What makes a good love story? (Question)

This is, as the title says in redundancy, a question, rather than a story or suchfroth. I'm putting it here because, however, because it is a question that lies pretty much at the base of storytelling and fiction writing, at least from where I'm looking.

What do you believe makes for a good love story?

Over the years, I've attempted to write many different stories from many different angles, and though I can find inspiration in many places, it seems a love story, or at least something with a hint of such, are the only things I can stick with long enough and follow through into an actual, finished work of fiction. On the other end of the spectrum, however, I can't seem to bring myself a story that is ONLY about a love story and nothing else. I cannot stand modern-day soaps and their drawn-out melodramas, I cannot emphasise that strongly enough. Such is my conundrum. I've been looking for an answer to this question for ten years now, and while I find particular examples of things that work, I've never been able to understand the underlying mechanics that make one story rock while another sucks with seemingly the same basic scenario.

I suppose the question is - where do you draw the line between fiction and romance, and how do you go about intertwining them such that one doesn't have to come at the expense of the other? If anyone's seen my Tale of Two hearts in this very forum, you probably know I draw that line pretty far in favour of romance, to the point where the characters skirt BECOMING the story. I'm generally a fan of romance, both as a form of inter-personal relationships and as a general philosophy of fiction, but I always fear stepping over the line and going into a drama... IN SPACE!

I've spent the last couple of days going over TV Tropes articles. It's more than a little addictive, must say. But rather than being discourage by all of the well-documented cliches and finding myself without any novel ideas, I instead find myself inspired by all the tropes I keep reading about. Some are comedic, some are frankly disgusting, but the ones that consistently always catch my eye are the ones that deal with deep, personal emotions. Understandably, there are 1001 ways to get those wrong or make them too obvious, but I have to wonder... Isn't there a way to get them right? Well, there is, and we've all seen it. I'm sure even the most cynical among you have, at one point or another, seen, heard or read something so beautiful it brought a tear to your eye. So it's possible. The question is, how does one accomplish this?

It comes down to a few simple quandaries. If you were to write a non-soap love story, would you start with that premise and work characters and plot around it, or would take an existing idea and try to introduce it there? How would you go about making the love story a central point without making it THE central point? How would you go about making it moving and interesting, but not nagging and obtrusive? What would you do?

I recently spoke with (read: ranted to) a friend of mine about how "the power of friendship" always seems to usurp the limelight from romantic love in anime, a phenomenon I seem to have picked up from Western animations and the kind of Japanese games and movies that would get me banned off these forums. He wasn't too moved, saying he was indeed more interested in stories about friendship, trust and sticking together than he was in romanticism. Apparently, I have a highly subjective view on the subject, thanks to the various philosophies I espouse. It's only prudent that I collect a few opinions from other people, just to perform a reality check on the situation.

So what are your preferences and your methods for writing this sort of thing? I could really use some help.

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In both my reading and my writing, I prefer the love/romance to develop within the setting of another story. If the romance IS the story, it is too often syrupy and melodramatic. When the romance happens within the framework of a non-romantic story, especially when that story provides opportunities for roadblocks and conflicts, it adds to the tension and drama of the whole thing.

I don't write a lot of romance in my fan fiction, for a lot of reasons, but when I do, the romance just adds flavor to the larger story.

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I should mention up front that I have a rule to never write what could be considered "fan fiction," simply because when I DO use other people's characters, I take far too many liberties with them, ending up either derailing them or mocking them. What I do write is always entirely comprised of my own characters, largely made up on the spot Not that this has any real importance, but I'm laying it down as a bit of an explanation of context.

I suppose I ask because I've found two polarly opposite schools of thought when it comes to writing - that of event-driven stories and that of character-driven stories. To avoid going into a long diatribe, that's the difference between a story where plot elements happen because the author has a story to tell and the characters are written around it and a story where the author has characters to talk about and weaves a story such that they do and become what they need to do and become. You appear to be of the opinion that story should come first, with characters written around it, and to a large extent I agree. I've always believed in what I like to call "organic" plotlines where what events take place is largely decided at random, with character reactions and progress simply written to accommodate. After all, it's a more realistic approach.

This raises the question, however, of how seriously you would pursue one. Personally, and it largely depends on my mood at the time, I have the tendency to ride my characters pretty high, to where even the stoic and stone cold eventually lose their composure and the weaker are practically panicking or broken down. This is true in almost every kind of plot, but whatever I do, it ends up cropping up by far the most seriously in love stories, even when they aren't intended to be that central. If anything is likely to induce a major personality change (as much as a person CAN change), inspire a significant act of desperation, be it heroic or villainous and largely move the characters, who then move the plot, that's likely to be a love story, or some kind of emotional story at the very least.

Would that strike anyone as a bit... Much? I understand it's down to style and preference, and I'm unlikely to budge from my perch regardless, but it's interesting to me gather a few opinion just to have something to work with on the subject. It's also true that I'm currently searching for inspiration (or rather HAVE some, but no form to put it into), so any direct examples explained in short (or at length, I'd like that even more) are very welcome.

At times it just seems to me like I'm trying too hard, and I know how damaging that can be.

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What makes a love story good is what makes any story good. Likeable characters, interesting plot, good pacing, etc.

That's the unsatisfying version of my answer but it is true. Hopefully this is more insightful...

So you usually explore two themes. The love story and the plot. This can make it either a powerful story that moves hearts of stone or it can be as shallow as a summer action flick spewed out by the Hollywood factory. The difference is in the connection. I feel that if the love story is connected to the main plot, then they are metaphors for each other, and thus are much more powerful. Now this can be a trap too. Anime falls into it a lot in my opinion. If you make it too obvious, such as the world is being destroyed by the lack of love and there are two characters swooning for each other, then the audience will be hit over the head with it and think it's gaudy.

Also, the more the plot affects the subplot and vice versa the better. It has to do so in a realistic way though. One can't arbitrarily affect the other. That's bad too. Romeo and Juliet is the best example of this.

Tie your themes together. Make your plots affect each other in some way. It sounds simple, but it is not, and it is what seperates an essay from a story.

As for stories just about love being too syrupy, I don't think so. There just has to be conflict there. Not necessarily between the couple, it could be between them and what seperates them as well. Or both.

I also have a few opinions on what shows love the best as well. My big ones are dedication, loyalty, and sacrifice. Not necessarily loyalty as in not having an affair, although that is a must in my book. Not necessarily sacrifice as in taking a bullet either. Giving up something you want/need to give someone what they want/need is a sign of love to me.

Character driven or plot driven? Both. Stories that need macguffins to move their characters are bad. I'm fine with characters driving a story, as long as they go somewhere with it. Ones that don't are so boring I feel rage when I read/watch them. I like the middle ground.

The best example of love I have seen in a movie was Crash. The mexican man loved his daughter, and you could really tell. It wasn't romantic like you are going for, but it was intense to watch. It was a good example of a character driven movie too.

Make your characters likeable. Many romances fail to stay in one character's head. Don't do that. Stick to one perspective. The other is the object of desire, just make sure they are likeable and have personality too. Make the reader want to be with them.

But all this advice is moot if you worry too much. Relax, find a story that you want to tell (or have it find you) and tell it.

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Love stories should be the rose briar woven around and through the framework of the overall story.

They're a plot element. They're a means of tension and resolution as events pull the two characters together, then split them apart or introduce conflicts, and then they gravitate towards each other under their own power (often uphill, in the snow). Or perhaps the relationship is COUNTER to the goals of the characters... so that the love story is a 'bad thing' and people then have to choose between rooting for the affair, or rooting for success of the characters.

perhaps one of the two is a 'heel' - the bad guy (or girl) that has the potential to derail all the protagonist's plans. Perhaps the protagonist has to struggle to get free of them, all the while NOT wanting to. For example, Odysseus and Calypso... he loved being in her company, but... his wife and his lands called out to him and he had to let her go.

Such are things that make GOOD love stories.

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"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."

Well, I don't know if my particular love story would qualify as "good", but I think one reason why Positron and Tava work well as a couple is because of their differences, as well as their similarities. They have enough in common to draw them together, and enough differences to keep things interesting.

Besides, I don't know about anyone else, but when it's all candy and roses and vanilla, it gets boring. I want couples that have highs and lows and everything in between. When a relationship has (and survives) that, it makes me cheer them on.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

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Yes, yours definitely is "good".

Actually "good is a freakin' understatement, yours is awesome.

And... *GLOMPAGE* HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

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"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, yours definitely is "good".
Actually "good is a freakin' understatement, yours is awesome.
And... *GLOMPAGE* HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

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I tend to have a very critical view of writing in general, just because so much of what I've read hasn't been to my tastes, but I have to agree - that story really DOES appear very good I didn't read the whole thing, but it's rare that I'll read something and feel that "Woah... I would like to know more." This is definitely one of those things, and it's a pretty big thing for me to say it, believe me.

It highlights, I think, where my disconnect happens, however, in a very big way. I just can't seem to make my characters innocent enough, at least in terms of mentality. That doesn't mean they're sinful or cynical. I could have the most pure of heart, honest character and I still end up painting them like someone with a life's worth of experience behind them. I don't know why that is, and perhaps it's a reflection of my own self-examining ways. When I was a kid (read: teenager) I used to write about people in their 20s, and now that I'm in my 20s, I write about people in their 30s (and beyond, in their 200s and on and on ). I consider this a non-insignificant failing of my writing, and is perhaps the primary reason why children are always absent from my stories. If I tried to use them, I'd probably end up writing them as simpletons or writing them as shrunken adults. And it bugs me, because I used to be good at it when I was a kid. It bugs me at least a little that I've forgotten.

And that, I suppose, makes my love stories a bit more serious than they need to be. Somewhere along the line, I lost my ability to write puppy-dog eyes, embarrassing, unwitting love. I really need to work on that.

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I consider this a non-insignificant failing of my writing,

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As a relative newcomer to this forum, I have to confess that I have not had the opportunity to be familiar with everyone's efforts, so I'll just respond based on my own opinion of what you said.

There is no human being who is innocent and pure. Some of us are more capable of "doing the right thing" no matter what than others, but we all have our inner demons; our id, ego, and super-ego working against each other.

If you are writing characters who are complex with dark twisty souls, then I would say you are writing realistic characters.

In my writing, I use several of my friends' characters. One of my friends recently commented to me that all of the characters I write (mine or others) are complex and have faults, except for one of his characters who is always good and right. I thought about that comment and realized something. While that character has appeared in each one of my stories, and while he is always important to those stories, he is always strictly a supporting character. And why? Because he's not an interesting character. He doesn't have faults. And because of that, he's probably never going to be a major character, he's always going to be supporting.

I get very frustrated when a writer makes the pure white knight, or the purely evil bad guy.

If you're writing complex characters with faults and virtues, I'd say that is in no way a "failing."

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When a question like this comes up, I think of two stories:

_The Stainless Steel Rat_, by Harry Harrison and _The Warlock in Spite of Himself_ by Christopher Stasheff.

Each of these stories centers around the main character and his attempts to achieve his goal, while the romance builds in the background and is, ultimately, allowed to bloom because the main character succeeded at his goal. The creation of the relationship is a centerpiece of the story, while the actuality of the relationship is a centerpiece of any follow-on stories.

What I dislike is to feel like I've been manipulated. If the romance is an offshoot of the main actions and consistent with the events of the primary storyline, then I feel like it's "good".

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I would agree with Bloodwolf, your question is interesting but he covered mostly everything I would say.

Pacing is my answer, and the true Superman good guy isn't boring, nor is the ultimate bad pure evil guy. They can be the leads in any story not just support, and sometimes because they are so one dimensional they can be even harder to write which could make all the difference in the drama around them.

But the essence of a good love story is a good story.

AV

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When you wake up seek the courage and strength to do the right thing.
Decide that this will be another day in which you Walk The Talk.

MA #14724 Operation: Discredit @American Valor
Sentinel Of Liberty SG

For me a love story begins with the characters. If you haven't got that down, you have no story. The plot builds from there.

What do they need? What is it in them that is missing that the other completes? What is it that separates and can unite them? What stands against them? What them tick, individually and together? What made them that way? What can change them, for the better or worse?

Figure that out first, then figure out your story. You'll often find that the story begins writing itself.

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Together we entered a city of strangers, we made it a city of friends, and we leave it a City of Heroes. - Sweet_Sarah
BOYCOTT NCSoft (on Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/517513781597443/
Governments have fallen to the power of social media. Gaming companies can too.

It really depends on what you mean by a "good love story" IMO.

Love isn't always a positive force, and sometimes powerful stories can be told about that as well. The triangle between Guinevere, Lancelot, and Arthur destroyed a kingdom. People have gone against lifelong beliefs and done things they never would have believed possible because they loved the wrong person.

When writing Conscious of a King I came to the conclusion that, yes, The Clockwork King did truly love Penelope Yin with all his heart. The first time I did the Lady Grey TF I realized that she did NOT love him.

Honestly, the dialogue in Lady Grey TF left me not liking Penny all that much because of the way she reacted to CK. Upon reflection, though, I realized that asking an 18 year old girl to love an insane brain in a bottle was perhaps asking too much of her, so I wrote another story where Penny did grow to love him enough to make a great sacrifice on his behalf.

But I digress ... ;-)

Honestly, there are different types of love you can write about: first love, obsessive love, unrequited love, self-sacrificing love, true love between equals ...

Most love stories are not all roses and song for a reason. They tend to be about the quest rather than the maintenance of said goal once its achieved.

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My COX Fanfiction:


Blue's Assembled Story Links

This is becoming interesting to me, as there seem to be as many opinions on the matter as there are people who old opinions on it. That's one of the things that makes writing difficult, but it's also one of the things that makes it so interesting and exciting

To the point that there are many types of love, I have to agree with this. I'm not sure, however, that I can agree that some of its more basic forms can actually BE called "love." For instance, I would personally call obsessive love simply an obsession. But then, I hold an ironically non-romantic view of what love is, ironic because of the romantic way in which I tend to use it. I've seen many stories treat it as something magical, final and absolute, like there is this cosmic force called "love" which can rival destiny in how it can shape things. While I wouldn't really criticise that, my take has always been to view it as an incredibly strong force of attachment and introspect, powerful enough to change people's personalities from within. "This is what I want. This is what is important to me. That has to happen for this to be true." That sort of thing.

In not as many words, I write love as a character's power to change core personality traits and fight on for the object of their love. That's an approach that can easily go over the top before anyone (including me ) realises it.

On the note of innocence, I suspect we're talking about different things. I'm not so much talking about idealistic characters as I'm talking about inexperienced characters. Whether that inexperience is in practical skills of any kind, in emotional self-understanding or in interpersonal relationship confidence, it's still the kind of inexperience I keep failing to draw properly. It's easy enough to fudge by simply keeping my cast small (my Tale of Two Hearts has two characters 3/4 of the way through) and having everyone come from a vocation that gives them a certain amount of confidence in introspect and lack of social fear, yes. However, that pretty much requires me to cap my fictional world to at least 20-years-olds, sometimes even 30-year-olds and up. We've all been children once, and I'm sure we all remember all the embarrassing, confusing and scary experiences we've had simply learning how to behave with other people. Well, somewhere along the line, I simply lost my own memories of this, and without a fail, I end up fudging potentially interesting moments of inexperience with some kind of deep-seated worldly lesson that a young person is unlikely to have this deeply-ingrained.

It doesn't stop my characters from acting like little kinds, though But it stops them from BEING little kids, because they always THINK like jaded adults. I'd really like to be able to work around this some day, because it is a failing that becomes incredibly obvious if I pick the "right" story premise.

It's also interesting to see different people's preference of characters and story. Some feel it is important to have a solid story, with characters and their affairs as supporting sub-plots, some feel it is important to have believable, interesting characters for whom to tell a story, with an actual plot being a secondary supporting device. I tend to agree with the former on a theoretical level, but since the framework I've picked to tell stories is a biography or auto-biography, I end up actually writing to the latter. It took me many years to find a style of writing that fit both the text medium and my personal preference, and what I settled on was a Discovery-Channel-style reconstruction of past evens, done through the eyes of witnesses, the protagonist or a third person narrator. That, and the fact that most of what I've written in recent years has been stories about my own playable characters, leads to a heavily character-centric style of writing.

For instance, in the one full, completed work I have, pretty much the ENTIRE plot has to do with the trials and tribulations of the two lead characters while the story follows their journey of discovering themselves and discovering each other. The "other than that" plot starts out fairly important but loses its importance as the story progresses, depicting the characters' growing understanding of what it is that truly matters in life. As the characters begin losing interest in their own "destinies," so the focus of the story shifts from the destinies they were set to play out to live to the life they forge for themselves.

That was a pretty much entirely character-driven story from beginning to end, which is something that surprised me. Going into my next one, I wasn't sure if outdoing that was a good thing or a bad thing. Story length and perhaps my own lack of skill kept comments on the story low, but the few people who did comment had largely positive things to say, so I think I did at least OK

They say genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, and I've always held it that a story's idea is often nowhere near as important as a story's actual execution and style. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but unless I know what to do with them, they're worth exactly as much. Asking this is my way of trying to pin down one more tool that I can use and rely on.

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Most people like the Opposites Attract approach. Personally, perhaps due to real-life bias, I am not a fan of it, and much prefer the Birds of a Feather scenraio, especially if it actually gew up slowly and reliably out of friendship.

So long as your couple isn't Strangled by the Red String and becomes a Romantic Plot Tumour.

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Cynics of the world, unite!

Taking Care of the Multiverse

I've spent a good deal of time working in child care, so I might be able to give you some insight in writing younger, or less experienced characters.

Toddlers, children, pre-teens, and teenagers are all quite capable of forming complex thoughts. They are just as dark and twisty, to use your own term, as an adult is. Perhaps moreso, because they are less willing to pull punches. The biggest difference between an adult and a child is the scope of their universe. A toddler's world is their immediate house, and the interactions between themselves and their parents. As they age, they add more authority figures, they add friends, 'enemies', and a growing sense of consequence and responsibility. A child has a few friends, a teacher, some minor possessions to look out for, and perhaps a world that extends to the classroom. A pre-teen has an entire school, numerous chores, many possessions, complex social structures that are entirely removed from 'the real world', and a world that extends to whatever town or city they live in. A teenager has all of that, and a body full of hormones.

Experience, I have a harder time writing. I tend to dodge that bullet by creating characters who have already been doing whatever it is they do for some time. Still, it's not much different, I think. Instead of having a smaller world, a less experienced character sees fewer interactions and connections than a more experienced one.

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What is love?

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It doesn't stop my characters from acting like little kinds, though But it stops them from BEING little kids, because they always THINK like jaded adults. I'd really like to be able to work around this some day, because it is a failing that becomes incredibly obvious if I pick the "right" story premise.


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Funstuffofdoom, good information and I see that alot, sometimes its just easier to start this way.

Thinking like 'Jaded Adult' Hmm that in itself is entirly a whole different post I generally try to have innocents equal inexperience with what ever subject they wouldn't know about.

I will normally do the jade adult response and then back it up from that viewpoint to the point of if they never experienced this how would they act. It is not as easy as it sounds. Sometimes you view it and say this is good , but then you project where it is going in the story and realize that really wasn't what you wanted, and you go back and look at it again.

I also use the rose colored glasses effect on how they view the world in combination with innocents and inexperience this help in keep it in the mind of a child. weather with Love, Why do I feel this way? or Horror, big scary man in a hat... RUN! is completely different when viewed by "expereienced characters."

My point is when you find yourself writing 'Jaded Adult' sweep it back and place your thoughts in to a mind of a child. Hopefully that helps.

AV

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When you wake up seek the courage and strength to do the right thing.
Decide that this will be another day in which you Walk The Talk.

MA #14724 Operation: Discredit @American Valor
Sentinel Of Liberty SG