Making an Unforgettable Love Story

As I’ve been preparing to launch the new Writing Romance Novels course this May, I have been thinking a lot about the craft and skill it takes to write a really unforgettable love story.

What are the key elements that can help a writer conjure the alchemy that turns words on a page into emotions and experiences that stay with a reader long after they’ve turned the last page?

Here are my five ingredients that every epic romantic novel needs:

Authentic Characters

It doesn’t matter if your story is set in a romantasy universe, high-end fashion industry, or a cottage in Cornwall, if you create characters that feel real to the reader then you are giving them a reason to keep reading. Sometimes creating a character that readers invest in can be as simple as building them around a particular kind of inner conflict, past loss, fear of commitment, or lack of self-belief, for example. What really makes that character come to life, though, is attention to the details you discover about them during the writing process. Why do they have that scar on their knee? What might you find in their fridge? Why are they afraid of the dark?   There are many ways into creating characters but always make sure that your fictional people are individual enough to feel like you might meet them in real life and never fall into the trap of stereotypes or cliches.

High stakes

Unforgettable love stories tend to have main characters with a lot to lose and much to gain if they are willing to take the risk. The kind of stakes that you throw at your characters depends very much on the kind of love story you are writing. For example, in my novel From Now Until Forever, an immortal woman meets a dying man and they fall in love. Vita risks endless centuries of more loss if she allows herself to love again, Ben knows that if he loves Vita, he will inevitably break her heart. Do they risk it all for love? The drama, the rising tension, the risk and reward will to some extent be guided by whether you are writing a romantic comedy or perhaps dark romance, but the stakes should feel real and important and the consequences of things going wrong urgent and compulsive. Then your reader has to know what will happen.

Want to write a story that steals hearts or sets pulses racing?

Join Rowan Coleman on our Writing Romance Novels course and learn to craft sizzling character chemistry, swoon-worthy scenes and tear-jerking happy-ever-afters.

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World-building

This doesn’t just apply to romantasy or fantasy novels, where world-building is about creating a whole alternative universe for readers to explore. Where and how we set our stories is always so important. Setting informs plot and it shapes character. Would Cathy and Heathcliff be who they are without the wild Yorkshire Moors? Would Claire and Jamie’s love story in the Outlander novels feels as sweeping and as all-encompassing without the Scottish Highlands and a stone circle or two? Even if your story is centred around a coffee shop on the high street, your readers want to inhabit a three-dimensional world that evokes all of their senses, and using setting intentionally can add emotional depth and richness to every story. 

Romantic tension

Unresolved romantic or sexual tension is essential to a love story that seeks to build on yearning and anticipation. Romance readers want an uplifting, emotionally satisfying ending, but they can take a lot of build-up, near misses and outright pain on the way there! Creating crackling chemistry between your two lovers is essential. Think about their arc of attraction as a separate entity to see how you might track your romantic throughline. How and where are you going to take your main characters from first meeting to first kiss? What’s the tension that keeps them apart, the longing that pulls them together? What obstacles will they face? Who are they on page one, and who must they become by the end of the novel to have earned their moment of fulfilment? After the big sweeps pay attention to the details; these are often the sexiest moments in a love story, glances, the lightest touches, proximity, the sensation, the emotion, the longing built into something epic through many small moments. 

Emotional fulfilment

Within the romance genre readers want a happy ever after or a happy for now and they want it to feel like a satisfying payoff, where your authentic characters overcome high stakes to finally let the sparks fly in their sizzling chemistry. In love stories in a broader sense, the ending might not always be happy in a traditional sense, but it should always leave the reader brim full of emotional fulfilment. Everything you do as a writer is building towards that end sequence, and you want it to be not only a resolution but a memory that will live on in the mind of your reader. The ending of an unforgettable love story will feel earnt, it will feel cathartic. It should feel inspiring and aspirational. If you’ve done a really good job, the story will live on in the minds of your readers without you.