Well, it's been longer than the week I was trying for. Sorry, my darlin' interns.
Romance
Ah, love. George MacDonald called it "a beehive of honey and stings". The quintessential thing that makes us human. Seemingly fragile, hard to cultivate, but so strong and with the richest harvest. The greatest, most powerful, most beautiful force in the entire world.
So, obviously, since this is such a human thing, this is the easiest part of RPing, right? Lovely sentiment and all but…I'm afraid not, dear interns. Shall we analyze the subject a bit?
Strangely enough, there seems to really be one problem:
"How hard can it be?" I feel like this is the approach of too many people. You see a cutie; you flirt; you fall in love and the world is sunshine and puppies. Ta-da! Well dear, I hate to crush your fantasies (Okay, I might be lying a bit there…), but that's not how it works. I mean, unless your character has a love spell or whatever, but those never end correctly, don't you think?
Look, I love fairytales. I'm writing in pink, aren't I? And the whole love-at-first-sight thing is indeed very charming. But it is not realistic. I'm not saying that your character can't see someone and – LIGHTNING BOLT! "OMG-they're-so-cute-and-nice-and-I-really-wanna-go-out-with-them-sometime!" But that shouldn't happen too often.
See, the best, most romantic thing about romance is – guess what? The romance. Where they're getting to know each other and they really like each other and they just can't wait to see each other again and then, slowly, something grows.
Tell me, what is more beautiful: the bud or the bloom? You're thinking the bloom, aren't you? Well, perhaps you're right – but isn't the bud beautiful? The delicate life slowly growing, becoming something larger, deeper. And how would you have the bloom if there was no bud?
Think about it. Would you rather that they just love each other so much because…um…reasons. Or do you want them to love each other because they found the other to be trustworthy, or funny, or kind? Maybe a mix of those traits? Certainly more. Wouldn't you like to write through the awkward phase where they're not really sure how close they are, and everyone's teasing them (mostly) good-naturedly? Wouldn't you love to see how they grow together?
I thought so.
And a piece of advice? Don't force them. If they're meant to be, great. If they're not – other fish.
But the bright side? Yeah, it is easy to write that up. It does come naturally, because, hey, it's love, after all. We're pretty good at that.