to support gonzo no matter what gonzo decides- gonzo: kermit. i still use he/him

statler and waldorf wedding episode. theyre divorced by the next

beaker trying to ask bunsen out on a date. in the end it turns out bunsen thought they'd been dating for years.

miss piggy hanging out with drag queens

related, miss piggy starting to present butch and kermit being Really Into It. hes embarassed abt it

pepe begins a story with "when i was a little girl...."

janice decides to start using just she bcs "like, i could never be her"

rowlf mentions having a husband. even kermit is like "??? since when??!"

Mike: here

Dr. Teeth: pronoun check

Animal holds up an auction paddle with their pronouns written on

[Not a real word]

If you need to buy stamps, buy commemorative ones.

Which is to say, if you walk into a post office and ask for stamps they will automatically give you this:

When, if you ask, for the same price per stamp you can get one of whatever interesting stamps they're doing at the moment.

Featuring such nerdy and delightful tiny pictures of

Cool old/cultural stuff like CASTLES

Movies and TV shows such as LORD OF THE RINGS, complete with a feature that's only visible under UV light:

Quite often, NATURE STUFF (landscapes, flowers, plants, animals, space, etc.)

Sometimes, SHAPES

Whatever they've got, I GUARANTEE it is more interesting than whatever boring stamp everyone else is putting on their envelopes. And the price is the same. Why would you not do that??

If you are in a post office to buy stamps [which is totally normal for anyone born after 1980, shush] just be like, "do you have any interesting stamps in at the moment?" Sorry, I know it feels weird to do that but they will know what you mean.

If you don't ever go to the post office or you feel self-conscious, check if your postal service has an online shop and buy cool stamps from there. A nice bonus of getting them that way is, they do still cost the same and the shipping is usually free because they are the postal service.

Unrelatedly