Rushing Romance

Have you ever read a romance novel with great characters, but their attraction and sexual tension happened a little too quickly? What about too slowly? Then after the initial sparks, the story fizzles out? I have. Pacing is so important in a romance story. It can make or break it.

There are all kinds of romance tropes out there that people love like enemies-to-lovers to arranged marriages to friend-to-lovers to pretty much whatever your mind can come up with. However, tropes can only get you so far if you don’t have a solid plot with your story. Romance can be the main focus, but if it is, then you need to make sure you pace the romantic tension precisely. You don’t want your readers too bored or frustrated, but you also don’t want to show your whole hand by throwing all the juicy bits out too early.

I think this is especially true of enemies-to-lovers. I’ve read quite a few books where the characters have an initial prickly interaction, maybe two, and then immediately have feelings for each other afterwards. The whole enemy part gets thrown to the wind and it turns into a normal romance novel rather rapidly.

I’ve also read stories where the pair end up in bed within the first couple of chapters. The writer usually plays it off as one-night stand and then have them act like they don’t know each other for the rest of the book. It doesn’t make it very exciting in my opinion, because I already know these characters have feelings for each other. The rest of the book is a long waiting game until a heartfelt admission and a sweet kiss (maybe even a bedroom romp) at the tail-end of the book.

The pace of the romance can define what kind of story you’re creating. It’s the difference between a true romance, an erotic romance, and a straight-up erotica. Is that a bad thing? No, but it’s important to know the difference so you can place the right tags and the right genre.

Eroticas are essentially readable porn. They’re usually shorter than a novel and sprinkled with intense sexual encounters spaced closely together. They’re primarily focused on the sex between the two characters with little or no plot.

Erotic romances are longer with another sub-plot mixed in with the main romantic plot. These stories also involve sexual encounters which may be softer or hard, depending on the situation in the story. The main plot is the romance between the two characters, but may have something else going on. Think 50 Shades of Grey.

I think writing erotic romances can be tough. Why? Because the ones I’ve read seem to prioritize the sex instead of the secondary plot which makes this second plotline messy. Sometimes it seems it would’ve been better to stick with erotica instead of trying to make it into a strange, discombobulated, and convoluted plotline. It’s fairly easy to tell when a writer is more concerned with the erotic scenes than the other stuff involved.

Then, you have your true romances. The plot is the romance. What I mean by that, is if there is a secondary plot, it plays a minor role and most likely has to do with placing obstacles between our lead characters to thwart their romance. This kind of story has a lot of “will they, won’t they” going on. If you’re reading it in a 1st POV from any of the main characters’ perspectives, then you’ll probably be reading a lot of conflicting thoughts as well.

These stories are all about the tension, and usually, culminate with the pair getting together at the very end of the book with only longful stares and heaving bosoms to make us swoon until then. These books need to have a big payoff though. They don’t have to end in love making, but there do need to be fireworks of some sort to make the reader, who invested all this time, feel like they got a satisfying ending.

Now, with all this being said about the pacing of romance, you’re always going to have people with differing opinions. You’re not going to be able to please everyone as a writer. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t do a little bit of research into the romance genre and see which romantic stories are trending and assess how their pacing helps with that.

As a writer myself, sometimes I have to watch myself with my pacing of romances in my stories. Everyone loves to get to the steamy stuff, but I have to slow down to make sure I don’t rush scenes that build an emotional connection before getting to the physical one. We want to build our characters first before we start building the relationship they have with each other. I think that’s the key to some of the successful romance novels out there today.

Remember to have fun with your writing. It’s okay to take a break if you start to rush the scenes to get to one you know you’ll like writing better. And, as always, happy writing!