Writing a Great Love Story

I have no tips, but I'd like to know.

Everyone once in a while I stumble across an amazing love story on Mibba that breaks the mold of the silly cliched romances it seems to be buried under, and I just want to know how?

What do you think makes a great love story?

Don't rush it (or drag it out, for that matter). I think that's the first and most important thing. If you drag it out, the relationship will become boring and vice versa will make it unbelievable.

The two people need to fit together in some way. Whether it is because they compliment each other or whatever, they need to be able to be a unit.

I love a love story (weird phrase) where there is the gritty parts of a relationship as well as all the lovey stuff. Sometimes love hurts and you shouldn't be afraid to portray that part of it too.

^ All of that. Really, it's much easier for me to read a love story if the flow is subtle. Like...if for a while, they're really close friends that could be together but aren't, and they're aware of it once they begin to really hang out. When they can laugh at each other and also spend some time mad at each other, it makes me think 'yeah, but, they can...' and then they do whatever they need to, and soon enough, they've finally gotten together.

It also is nice to read if the cliches aren't completely erased but are more subtle. Like...the cliche of the loving boyfriend buying gifts for his girl or something like that. Like...don't slap the reader in the face with cliches. Just nudge them a bit.

I don't know. I've always loved it when a relationship is subtle and then grows gradually into something more.

And I've only just begun to really figure out how to write stuff like that on my own. It's hard, but it's so beautiful when it's done right.

Also, bear in mind that the dilemma in a romance story doesn't absolutely need to be them breaking up or a big fight or whatever. An external issue can be the dilemma and then the story can focus on how they deal with it as a couple.

For me a great love story (and bear in mind, I pretty much only read Ryden) is a story that shows how the two people act in the situation while together and apart. It's about showing how things they do intwine without trying or even when they're in different rooms. It's about how the culmination of emotion pushes them and eventually they just... give in.

(I prefer moment in time fics, not a fic based around the relationship in its entirety.)

I don't write great love stories, but I do write love stories.
But I think tension needs to be present, for it to really work. You don't just wake up one day and decide "Hey, I'm in love with so and so, and I'm going to tell them this afternoon, no problems."
Like. Sexual tension, build up. :D

^ All of the previous things.

Also, I love it when a love story has an elegant essence to it. When it's not all just making out and sex all of the time, there has to be something truly delicate about it. That just makes it absolutely lovely.

You cannot rush love in the first few chapters. That makes the story a little hard to believe, at least, to me.

This is totally personal preference, but I connect more to a love story if there's sex. I like to see how the characters relate to each other, compare about each other, etc. through sex.

druscilla in white.:

This is totally personal preference, but I connect more to a love story if there's sex. I like to see how the characters relate to each other, compare about each other, etc. through sex.

Sometimes, sex isn't right, to me. I love stories with sex and where the characters connect through sex, like you've said, but sometimes sex kinda kills the story. Most of the time, it's poorly done sex, with no tact, that kills it.

^ Both completely valid points.

I've read so many brilliant love stories where the sex is left until somewhere near the end. But it just works so well.

Sex is an integral part of any relationship, but it doesn't have to be the centre. But then it is kind of... amusing to read stories where sex is the only thing each person has in common and then sort of mesh together.
/bad explanation.

My favorite writer perfectly blends sexual situations with non-sexual. So I get to read absolutely amazing sex scenes and absolutely amazing "non-sex" scenes.

But I love to read sex. And I love to write sex. So . . . like I said, personal preference.

I don't like to ignore sex because I think it's a very rich language.

I love to read about characters that have motives for the relationships. Though not necessarily always ending up in a lovey-dovey ending, the characters motives need to be real. For example, one may enter into a relationship in sympathy, for convenience, because they are pressured etc.

I think the author needs to flesh out what both parties want from the relationship - whether they have their desires met is another thing altogether.

Do you get what I mean?

I like love stories where things aren't blown out of proportion and overdone. Love is difficult enough and often has too much drama as it is. There doesn't need to be any kind of extravagant addage to make it even more interesting. When writers do that, the stories end up reading like soap operas.

Venomous.:

I love to read about characters that have motives for the relationships. Though not necessarily always ending up in a lovey-dovey ending, the characters motives need to be real. For example, one may enter into a relationship in sympathy, for convenience, because they are pressured etc.

I think the author needs to flesh out what both parties want from the relationship - whether they have their desires met is another thing altogether.

Do you get what I mean?

I get what you mean, I think. I love when the characters aren't in the relationships for the same reasons.

What are types of love stories? Like unrequited love, forbidden love...

Don't think of it as a love story. The best relationships are passionately subtle.

^ Exactly, exactly.

When love can be so strong that it becomes an integral part of who you are, then the story is made. Ease up on long monologues expressing devotion or pointless bed scenes. When the readers can feel for themselves and infer the nature of a love simply by reading the honest interactions of a couple, that's when the magic happens.

When you can just tell, and the thought makes you fuzzy inside.

Audrey T.:

What are types of love stories? Like unrequited love, forbidden love...

I don't know about the types, but forbidden love is my absolute favourite thing to write and read about, ever. Ever.

I adore love stories where the characters are just so connected, so crazy about each other that you kind of ~know they'll work together, in any situation. That's the thing about fanfiction. You take two set characters, and put them in all sorts of situations and universes, and even then you can't kill the chemistry between them.

I like all sorts of it, though. Fluffy, angry, quiet, fun, longing, sexual, playful, desperately wanting, tragic, etc. etc. As long as I see something between the characters and it just can't be killed, that really makes it for me.

^ I really like the kinds of relationships that are really playful and cute, but there's this sexual element to it. I lovelovelove them.