Lia Hartati

I’m struggling with my story because I feel like it doesn’t have enough plot? it’s meant to be mostly focused on the romance but I feel like I shouldn’t just have the romance. I don’t know how to make it feel... important. The story is important to me of course and I think it will address important issues but I’m just... I’m not sure

Even Romance Needs a Conflict

I talked a little bit about conflict and goals in my last post, and I want to stress their importance to all stories, even romances. It isn’t enough to structure a romance around “person meets love interest, person pursues love interest, person wins love interest” because that’s not interesting. There has to be more going on there.

Take Jane Austen’s Emma, for example–a classic romantic story. If you boiled the story down to the romantic plot, it would just be about a young woman who thinks she doesn’t need love, thinks she falls in love, discovers she was wrong, and ultimately realizes she loved her longtime friend all along. That’s okay as a story, I suppose, but it’s not very interesting. Where’s the conflict? Where are the rising stakes? In fact, what Emma is really about is a young woman who plays matchmaker among her friends to disastrous effect. The conflict arises out of her struggle to find a suitable match for the young woman she’s taken under her wing. On the surface, Emma’s own romantic issues may take a backseat to her efforts with Harriet, but they are still very much the heart of the story. This is made very clear when the two story lines finally intersect, when Emma realizes she’s in love with her longtime friend, Mr. Knightley, only to discover that her matchmaking efforts inadvertently pushed Harriet into falling in love with him, too–and as far as she knows, him with her. Luckily for her, she’s wrong about where his affection lies, but the truth forces her to untangle the mess she’s made of Harriet’s love life, and ultimately learn the lesson that it’s better to pay attention to your own love life rather than mess about with everyone else’s.

So, ultimately, what you need to do is figure out your other plot line–what else is your story about? What would serve as a good framework upon which to build this romance? It could be a survival situation, travel shenanigans, fighting an illness or injury, standing up to an oppressor or corrupt entity, a quest or mission, solving a crime or mystery, tackling a big life change–really, anything. Think about some of your favorite love stories and romance novels and look at the stories that framed them. Bella and Edward had to deal with bad vampires and the Volturi. Scarlet O’Hara and her beaus had to deal with the Civil War. Hazel and Augustus had to deal with cancer. Dimple and Rishi had to deal with cultural expectations. Claire and Jamie had to deal with 18th century British oppression.

Figure out a conflict for your story beyond the romance, and you’ll be all set!