Romance is written in a number of different ways, depending on if it’s the focus of the story or if it exists within the story’s plot, but not as the main plot. Furthermore, it also depends on if the author is going for specific tropes or not. One of the more popular structures in romance stories is the idea of the slow-burn romance. A slow-burn basically lets readers explore the buildup of the romance from the beginning to the end, but the buildup of emotions takes time and there’s no room for insta-love.
Slow-burn romances, I tend to feel, are more satisfying in stories than insta-love romances. With insta-love, there’s no real room to truly explore the way the romance builds and shapes over time. Additionally, a slow-burn romance gives the reader more time to grow to like the characters and root for their love story. So, today’s post will be a comprehensive guide on how to write a proper, effective, and interesting slow-burn romance.
Want to learn how to outline a romance novel? Check out this post!
WHAT MAKES A SLOW-BURN ROMANCE SPECIAL?
There are common misconceptions surrounding what a slow-burn romance is and how it works. Firstly, slow-burns are not just about delaying the two characters confessing their undying love for each other. That’s only a sliver of the overall cake that is slow-burn romance.
A slow-burn romance is supposed to feel exciting and it’s supposed to invoke suspense and thrill with readers. They are supposed to want to root for the two characters by the end of the story, and letting them grow alongside these characters makes a slow-burn feel more special.
Some authors like to do intense slow-burns where it goes until the last second and others don’t. Ultimately, you just want to string the readers along with the romance for as long as it works with your plot.
IT STARTS WITH THE CHARACTERS
One important facet of writing slow-burn romances is to ensure that your characters are well-written. I’ve talked about how to create compelling and interesting characters, but it really is an important thing to add in your story.
A reader is only invested in the story if the reader is invested in the characters, and at the base of a romance story are the characters that you’ve created. If your readers are not interested or invested in your characters, then they will not be interested or invested in the romance that you are trying to create around these characters.
DEPTH AND BACKSTORIES
Characters in your story need to be well-developed, interesting, and have some sort of depth to them. This depth comes from things like their backstory, their experiences, their personal feelings and convictions, their emotions, and their actions/reactions in certain scenarios.
Characters who lack a backstory or lack depth will feel shallow, empty, and readers won’t feel as excited or interested in investing time in the character’s romantic journey. This would be a big problem when it comes to a slow-burn romance.
ALL CHARACTERS ARE FLAWED WITH STRENGTHS
When you are crafting your characters, bear in mind that they are still going to have flaws and problems that define them compared to others. They will also have strengths which allow them to excel in some things. Their weaknesses also hinder them from excelling in other things, which makes them more believable.
A perfect character will not feel very deep from an emotional standpoint, which goes back to my point about depth. Additionally, weaknesses allow for your characters to have vulnerabilities, which may be interesting to explore in a slow-burn romance setting.
Furthermore, strengths and weaknesses make the characters significantly more relatable to your readership.
DYNAMIC CHARACTERS ARE VITAL
In a romance story, your characters need to be dynamic. The story may start with them in one way, but by the end, they need to have gone through some sort of shift in order to have a satisfying character arc.
There will always be something that will happen over the course of the characters’ lives, and they need to show some sort of reaction to major events and changes. Additionally, by them falling in love, that itself shows a change, but you need to give the readers a hint as to how their other changes led them to make this change.
SUBTLE INTERACTIONS ARE IMPORTANT
In slow-burn romances, you often won’t have anything crazy happen between the characters before the end because it’s a slow-burn, but beyond that, you have the opportunity to craft moments of subtle but cute interactions. These sorts of moments help to build the overall romance and give a reason for the characters to actually have a reason to fall in love by the end. They’ve built up a relationship based on trust, emotions, and care over the course of the story (even if they start out as enemies).
Conversations
Characters will converse often, but you need to give them meaningful conversations, or what we often call “heart-to-hearts.” In these moments, we see the characters come to life, connect with each other, and open up to each other just as well. They can become closer and really connect on a different level because they are allowing themselves to be vulnerable in front of the other person.
Small Gestures
Small gestures are very important when building a slow-burn romance because these little things help add onto the larger things in the relationship. Things like a small hug or comforting the other person allow the characters to build up their memories of each other, and so when the final moment comes for them to confess their love for each other, it feels well-earned.
Even if you’re writing a story about enemies who fall in love at the end, you can still do this just as much due to forced proximity where they may need to help each other out or open up to each other, even if they harbor some level of hate for each other.
CONFLICT IS A MUST
In any romance story, conflict is what allows for you as a writer to sort of drag the final confession along for some time. Now, be careful with this part, because there are definitely annoying conflicts that bother readers a lot. The miscommunication trope is a big one that I think feels a bit cheap sometimes, but if you can spin it in a way that works really well, or doesn’t take up half the book, then you’ll be fine. Still, there are a few other things that you can add to keep conflict and tension between the characters.
Personal Conflicts
Characters will have conflicts of their own to deal with, and these conflicts can stem from their own personal lives. These conflicts can also spill over and affect their relationship with the other person. Pretty much, what you want to convey is that they are not without flaws, issues, and conflicts and that these conflicts could prohibit their relationship from starting earlier.
The personal conflicts need to be believable as well and make sense in the context of the story. Don’t just throw in something random at one point in the middle without showing any indication of its existence in the earlier parts of the story.
External Obstacles
External obstacles are another major part of building a slow-burn romance novel, because they can genuinely create rifts, delays, and impacts in the formation of that relationship. An external conflict can serve to pull two people apart or bring them together, but ultimately, how you portray that external obstacle needs to make sense and be realistic.
The characters need to genuinely be tested and challenged by this conflict and this conflict needs to play a role in how their relationship is built.
THE END MUST BE SATISFYING
Resolving Conflicts
One of the biggest parts of ending a story that features a slow-burn romance is to ensure that conflicts are resolved by the end of the story. Leaving open-ended conflicts, unless your story is part of a wider series, will leave readers very confused and unsatisfied.
Even if you’re writing a series, you should also look into resolving at least some of the major conflicts present in the story. If you leave every conflict open to build up across the series, you’re going to find that your readership is going to grow tired.
The Confession Should be Special
When the two characters decide that they have fallen in love and want to admit to each other this, this should be a very special moment. This is the moment your readers have been waiting for the entire story! If you leave it flat or on a sour note, then it will feel like a waste of time to readers. You’ve curated an amazing story, so make sure that confession is just as amazing, if not more amazing.
Happily Ever After
A lot of the reasons why readers enjoy romance stories is that the ending provides a “happily ever after.” You know as the reader that these two will be happy together and that’s all you want, and as a writer, that’s what you are trying to cater to with a romance story.
We love romance because it has a happy connotation to it, even if it was built after a lot of drama and issues, the ending should be happy for the readers. A tragic ending should be left for our friend Shakespeare and his star-crossed lovers…
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