![]() Why include a romantic subplot in your Epic Fantasy novel? My next post, Blog #3, is all about how to build emotional intensity and how to approach sex scenes (if you decide to go there at all).Īs always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. The longer you can keep the lovers apart, the more opposing their goals, and the more obstacles you throw in their way, the more epic the romance will be. These are the things that keep readers coming back for more. Contrary to what those who criticize romance often say, it’s these elements (not steamy sex scenes) that makes a romance a romance. The more at odds you make the goals of your love interests the easier it will be for you to create chemistry, longing, and emotional intensity in your story. He wants to escape and she wants to keep him prisoner. He wants to kill the princess and she wants to protect her. Make your hero and heroine’s goals opposing. A character might shift the goal posts every few chapters, depending on what’s happening in the story, and that’s fine. These will often change throughout the story. Maybe changing who they are puts their goals in jeopardy, which means at some point they are going to have to make a difficult choice Speaking of goals… Show your characters resisting what’s happening to them. Love makes us vulnerable, but we often resist that vulnerability. Choose characters who need to learn these things. We become softer, wiser (or more foolish!), braver, more honest and self-sacrificing. ![]() They start of with things they need to learn and flaws they need to rid themselves of. Choosing your charactersĬharacters aren’t static. I made sure this theme resonated for both the romance and the main story. E.g., in The Lost Swallow, the theme was ‘the most important choices are the most difficult’. It’s a good idea to ‘echo’ the main themes of your story in both your romantic subplot as well as your main story. He’s been charged with killing a young woman and her female bodyguard … and of course things are complicated further when he falls for the bodyguard! He naturally falls into the role of protector later in the story but he has huge hurdles to cross before he does. However, his superior wants rid of him as he’s a threat to her power. This makes him an unlikely choice of assassin. In The Lost Swallow, my hero is an enchanter, an expert in the healing arts. Political intrigue, assassination attempts, royal advisers with their own agendas-let your imagination fly! The marriage should be an integral part of the plot, not just a vehicle for romance (Grave Draven’s Radiance does this really well). If you’ve decided you want a forced marriage subplot as part of your Epic Fantasy story you’ll find it easier to achieve if you incorporate this at the planning stage! Of course, all of this is easier to do BEFORE you start writing. Blending the romance trope with your main story Keep asking yourself ‘What if?” and try to mix a couple of tropes together to create something original. ![]() It provided plenty of conflict, both for the plot and the romance.ĭon’t be afraid to play with the tropes a bit. This was the premise behind my novel, The Lost Swallow. However, ‘what if’ your hero was actually sent to kill the heroine but pretends that he was sent to protect her instead? ‘What if’ she’s not the sort of woman who needs protecting, a trained killer herself. Like I said above-and I’m going to repeat it because it’s so important-the trick is to put a TWIST on the trope (or tropes … you can use more than one), to make it fresh, exciting, and truly your own.įor example, your trope might be Protector/Savior. You might smile at some of them, but before you scoff remember they are popular for a reason: ![]() Here are just a few romance tropes that can work well in Epic Fantasy. There are loads of them, which of course you should put a twist on (just like with Fantasy tropes-no one wants a LOTR rehash!). However, romance tropes tend to focus on the type of relationship rather than character tropes. Romance also has its tried and true themes. Fantasy is full of them: the wise mentor, the young protagonist that comes of age, and the evil sorcerer who wants to rule the world-just to name a few. In this post we get into the details of actually setting up a romantic subplot in your story! Let’s talk tropesĮvery genre has it’s ‘tropes’. In the last post I went over what romance looks like in an Epic Fantasy story, why you should consider including one, and if romance is even necessary at all.
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